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Says Obama wants to redesign the American flag "to better offer our enemies hope and love. We've seen a lot of groundless and ridiculous chain e-mails during the 2008 campaign. There was the one that fabricated Bible verses to suggest Barack Obama fit the profile for the Antichrist; there was another that falsified a list of books that Sarah Palin supposedly sought to ban; and there was our all-time favorite, which falsely claimed Obama wants the national anthem to be I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing . We always liked that song when it was the Coca-Cola theme, and the chain e-mail provided a fun excuse in April to watch the commercial on YouTube. So it was a treat when several readers sent us a new e-mail that includes the national anthem quote along with some other equally ridiculous ones. (You can read the full e-mail here .) The e-mail has been widely circulated and posted on dozens of blogs because it has a few elements that make it look authentic. It says that Obama made the remarks "on Sunday's Televised 'Meet the Press,' " and the account appears to be written by Dale Lindsborg of the Washington Post . And unless you are a keen student of cola advertising, you might miss the satirical suggestion about the song. So let's put the Coke song on the turntable as we examine the new e-mail. It begins, like so many chain e-mails attacking Obama, with a subject line that invokes patriotism: "Meet the Press - read this if you're an American." It says the account is "a narrative taken from Sunday Morning's televised 'Meet the Press', and the author is employed by none other than the Washington Post." It says that on the Sept. 7 show, Obama was asked by "General Bill Ginn' USAF (ret.)" why he doesn't follow protocol when the national anthem is played. (That question is based on a photograph of Obama standing with his hands folded at his waist while Sen. Hillary Clinton and others have their hands over their hearts. It has been misinterpreted in many chain e-mails as an indication that Obama refuses to say the Pledge of Allegiance, which we addressed with this article .) During the Meet the Press appearance, Obama is said to have replied, "As I've said about the flag pin, I don't want to be perceived as taking sides. . . .There are a lot of people in the world to whom the American flag is a symbol of oppression. And the anthem itself conveys a war-like message. You know, the bombs bursting in air and all. It should be swapped for something less parochial and less bellicose. I like the song 'I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing.' If that were our anthem, then I might salute it." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Obama, it says, continued: "We should consider to reinvent our National Anthem as well as to redesign our Flag to better offer our enemies hope and love. It's my intention, if elected, to disarm America to the level of acceptance to our Middle East Brethren. If we as a Nation of warring people, should conduct ourselves as the nations of Islam, whereas peace prevails. Perhaps a state or period of mutual concord between our governments. When I become President, I will seek a pact or agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity, and a freedom from disquieting oppressive thoughts. We as a Nation have placed upon the nations of Islam an unfair injustice." It then abruptly shifts gears to his comments about his wife Michelle: "My wife disrespects the Flag for many personal reasons. Together she and I have attended several flag burning ceremonies in the past, many years ago. She has her views and I have mine. Of course now, I have found myself about to become the President of the United States and I have put aside my hatred. I will use my power to bring CHANGE to this Nation, and offer the people a new path of hope. My wife and I look forward to becoming our Country's First Family. Indeed, CHANGE is about to overwhelm the United States of America." It is signed "Dale Lindsborg, Washington Post." It would be difficult to tally the many, many ways this e-mail is false, but we'll start with the obvious ones. First, Obama was not on Meet the Press on Sept. 7. The guests were Joe Biden and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Nor was Gen. Bill Ginn on the show. Ginn is indeed a retired Air Force general and not a fan of Obama. In an interview with PolitiFact, Ginn cited Obama's association with Weather Underground co-founder William Ayers, the group ACORN and his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, as just a few examples why he does not want Obama to be president. But Ginn said the Meet the Press account was fabricated and that he had never spoken to Obama. Ginn said his name might have gotten attached to the e-mail because of a message he sent to a friend expressing concern about Obama not putting his hand over his heart during the national anthem. Neither is Dale Lindsborg a reporter at the Washington Post . Anne Kornblut, a real political reporter from the Post , said in an online chat that she checked the paper's directory and couldn't find anyone by that name. And, Obama's quote is fabricated. It seems to be a mashup from at least two sources. The anthem part comes from a satirical column published on the Web in October 2007 by Arizona writer John Semmens that produced the original bogus e-mail that we checked last spring. We couldn't determine the origin of the part about redesigning the American flag "to better offer our enemies hope and love," but a search of the Project Vote Smart database of Obama's speeches indicates he has not uttered the phrase. He also has not made the remark about his wife disrespecting the flag, according to the Vote Smart database. This chain e-mail, like most that we've checked, is false. In fact, it's so ridiculously, maliciously false, that it sets the Truth-O-Meter ablaze. Pants on Fire

"Barack Obama's plan gives a driver's license to any illegal who wants one. With a new television ad, a conservative group is trying to revive the debate over drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants, which flared up in the Democratic nomination race but has not been a major issue in the general election. The ad debuted on Oct. 21, 2008, and is set to run in Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and other swing states, according to scriptwriter and producer Rick Wilson. "Millions of illegal aliens in the U.S.," begins the spot, paid for by an independent political action committee called the National Republican Trust. "Barack Obama's plan gives a driver's license to any illegal who wants one." For good measure, the spot includes an image of 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta on a driver's license. Since the ad made an allegation about "Obama's plan," we checked his Web site for any plan that mentioned drivers' licenses for undocumented immigrants. We couldn't find one. Obama's immigration plan doesn't have anything to say on the subject. In phone interviews, Wilson and the PAC's executive director, Scott Wheeler, pointed to comments made by Obama in three debates during the Democratic primary as evidence for the claim. In the first debate, on Oct. 30, 2007, NBC's Brian Williams asked Obama whether he was for or against a plan by then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York to grant licenses to illegal immigrants. "I think that it is a — the right idea," Obama said. "Because there is a public safety concern. We can make sure that drivers who are illegal come out of the shadows, that they can be tracked, that they are properly trained, and that will make our roads safer." In another debate, on Nov. 15, 2007, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Obama, "Do you support or oppose drivers' licenses for illegal immigrants?" "I am not proposing that that's what we do," Obama said. "I have already said I support the notion that we have to deal with public safety and that drivers' licenses at the state level can make that happen. ... But what I also know, Wolf, is that if we keep on getting distracted by this problem, then we are not solving it." Blizter went on to press for a yes or no answer. Featured Fact-check Blake Masters stated on October 15, 2022 in a tweet Immigrants illegally in the country are treated “better than military veterans.” By Jon Greenberg • October 21, 2022 "Yes," Obama said. In a third debate, on Jan. 31, 2008, Obama said: "On the drivers' license issue, I don't actually want — I don't believe that we're going to have to deal with this if we have comprehensive immigration reform because, as I said before, people don't come here to drive, they come here to work." He continued, "I agree with Bill Richardson (who supported granting drivers' licenses to undocumented immigrants) that there is a public safety concern here and that we're better off — because I don't want a bunch of hit-and-run drivers because they're worried about being deported and so they don't report an accident." So yes, Obama did indeed endorse the idea of granting drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants. But does that amount to a "plan" to do so? In the context of the presidential campaign, we think of a "plan" as a specific course of intended action a candidate has laid out, usually in writing. Voicing support at a debate for an idea — especially couched in qualifiers such as "I don't believe that we're going to have to deal with this," and "I am not proposing that that's what we do" — is a far cry from having a plan to do so. "When we say 'Obama's plan' we're saying it's part of his plans, not necessarily that he's created a plan," Wheeler said. But it's not part of his immigration plans. We also note that drivers' licenses are handled on the state level, and Obama is running for federal office. The federal government can impose standards on states for drivers' licenses that would be federally recognized — and in fact Congress did so in 2005 when it passed elements of what had been known as the Real ID Act. It said states have to require "valid documentary evidence that the person (applying for a license) is a citizen or national of the United States" or has applied for any of several types of legal status. Obama voted for that bill, which passed 99-0. We could not find any evidence that he had a plan to change those requirements, other than his debate comments, which don't amount to much of a plan. Finally, Obama saying he favored the idea of giving drivers' licenses to undocumented immigrants is different from saying he would give them to "any illegal who wants one," as the ad claimed. If Obama were to offer a specific plan on the subject, who knows what restrictions it would include? Certainly not the National Republican Trust. So this group is guilty of some serious hyperbole. It took words of support from Obama for the concept of granting drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants and portrayed them not just as a specific plan, but as one that would hand licenses out like candy. We find it Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

Barack Obama will "raise Social Security taxes. A campaign mailer from the Republican Party of Florida attacked Barack Obama on the issue of the economy. We received the mailer on Oct. 22, 2008. "How do Barack Obama's plans impact your budget?" reads the mailer. "Will you count on Social Securty? Obama plan: Raise Social Security taxes." Obama has floated proposals to raise Social Security taxes, but only on those who have incomes of about $250,000 a year and above. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 To be clear, when we talk about Social Security taxes, we're talking about payroll taxes paid by workers who have not yet retired ( not taxes on the benefits of retirees). Most workers currently pay 6.2 percent of their earnings in Social Security taxes, on earnings up to a limit of about $102,000 in 2008. If you want to look at your own pay stub, the line that represents Social Security taxes is usually labeled FICA OASDI, which stands for Federal Insurance Contributions Act Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance. Now you know. The Social Security system is expected to need more money after the baby boomers retire. One of Obama's proposals to address problems with the program is to begin taxing benefits on higher incomes that are now exempt. He proposes to start taxing income of $250,000 and higher at a rate somewhere between 2 and 4 percent, and this includes an employer contribution, so the cost to the worker would likely be between 1 and 2 percent. By the way, people who make $250,000 or more make up roughly 3 percent of everyone who files taxes. So Obama does propose raising Social Security taxes. But the raise would hit only a small portion of the population. We find the Republican Party of Florida's statement to be overly broad and rate it Half Tru

"Sen. Obama's campaign announced that he's choosing his cabinet. At a rally in Bensalem, Pa., John McCain accused Barack Obama of getting cocky. "We have 14 days to go. We're a few points down. The national media has written us off . . . Just the other day, Sen. Obama's campaign announced that he's choosing his Cabinet," McCain said at the Oct. 21, 2008, event. The remark invokes a theme from the McCain campaign that Obama has gotten overly confident. McCain and his surrogates have criticized (and sometimes ridiculed) the Obama campaign's use of an emblem that resembled the presidential seal on a lectern, and the campaign's use of large Greek columns as a backdrop for Obama's stadium speech to the Democratic National Convention. Rather than "a few points down," the latest Gallup poll showed McCain trailing by 10 points nationally; the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll had him down by 9 points. It's a matter of opinion whether the media "has written us off." There have been many news stories about how McCain has fallen behind, but most that we've seen have not said definitively that he will lose. For this item, we are exploring whether McCain was correct when he said that Obama "has announced that he's choosing his Cabinet." We have seen no such comment by the Obama campaign, nor could the McCain campaign provide one. Instead, the McCain campaign pointed to an Oct. 19 article in the Sunday Times of London that was headlined " Barack Obama lines up a cabinet of stars as John McCain struggles on ." The headline seems to indicate Obama is far along in his Cabinet-picking. But the story doesn't live up to the headline. The story is just another speculative account of what Obama might do if he is elected: "A host of well-known figures . . . have indicated they would be willing to serve in some capacity," the article says. Featured Fact-check Instagram posts stated on October 25, 2022 in an Instagram post The documentary “2,000 Mules proves” Democrats “cheated on the 2020 elections.” By Jon Greenberg • October 28, 2022 It relies not on any "announcement" from Obama, but on unnamed sources such as "an Obama adviser" and "one leading Democrat policy adviser." The closest the article comes to an announcement from Obama himself is to quote his comment from the final debate that he would adopt a bipartisan approach to government and admired Republican Sen. Richard Lugar and Gen. Jim Jones, the former NATO commander. “Those are the people, Democrat and Republican, who have shaped my ideas and who will be surrounding me in the White House,” Obama said. But that's a long way from "announcing" that he was picking his Cabinet. In fact, it came in response to a question. The McCain comment is particularly silly because it's been widely reported that both campaigns have staffers planning a transition and exploring possible Cabinet choices. McCain's transition team is said to be headed by John F. Lehman Jr., a Navy secretary under President Reagan. William E. Timmons, a longtime Washington lobbyist, is also involved, according to an account in the New York Times . Obama's team is headed by John Podesta, a chief of staff under President Clinton. The Obama campaign declined to comment on transition plans and the McCain campaign did not reply to an e-mail about it. News accounts suggest that Obama's team is further along than McCain's but that both campaigns have begun preparations so they are ready in case they win. Clay Johnson III, deputy director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, told the New York Times that “the White House staff has met with transition representatives” for McCain and Obama. “Both campaigns are doing what they need to do to be prepared to govern on Jan. 20 at noon,” said Johnson, who was executive director of the Bush transition team in 2000-01. “The amount of work being done before the election, formal and informal, is the most ever.” But back to McCain's claim. Has Obama "announced that he's choosing his Cabinet"? He definitely has not. What's happening is the usual transition planning that occurs with any presidential campaign in the final days before an election. We find McCain's claim to be False

Barack Obama was "a trial attorney for ACORN. John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee have launched efforts to connect Barack Obama and the community organizing group ACORN. ACORN was founded in 1970; its acronym stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. ACORN's agenda includes left-leaning causes such as voter registration drives for low-income groups, initiatives to increase the minimum wage and programs offering help to victims of predatory lending. By all indications, ACORN operates within the American political mainstream, though clearly it favors the left side of the ideological spectrum. Its voter registration efforts tend to focus on the low-income, minorities and youth, all traditional Democratic constituencies. Obama received an endorsement from the group's political action committee in February 2008 when the Democratic primaries were in full swing. But that's not to say Republicans never support ACORN's efforts: McCain himself appeared at a 2006 rally in favor of immigration reform, sponsored in part by ACORN. The primary allegation against ACORN is that its voter registration drives result in many phony registrations. ACORN itself admits that some of its workers, in their attempts to meet registration goals, have turned in registration forms for people who do not exist or don't live in the geographic area. (Notorious examples include Mickey Mouse and the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.) ACORN says the problems are isolated, and that it works with officials to correct them. They claim to have registered 1.3-million people to vote, so a small number of irregularities are to be expected. (For more on ACORN and the controversy surrounding its voter registration drives, read the St. Petersburg Times story here .) Several states are investigating the group's voter registration efforts. The McCain campaign issued numerous charges about Obama's connection to ACORN in an Oct. 10, 2008, memo. For other charges, read our full story. Here, we'll look at the allegation that Obama was "a trial attorney for ACORN." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Obama graduated from law school in 1991, worked on the book that would become his memoir Dreams from my Father , and directed a voter registration drive in 1992. After that, Obama went to work for a civil rights law firm then named Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Galland. (It is now known only as Miner, Barnhill and Galland.) The firm's specialty is civil rights litigation and neighborhood economic development work. Obama and two other attorneys represented ACORN along with other plaintiffs in a 1995 federal civil lawsuit against the state of Illinois — Gov. James Edgar and other state officials were the named plaintiffs — to demand that it enforce a new federal law known as "motor voter," which allowed people to register to vote when they got their driver's license. Among the groups who sided with ACORN in the matter: the U.S. Department of Justice and the League of Women Voters. The courts concluded that Illinois had to enforce the law, and the case generated several federal court orders through 1995 and 1996. Obama was making his first successful run for the Illinois state Senate in 1996; he would hold that office until he ran for U.S. Senate in 2004. Obama remained affiliated with the law firm while he served in the state legislature, but news reports say his actual legal work for the firm declined significantly as he focused on his elected office. So if McCain campaign's statement means that Obama represented ACORN, this is true. But the statement implies that Obama worked for ACORN as a staff attorney, or in a longer-term relationship. Yet he really only represented them once. So we find McCain's statement Half True

"If Barack Obama would apply for a job with the FBI or with the Secret Service, he would be disqualified because of his past associations with William Ayers. A chain e-mail has been burning up the Internet with the allegation that Sen. Barack Obama is not eligible for FBI or Secret Service jobs because of his acquaintance with former antiwar radical William Ayers. The implication is that anyone who wouldn't qualify for a federal law enforcement job has no business as commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces. One version of the e-mail we received on Oct. 10, 2008, had the subject heading, "FW: unbelievable food for thought." "Just passing along info that came to me," it began. "This is something to think about no matter what other concerns may be on your plate. If Barack Obama would apply for a job with the FBI or with the Secret Service, he would be disqualified because of his past associations with William Ayers, a known (and unrepentant) terrorist. If elected President, he would not qualify to be his own body guard!" It's worth noting that the president, no matter who he or she may be, automatically gets access to any classified information, and in fact has the authority to decide who else in the government gets access to it. Just by virtue of having been elected to the U.S. Senate, Obama already has access to a great deal of secret intelligence information. Still, that says little about how Obama would fare in a background check, since none is required for either job. An FBI spokesman said the bureau would not comment on whether any individual would pass a background check, and the Secret Service did not return numerous calls on the matter. So we asked outside experts whether Ayers would pose a problem for Obama. Ayers was a founder in 1969 of the violent antiwar group the Weathermen, which took responsibility for at least 12 bombings between 1970 and 1974. A pipe bomb attributed to the group killed a police officer and severely injured another in 1970, and three of the group's own members were killed in a 1970 explosion in a Greenwich Village townhouse in which they were making bombs. Ayers was investigated in connection with the group's activities, but the charges were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct. He emerged from hiding, earned a doctorate in education from Columbia University, and is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Like Obama, he lives on the South Side of Chicago. Obama and Ayers are both active in politics and civic life in the city. They both volunteered at two different charities, the Woods Foundation and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and Ayers hosted a small gathering for Obama and then-state Sen. Alice Palmer in 1995 as Obama planned to run for the seat Palmer was vacating. Were Obama to apply to the FBI, he would have to fill out Standard Form 86, a background-investigation form used by the entire U.S. intelligence community. The more detailed iterations of the Internet rumor allege Obama would have to disclose his past connections to Ayers on the form, particularly in a section titled "Association Record." It asks seven questions along the lines of these two: "Have you EVER been an officer or a member of, or made a contribution to, an organization dedicated to the use of violence or force to overthrow the U.S. Government...?" Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The Secret Service did not return our calls for comment about the agency's application procedures, but its Web site indicates that applicants must fill out a modified version of the form called the SF-86A, which asks: "Are you now or have you ever been a member of any foreign or domestic organization, association, movement, group, or combination of persons which is totalitarian, fascist, communist, or subversive; or which has adopted or shows a policy advocating or approving the commission of force or violence to deny other persons their rights under the Constitution of the United States, or which seems [sic] to alter the form of government of the United States by unconstitutional means?" Note that the agencies ask whether the applicant himself has engaged in this behavior – not whether the applicant knows anyone who has. Ayers' militant activity occurred in the '60s and '70s, when Obama was a child. Even Obama's harshest critics do not allege he had anything to do with them. So there is no reason to believe Obama would have to disclose his relationship to Ayers, experts said. "There is nowhere on the form that Obama's relationship to Ayers as it exists or existed would even come up," said Mark Zaid, a Washington attorney who specializes in security-clearance work. "It would never come up unless somebody mentioned it during a background investigation." Moreover, even if it did come up, there's no reason to believe it would impede Obama's hiring, Zaid said. "Given what has been said publicly about their relationship, I can't fathom that it would ever get more than a moment's attention," he said. A second lawyer specializing in security clearances, Elizabeth Newman of the Washington, D.C., firm Kalijarvi, Chuzi & Newman, concurred that the Ayers connection would pose no problem for Obama, even if it did come to the attention of the investigators. "They would care if there was a recent relationship with someone who is currently on trial or currently considered to be advocating violent overthrow of the government," she said. "But not something that was 20 or 30 years ago." A third security-clearance lawyer, Mark Riley of Odenton, Md., who is also a retired Army intelligence officer, was slightly less dismissive of the Ayers issue, saying it was "something they would investigate." But Riley leaned toward the conclusion that the Ayers connection would not cost Obama a security clearance. "The issue is what is Obama's relationship with him in his adult life," Riley said. "If he didn't have one, other than they sat on a board and maybe had the same political causes, that's not enough to deny a fellow a clearance." So all three of the attorneys we contacted agreed unequivocally that Obama's relationship with Ayers would not be an automatic disqualifier, as the claim suggests. In fact, Zaid said someone with Obama's record – a law degree from Harvard, teaching experience at the University of Chicago Law School – would be an excellent candidate. "The agencies would be fighting over him," Zaid said. "As an outright claim, this statement is false." We agree. It's False

In 1992, Barack Obama directed "Project Vote - an arm of ACORN that also encouraged voter registration. John McCain's campaign and the Republican National Committee have launched efforts to connect Barack Obama and the community organizing group ACORN. ACORN was founded in 1970; its acronym stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. ACORN's agenda includes left-leaning causes such as voter registration drives for low-income groups, initiatives to increase the minimum wage and programs offering help to victims of predatory lending. By all indications, ACORN operates within the American political mainstream, though clearly it favors the left side of the ideological spectrum. Its voter registration efforts tend to focus on the low-income, minorities and youth, all traditional Democratic constituencies. Obama received an endorsement from the group's political action committee in February 2008 when the Democratic primaries were in full swing. But that's not to say Republicans never support ACORN's efforts: McCain himself appeared at a 2006 rally in favor of immigration reform, sponsored in part by ACORN. The primary allegation against ACORN is that its voter registration drives result in many phony registrations. ACORN itself admits that some of its workers, in their attempts to meet registration goals, have turned in registration forms for people who do not exist or don't live in the geographic area. (Notorious examples include Mickey Mouse and the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.) ACORN says the problems are isolated, and that it works with officials to correct them. They claim to have registered 1.3-million people to vote, so a small number of irregularities are to be expected. (For more on ACORN and the controversy surrounding its voter registration drives, read the St. Petersburg Times story here .) Several states are investigating the group's voter registration efforts. The McCain campaign issued numerous charges about Obama's connection to ACORN in an Oct. 10, 2008, memo. For other charges, read our full story. Here, we'll look at the allegation that in 1992, Obama directed Project Vote, "an arm of ACORN that also encouraged voter registration." This year, Project Vote and ACORN worked together on a nationwide voter registration drive aimed at low-income, minority and youth voters. They have worked together on other initiatives with left-leaning groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Organization for Women. But Project Vote and ACORN are separate organizations with different histories. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 ACORN was founded in 1970 in Little Rock, Ark., as an outgrowth of the National Welfare Rights Organization. Project Vote was launched more than a decade later in Washington, D.C. Michael Slater, the current executive director of Project Vote, said the two organizations are separate. And in 1992, the two groups didn't really work together, he said. They began partnerships on voter registration after Project Vote went through a reorganization in 1994, according to Slater. We also didn't find any evidence to indicate the two organizations had a relationship during the 1992 Illinois drive. A detailed article about Project Vote in Chicago magazine didn't mention ACORN. ACORN itself says Obama didn't work for them during that time. The 1992 voter registration drive came at an early point in Obama's political career. He had graduated from Harvard Law School in 1991. He had returned to Chicago, where he spent his early 20s working as a community organizer, and was working on the book that would become his memoir Dreams From my Father . Obama started directing the Project Vote voter registration drive in April 1992, and ran it the rest of the year until Election Day. Bill Clinton carried Illinois that November, and Democrat Carol Moseley-Braun won one of the state's Senate seats, becoming the first African-American woman to serve as a U.S. senator. People in Chicago seem to have credited at least a bit of those victories to Obama's registration drive, which reportedly brought 150,000 new voters to the rolls. Chicago magazine called his initiative "one of the most important local stories" of the campaign season. Crain's Chicago Business named him to its annual "40 under 40" list and wrote that he had "galvanized Chicago's political community, as no seasoned politico had before." Is it possible that ACORN and Project Vote were going about the same business in Illinois in 1992? Sure. Both groups have the stated goal of getting people to register to vote, especially low-income, minority and young voters. But we find no evidence that Obama's 1992 work was for ACORN. We rate McCain's claim False

"The centerpiece of Senator McCain's education policy is to increase the voucher program in D.C. by 2,000 slots. Sen. Barack Obama mocked his rival's education policy during the final presidential debate, saying Sen. John McCain planned to help a couple thousand students in Washington, D.C., and more or less ignore the rest of the country. His attack came late in the debate, as the candidates sparred over how to improve schools. Here's the exchange in context: "I'm sure you're aware, Senator Obama, of the program in the Washington, D.C., school system where vouchers are provided," McCain said in the Oct. 15, 2008, debate. "There's a certain number, I think it's a thousand and some and some 9,000 parents asked to be eligible for that...They wanted to choose the school that they thought was best for their children...That was vouchers, Senator Obama. And I'm frankly surprised you didn't pay more attention to that example." Obama countered: "Even if Senator McCain were to say that vouchers were the way to go — I disagree with him on this, because the data doesn't show that it actually solves the problem — the centerpiece of Senator McCain's education policy is to increase the voucher program in D.C. by 2,000 slots. That leaves all of you who live in the other 50 states without an education reform policy from Senator McCain." The senators were referring to the four-year-old D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, under which 1,903 children from low-income families have received up to $7,500 a year for tuition to private schools. Republicans in Congress – who believe in improving public schools through competition by providing vouchers parents can use to pay for private-school tuition – created the program in 2004. It's true that McCain is a strong advocate of the D.C. program. On his campaign Web site, he lists 13 items under the heading, "John McCain's Education Policy," including: "John McCain Will Expand The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 He devotes 87 words to the subject, while the average item receives 67 words. "In our nation's capital, we have seen the dramatic benefits of giving parents control of money and choices," the site says. "The Opportunity Scholarship program serves more than 1,900 students from families with an average income of $23,000 a year. More than 7,000 more families have applied for that program. The budget for the Opportunity Scholarships is currently $13 million. John McCain believes that this extremely successful program should expand to at least $20 million benefiting nearly a thousand more families." Obama actually overstated the number of slots McCain would add to the program. But more importantly, there's no indication that plan is the "centerpiece" of McCain's education policy. True, there are just two items to which McCain's education page devotes more words. But three of the items outline different ways McCain would, as the site puts it, "Ensure that our children have quality teachers," an effort that would be national in scope. He would devote 5 percent of certain federal funds (Title II funds) to recruit teachers who graduated in the top quarter of their class, set aside 60 percent of those funds as bonuses for high-performing teachers, and use 35 percent of the funds for teacher development. It was clear to us that McCain's plan to use — or continue using — Title II funds to improve teaching is the centerpiece of his education policy, even before McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said this in an e-mail: "The focus of our plan is the reform of...Title 1 and 2 funding – which is in excess of 16 billion dollars...Moreover, we have higher ed and early ed policy which have nothing to do with the DC opportunity scholarship expansion." We agree. On this one, Obama gets an F for False

"98 percent of small businesses make less than $250,000" and would not see a tax increase under Barack Obama's plan During the final presidential debate in Hempstead, N.Y., Barack Obama and John McCain got into an argument about Joe the Plumber. McCain said Joe would get a bigger tax bill under the Obama tax plan. Obama defended himself by saying that "98 percent of small businesses make less than $250,000" and would not see a tax increase under the Obama plan. Joe the Plumber is an actual person: Joe Wurzelbacher, who met Obama during a campaign stop a few days before the debate in Toledo, Ohio. "I'm getting ready to buy a company that makes about $250,000, $270,000, $280,000 a year," he told Obama. "Your new tax plan is going to tax me more, isn't it?" Obama said yes, it would --see their entire conversation on YouTube -- but Obama defended his tax policy as being good for people who are struggling. "It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance at success, too," Obama said. During the debate, John McCain mentioned Joe the Plumber at least a dozen times as the kind of small business owner who would pay more taxes under Obama's plans. It's not clear from the exchange just what Joe means when he says the business "makes" up to $280,000 a year. Is he talking about total revenue? Profits? That's an important point here and it's one that Obama and Joe the Plumber never discussed. Based on Obama's proposals and current tax policy, for Joe's taxes to rise Joe would have to "make" $250,000 in net profit, after deducting all his expenses: his employees' pay, his supplies, his truck, his fuel costs, and other legitimate business expenses. He'd have to be an extremely successful plumber. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 In response to McCain's statements during the debate, Obama said only 2 percent of small businesses would be subject to the tax. It seems likely that Obama is right, according to data and an analysis from the experts at the Tax Policy Center. Obama's plan is to roll back the Bush tax cuts on the top two tax brackets. In practice, this means that people with income above $200,000 for single people and $250,000 for couples would see taxes increase. Now what does this mean for small businesses? It's not as easy as you might think to identify small businesses via the tax code. But there are several typical ways that small business owners pay their taxes, usually by declaring business income on their individual tax returns. Many people who declare business income are small businesses, though the group also includes professionals like lawyers, authors, or public speakers. Looking at all the tax filers who report any business income at all, the Tax Policy Center confirms that about 2 percent will see their taxes increase under Obama's plan. In an effort to focus more effectively on small business owners, the Tax Policy Center did an additional analysis where they looked at people who reported business income that accounted for at least 50 percent of their income. This means people who derive a significant living off their business income. In 2007, about 2 percent of those tax filers would have made enough money to see a tax increase under Obama's plans. There is a small bit of uncertainty in the best data available; it includes some people who we would not think of as traditional small business owners. But still, Obama's statement during the debate that "98 percent of small businesses make less than $250,000" matches the findings of a respected, non-partisan group of tax analysts. For that reason, we rate Obama's statement True.

"He voted twice for a budget resolution that increases the taxes on individuals making $42,000 a year. Sen. John McCain revived a claim against Barack Obama that Obama voted to raise taxes on people making $42,000 a year. “He voted twice for a budget resolution that increases the taxes on individuals making $42,000 a year,” McCain said in the presidential debate Oct. 15, 2008, at Hofstra University. This time, McCain correctly noted the tax votes came on budget resolutions. But we’ve reviewed this charge before and found that McCain was stretching the truth. He does again this time, though not as badly. Obama voted in March 2008 and June 2008 for budget resolutions. They are blueprints for the federal budget. The resolutions set targets for the committees that write legislation on taxes and spending. The resolutions, approved on mostly party-line votes, expressed support for rolling back tax cuts enacted under President Bush for people making $42,000 a year and higher. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 So the McCain campaign is correct that Obama voted for the measures, which expressed approval for tax increases. But it’s inaccurate to suggest that votes on nonbinding budget resolutions, which don’t have the force of law and don’t include precise details on taxes or spending, are the same as votes on legislation that actually increases taxes. The resolutions would not change the tax code. Moreover, Obama as a candidate has proposed tax increases for couples earning $250,000 or more a year, or singles earning $200,000 or more. We rated previous versions of McCain’s charge as Barely True. Although McCain added context to his charge, it doesn’t change the fact that the votes were never expected to raise taxes. So we rate the latest version of McCain’s statement Half True

"Obama said he would unilaterally renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. During a discussion of climate change and energy imports during the third presidential debate, Sen. John McCain detoured briefly to Canada. McCain attacked Sen. Barack Obama's position on the North American Free Trade Agreement. Here's his claim in context: "I think we can, for all intents and purposes, eliminate our dependence on Middle Eastern oil and Venezuelan oil. Canadian oil is fine," McCain said during the Oct. 15, 2008, debate. "By the way, when Senator Obama said he would unilaterally renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Canadians said, 'Yes, and we'll sell our oil to China.' You don't tell countries you're going to unilaterally renegotiate agreements with them." What we take McCain's claim to mean is that Obama said he would renegotiate NAFTA whether or not Canada and Mexico – the other signatories to the trade agreement – want to do so, or renegotiate in such a way as to impose additional burdens on them but not on the United States. It's true that Obama has been harshly critical of NAFTA on the campaign trail, citing shortfalls in its protections for workers and the environment. He has used words like "devastating" and "a big mistake" to describe the agreement. Obama was particularly critical of NAFTA in February in the run-up to the Ohio Democratic primary. In a debate, he said, "We should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 In a June 20, 2008 conference call with reporters, Obama surrogate Sen. Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat, said he was "absolutely confident Barack Obama will reopen the negotiations on NAFTA. I have been assured by him and his top economic advisers there is no question his position is constant and will stay that way on the North American Free Trade Agreement." But would Obama do so "unilaterally"? In a June interview with Fortune magazine, he indicated he would not. "I'm not a big believer in doing things unilaterally," he told the magazine of his plans on NAFTA. "I'm a big believer in opening up a dialogue and figuring out how we can make this work for all people." It's difficult to reconcile these two stands. There's little indication Canada wants to renegotiate the agreement, so it's not clear how Obama would do so without initiating the negotiation "unilaterally." Perhaps it was a bit misleading for McCain to highlight Obama's harsher rhetoric on NAFTA instead of his softer stance. But only a bit – the fact is, Obama has often spoken of NAFTA in such a way that a fair listener would conclude he would press to renegotiate it regardless of how the other parties feel. Characterizing that as a "unilateral" renegotiation, though not the clearest language in the world, was a pretty fair shorthand for McCain to use. We find his claim Mostly True.

"Congressman John Lewis, an American hero, made allegations that Sarah Palin and I were somehow associated with ... the worst chapter in American history. ... And, Senator Obama, you didn't repudiate those remarks. In the third, final and most combative debate, Sen. John McCain accused Sen. Barack Obama of failing to repudiate nasty statements against McCain involving racial politics. “Congressman John Lewis, an American hero, made allegations that Sarah Palin and I were somehow associated with the worst chapter in American history, segregation, deaths of children in church bombings, George Wallace. That, to me, was so hurtful,” McCain said during the Hofstra University debate on Oct. 15, 2008. “And, Senator Obama, you didn’t repudiate those remarks.” McCain referred to comments by Rep. Lewis, D-Georgia, who is an icon in the civil rights movement. In a statement Oct. 11, 2008, Lewis related the tenor of McCain campaign events to political tactics by segregationist Alabama Gov. George Wallace that encouraged attacks over people seeking civil rights protections in the 1960s. “What I am seeing reminds me too much of another destructive period in American history,” Lewis wrote. “Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse.” Lewis issued his statement after news reports catalogued a series of McCain campaign events in which some audience members shouted such things as “terrorist” and “kill him” when Obama’s name was mentioned by the speakers. The remarks came as the McCain campaign embarked on a decidedly aggressive approach, focusing on Obama’s long-ago association with 1960s radical William Ayers. But the question is whether Obama was silent when Lewis likened the tone of the McCain rallies to those of Wallace and the segregationists. Obama’s campaign did break with Lewis’ statement the same day he made it, although it also said Lewis “was right to condemn” statements by Palin associating Obama with terrorists. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Here’s the statement Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton issued on Oct. 11: “Senator Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies. But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for President of the United States ‘pals around with terrorists.’ “As Barack Obama has said himself, the last thing we need from either party is the kind of angry, divisive rhetoric that tears us apart at a time of crisis when we desperately need to come together. That is the kind of campaign Senator Obama will continue to run in the weeks ahead.” But that statement never explicitly said Lewis was wrong — which is crucial to repudiating someone or something. Instead, Obama’s campaign said Lewis’ comparison wasn’t correct. In the debate, Obama did say Lewis “inappropriately drew a comparison” between the civil rights trouble and McCain rallies. Lewis later said he could have phrased his words differently, because he didn’t want to relate McCain and Palin directly to Wallace’s tactics. But he said he accomplished his goal of highlighting the dangerous tone of the rallies. Obama’s campaign did promptly issue a statement, disputing the comparison that Lewis made. But that’s not the same as “repudiating” or admonishing Lewis for making that comparison. Because Obama’s campaign never specifically criticized Lewis, we rate McCain’s statement as True

If you're a small business and don't "adopt the health care plan that Senator Obama mandates, he's going to fine you. John McCain talked a lot about "Joe the Plumber" during the third presidential debate, saying Joe is an example of a small business owner who would not do well under Barack Obama's policies. "Now, my old buddy, Joe, Joe the plumber, is out there," McCain said. "Now, Joe, Senator Obama's plan, if you're a small business ... if you don't adopt the health care plan that Senator Obama mandates, he's going to fine you." McCain used this charge during the second debate as well. We found it False then, and it's still problematic now. Here's the outline of Obama's plan: It expands health care coverage for those who don't have it by a number of strategies, such as creating national pools for individuals to buy their own insurance. It increases eligibility for the poor and children to enroll in initiatives like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. And it aims at reining in costs for everyone by streamlining medical record-keeping and emphasizing preventive care. Obama's plan does not mandate coverage, except for children. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Obama's plan says that employers who don't offer their employees insurance will be required to contribute to the national pool, what McCain calls a "fine." But Obama's plan specifically exempts small businesses from contributing to the pool. The plan does not define what's a small business and what's not. We can't say for sure whether plumber Joe would be considered a small business under Obama's plan or not. But generally, Obama does not fine "small businesses." They are specifically exempt. We rate McCain's claim False

Under John McCain's health care plan, people get a $5,000 tax credit to buy a $12,000 health care policy, and "that's a loss for you. In the final presidential debate, Barack Obama attacked John McCain's health care policy as a net loss for workers. He was referring to a McCain proposal to repeal the traditional exemption on employer-provided insurance in exchange for a tax credit that will encourage workers to seek their own insurance. The credit would be $2,500 per person, or $5,000 for couples. In the debate, Obama got some things right about McCain's policy. Critics of McCain's policy do indeed worry that it will discourage employers from offering health care without lowering premiums for everyone. But Obama oversimplified drastically when he said, "By the way, the average policy costs about $12,000. So if you've got $5,000 and it's going to cost you $12,000, that's a loss for you." To explain why this statement is problematic, let's get into more details about McCain's policy. Most Americans who have health insurance, about 71 percent, get it through their employer. Usually, the premiums are split so that the employer pays part and the employee pays part. Typically, the employer pays at least half, and often more. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Strictly speaking, the part that the employer pays is considered compensation and workers would owe taxes on it if there wasn't a tax exemption in federal law. The exemption makes employer-provided health insurance more attractive to both workers and employers. McCain wants to encourage greater competition for health insurance as a way to reduce premiums. His idea is that people should be able to go out on the open market and buy their own health insurance, and not be pushed into an employer-provided insurance plan by tax incentives. So under McCain's plan, the tax exemption for employer-provided health insurance would disappear, and people would get a tax credit to spend on any health insurance they wish. They might choose to use their employer's plan and use the tax credit to offset the new tax on the benefit, or they might go off and buy insurance on their own. It's a complex switcheroo, but there's ample evidence to show that the plan would be a wash for most workers. Keep in mind the current benefit is not worth $12,000, which is the cost of the average family plan; the benefit is the taxes on the part of that $12,000 that the employer pays. So if the employer picks up $8,000 of a $12,000 policy, the current benefit is the taxes a worker would pay on $8,000. The McCain campaign says only workers with "gold-plated" health programs would do worse with the new credit. An independent analysis from the nonpartisan Urban Institute confirms that: "In general, lower-income people with health insurance would receive benefits from the credit that would be well in excess of the value that they receive from today’s tax exemption. The gains are much smaller for higher-income people." Obama's numbers are wrong. McCain's health plan does not replace a $12,000 policy with a $5,000 credit. It replaces the taxes on part of that amount with a tax credit. We rate Obama's statement False

"AIG executives ... (took) a junket for over $400,000. Twice. Trying to finger executives connected to the financial market meltdown to justify his calls for more corporate accountability, Sen. Barack Obama is keying on officials of the giant insurer American International Group Inc., whose high-risk investment portfolio imploded as a result of the mortgage crisis, prompting an $85 billion, taxpayer-funded bailout. In stump speeches and during his second presidential debate with Sen. John McCain, Obama has trumpeted the fact that the company organized a $400,000 weeklong conference for brokers at a swanky California resort days after bailout, and planned a second such gathering. "Did you hear about these AIG executives? Here we are, we give them some help to keep their business afloat and they take a junket for over $400,000? Twice. Come on, now. They should return to Washington. If I was president, I would order them back. And I want a check for the taxpayers and they would be fired on the spot," Obama said at an Oct. 9 campaign rally in Cincinnati. Obama may be feeding big portions of red meat to Americans aggrieved by the dealings on Wall Street. But to put his claim in context, one has consider that AIG is a huge holding company with $1 trillion of assets that oversees distinct business units. The financial problems that triggered the bailout originated with a financial-products unit that guaranteed mortgage-backed securities and placed risky bets on the housing market. The Sept. 22-30 retreat at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, Calif. was organized months before the bailout by a separate AIG subsidiary that handles life insurance and that wasn't connected to the mortgage crisis. The object of the gathering at the St. Regis – where ocean-view rooms start at $565 per night – was to motivate and reward independent insurance brokers, who aren't AIG employees but sell the company's products. Such "attaboy" gatherings have been standard practice in the insurance business for many years, AIG Chief Executive Officer Edward Liddy asserted in an Oct. 8 letter to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. (Details of the conference were first reported by the Orange County Register on Oct. 2.) The company, in an Oct. 8 statement addressing the affair, said only 10 of the more than 100 attendees were employees of the AIG insurance subsidiary, adding no executives from company headquarters were present. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 It's worth noting that while the junket might seem inappropriately lavish given the current circumstances, AIG’s life and property and casualty insurance businesses are financially sound, and have sufficient assets to pay claims. The financial-products business, on the other hand, was enmeshed in Wall Street's speculative bubble and sold contracts to guarantee mortgage-backed securities held by institutional investors. The collapse of the housing market drove down the value of these contracts and put the company in a severe cash squeeze, because it was forced to put up billions of dollars in collateral. Under terms of the bailout, the Fed gave AIG an $85 billion loan in exchange for 80 percent of its assets, reasoning that had the struggling company collapsed, it would have unleashed a vicious domino effect and toppled banks and corporations around the world. Obama is correct that the insurance brokers' gathering has hallmarks of a lavish junket. Records obtained from the St. Regis Resort by the House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee, which is investigating AIG’s collapse, showed the insurer paid more than $147,000 for banquets, $23,000 for spa services and $6,900 for golf at the resort, located between Los Angeles and San Diego. Committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman and others on the panel bitterly critizized the company for the trappings at a Oct. 7 hearing. What’s more, the company planned a similar October gathering at the posh Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay, Calif. but said on Oct. 9 it cancelled the gathering in the face of intensifying criticism from Obama, the Bush administration and members of Congress. In the Oct. 8 letter to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. Liddy -- who replaced longtime AIG CEO Maurice "Hank" Greenberg after the government loaned the money -- said his company faces new challenges and "that we owe our employees and the American public new standards and approaches." Liddy said AIG was "reevaluating the costs of all aspects of our operations," in light of the turbulent market climate. So Obama has found a legitimate example of corporate excess at a company that's become a symbol of the financial crisis. And it's true that all of the AIG business units ultimately report to a single CEO and have a direct bearing on the company's bottom line. However, the decision to pamper the life insurance brokers appears to have been made independent of the turmoil roiling the financial markets and was an accepted way of doing business in the life insurance field, not as a symptom of Wall Street greed. And though those catering and spa bills were huge by hospitality standards, they're a pittance compared to the losses incurred dabbling in mortgage-backed securities. Obama's comments suggest a misunderstanding of the details behind AIG’s collapse, or a deliberate effort to skip over the realities of AIG's corporate structure in order to make a good point. Also, Obama slams AIG for two junkets at a time when the company had only held one. AIG might have had a tin ear when it came to organizing corporate events. But Obama’s wrong to lay blame for the financial meltdown on a highly regulated, profitable part of the business that sells life insurance. We rule the claim Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

"The truth was revealed there in that report that showed there was no unlawful or unethical activity on my part. In the scouring of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s political closet, perhaps no issue has loomed as large as "Troopergate" — the allegations that Palin improperly exerted her influence as governor to try to get her estranged former brother-in-law fired from his job as a state trooper. Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten was involved in a messy divorce from Palin’s sister, and opponents claimed that Palin went so far as to fire the state’s top cop, Walt Monegan, in July because he refused to fire Wooten. Alaska's 12-member Legislative Council — which has a Republican majority — decided to look into the matter, and in early August, they tapped independent investigator Stephen Branchflower to lead the probe. Branchflower’s report , released Oct. 10, concluded that while Palin was within her rights to fire Monegan, she "abused her power" and ran afoul of state ethics laws in seeking to settle a score with Wooten. The Palin camp predictably lambasted the report as a partisan smear. Less predictable was the reaction from Palin herself. "The truth was revealed there in that report that showed there was no unlawful or unethical activity on my part," Palin told reporters on Oct. 11. Except that’s not what the report showed. "Finding Number One" of the report is "that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Branch Ethics Act ." Specifically, the statute reads: "The legislature reaffirms that each public officer holds office as a public trust, and any effort to benefit a personal or financial interest through official action is a violation of that trust." Branchflower concluded that while Monegan’s refusal to fire Trooper Michael Wooten "was not the sole reason he was fired by Governor Sarah Palin, it was likely a contributing factor to his termination as Commissioner of Public Safety." "In spite of that, Governor Palin’s firing of Commissioner Monegan was a proper and lawful exercise of her constitutional and statutory authority to hire and fire executive branch department heads," the report states. When a reporter on Oct. 11 asked, "Governor, did you abuse your power?" Palin said, "No, and if you read the report you’ll see that there was nothing unlawful or unethical about replacing a cabinet member. You gotta read the report, sir." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Yes, but when you do read the report, Palin's take on its findings falls apart. As the report explains, in 2005 the Palins lodged numerous complaints against trooper Wooten, including that he made death threats against Palin’s father, Tasered his 10-year-old stepson, drove his patrol car after drinking and ran down and killed a wolf with his snow machine. State troopers investigated his behavior and Wooten was suspended for five days in 2006, before Palin became governor. As far as Monegan was concerned, that should have been the end of it. But according to the report, Palin and her husband continued to aggressively push for Wooten's ouster after Palin became governor. "The evidence supports the conclusion that Governor Palin, at the least, engaged in ‘official action’ by her inaction if not her active participation or assistance to her husband in attempting to get Trooper Wooten fired (and there is ample evidence of her participation)," the report states. " She knowingly...permitted Todd Palin to use the Governor’s office and the resources of the Governor’s office, including access to state employees, to continue to contact subordinate state employees in an effort to find some way to get Trooper Wooten fired." The report also chides Palin for declining to be interviewed by the investigator. "An interview would have assisted everyone to better understand her motives and perhaps explain why she was so apparently intent upon getting Trooper Wooten fired in spite of the fact she knew he had been disciplined following the Administrative Investigation," the report states. "She also knew that he has been permitted to keep his job, and that the disciplinary investigation was closed and could not be reopened. Yet she allowed pressure from her husband, to try to get Trooper Wooten fired, to continue unabated over a several month-period of time." Branchflower also concluded that Palins’ claims that they feared Wooten "were not bona fide and were offered to provide cover for the Palin’s real motivation: to get Trooper Wooten fired for personal family related reasons." In a telephone interview with Alaska reporters on Oct. 11, Palin said she was "very very pleased to be cleared of any legal wrongdoing … any hint of any kind of unethical activity there. Very pleased to be cleared of any of that. Todd did what anyone would have done given this state trooper’s very, very troubling behavior and his dangerous threats against our family. Todd did what I think any Alaskan would do." In Altoona, Pa., outside a Sheetz gas station, Palin again claimed the report found she had done nothing illegal or unethical. "I’m thankful that the report has shown that, that there was no illegal or unethical activity there in my choice to replace our commissioner," she said. "I don’t micromanage my commissioners and ask them to hire or fire anyone,," Palin said, "and thankfully the truth was revealed there in that report, that showed that there was no unlawful nor unethical activity on my part." Palin spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt told ABC News that when Palin says she’s been cleared of any legal or ethical violations, "She was referring to the conclusion of the report that found that she acted properly and lawfully with regard to reassigning Monegan, which was the original purpose of the investigation." The report did, in fact, find that Palin’s firing of Monegan was "lawful and proper" but when Palin says - repeatedly - that the report found "no unlawful or unethical behavior,"she is ignoring the part of the report that concluded she abused her power as governor and violated state ethics laws. Palin has attacked the investigation as a "partisan circus" and spokeswoman Meg Stapleton claimed the legislative council "seriously overreached, making a tortured argument to find fault without basis in law or fact." The campaign also notes that the council made clear that the vote to make the report public was not an endorsement of its findings, and that five members of the council spoke up to say they did not agree with the report’s findings. Those all may be legitimate arguments, or not. But the issue here is Palin’s characterization that the report concluded that she did not do anything ethically wrong. The report concluded just the opposite. The report says she did abuse her authority and she did violate state ethics laws. By saying otherwise repeatedly, in what seems to be a deliberate attempt to mislead or confuse voters who don't know the facts, Palin isn't just wrong, she's Pants on Fire! wrong

"I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke [in March 2007], and told them this is something we have to deal with, and nobody did anything about it. The country's economic woes were a somber topic at the presidential debate in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 7, 2008, with both candidates explaining their thoughts on the root of the crisis. "I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and told them this is something we have to deal with, and nobody did anything about it." It's undisputed that Obama wrote the two officials a letter on March 22, 2007. "There is grave concern in low-income communities about a potential coming wave of foreclosures," Obama wrote. "Because regulators are partly responsible for creating the environment that is leading to rising rates of home foreclosure in the subprime mortgage market, I urge you immediately to convene a homeownership preservation summit with leading mortgage lenders, investors, loan servicing organizations, consumer advocates, federal regulators and housing-related agencies to assess options for private sector responses to the challenge." ( Read the full text here .) But Obama brought up this letter in the context of explaining the current economic crisis. There's nothing to suggest in the letter that Obama had early insights into the events that would unfold in 2008. His letter is concerned with people losing their homes, not a systemic threat to the economic system. (See our story and other statements on potential causes of the economic crisis here.) We also checked news clips to look at Bernanke and Paulson's public statements around the time after Obama sent his letter. • On March 28, 2007, Bernanke testified before Congress, saying, "Although the turmoil in the subprime mortgage market has created financial problems for many individuals and families, the implications of these developments for the housing market as a whole are less clear." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 • On May 15, 2007, Bernanke gave a speech in which he discouraged new regulation of derivatives, which played a role in the credit crisis of 2008. " We should always keep in view the enormous economic benefits that flow from a healthy and innovative financial sector," Bernanke said. • On May 17, 2007, Bernanke said the Federal Reserve was considering taking steps to rein in subprime lending, but would be cautious not to overregulate. "We do not expect significant spillovers from the subprime market to the rest of the economy or to the financial system," Bernanke said. • On June 20, 2007, Paulson said, "We have had a major housing correction in this country. ... I do believe we are at or near the bottom." So it sounds like Obama's letter didn't make much of a splash. Certainly Bernanke and Paulson were not sounding alarm bells. We asked two economists, one with a right-leaning group and one with a left-leaning group, if a warning issued in 2007 could have made a difference to the problems of October 2008. Both of them said it was too late by then, because the questionable loans and securities had been issued by that point. "The horse was already out of the barn," said Dean Baker, an economist and co-director of the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "Everyone with a brain who was paying attention knew that there were big problems associated with outstanding subprime risk," said Charles Calomiris, a professor at Columbia Business School and a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. But, he added, "There was little that the Fed could have done after March 2007 to prevent the crisis from happening." So Obama is right that he wrote the letter. Saying Bernanke and Paulson didn't do anything about it sounds harsh, but it is a rough approximation of what happened. But Obama's letter was largely confined to the problems of low-income homeowners who were losing their homes. It was not an early warning on the economic collapse of '08. We rate his statement Half True

On the economic troubles of 2008, "really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The country's economic woes created a somber backdrop for the presidential debate in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 7, 2008. John McCain explained his view of the roots of the crisis, pinning part of the blame on the Democratic Party. "One of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," McCain said. "I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis. But you know, they're the ones that, with the encouragement of Senator Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back." In this item, we'll look at whether Fannie and Freddie were "the match that lit this fire." (For the Democrats role in encouraging that, please see our ruling here. ) First, what are Fannie and Freddie? Set up decades ago by the federal government to underwrite mortgages and promote home ownership, Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.) have become major players in the domestic mortgage market. They do not make loans to homeowners directly, but they purchase mortgages, bundle them into securities, and sell some of them on the open market. Together, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed about $5-trillion in mortgages, about half of the U.S. market. By the summer of 2008, however, the effects of a deflating housing bubble - especially foreclosures and mortgage deliquencies - were affecting Fannie and Freddie, and the agencies didn't have enough money to meet their financial obligations. The U.S. government took them over on Sept. 7, 2008. Getting back to McCain's statement, he suggests that Fannie and Freddie made too many risky loans, and that caused today's crisis. Most economists agree that Fannie and Freddie played a role, but they disagree as to whether they were leading the way or just following the pack. Charles Calomiris, a professor at Columbia Business School and a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said McCain's characterization of Fannie and Freddie as a catalyst is a good one. "As buyers of this paper on such a heavy scale, they helped to make a market in these instruments in a way that encouraged the growth of originations," Calomiris said. "Of course, there were other players in this story, too ? loose monetary policy, bad investment decisions by other buyers, and a host of regulatory errors." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Other economists disagree. "The idea that this crisis is fundamentally about Fannie and Freddie is absurd," said Dean Baker, an economist and co-director of the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. "They didn't act well in this crisis," Baker said. "They contributed to it. But the primary problem was a housing bubble." Fannie and Freddie jumped into subprime market to follow the private issuers of mortgage-backed securities. "They were followers, not leaders," Baker said. We can see both sides of this argument. Their sheer size supports the argument that they played an outsized role in the problems that led to our financial crisis. But they weren't the first ones to leap into subprime. And there were a number of other factors that contributed to the crisis as well. For example, mortgage-backed securities that appeared to be virtually risk-free on paper, premised as they were on ever-rising home prices, became a huge problem when the housing bubble burst. And, once-obscure derivatives — the credit default swap, a private contract that pays off in case of a defaulted loan — were specifically exempted from government regulation. Today, nobody knows the true value of these investments, given foreclosures and mortgage defaults, and that is what's causing the credit crunch — a general reluctance to lend money. Lax regulation also played a significant role in the crisis. Some regulatory agencies had regulation powers that they never utilized or didn't utilize well. The Federal Reserve has the power to tighten lending standards, for instance, or raise interest rates. But officials there discouraged new rules and advised Congress repeatedly not to regulate derivatives. McCain oversimplifies things and perhaps puts too much emphasis on Fannie and Freddie in order to assign political blame. We rate his statement Half True

"The Democrats in the Senate and some members of Congress defended what Fannie and Freddie were doing. They resisted any change. In the back-and-forth campaign blame game going on over the financial crisis, Sen. John McCain pointed the finger at Democrats and Obama for failing to support a plan to exert regulatory control over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2005 and 2006. "But you know, one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," McCain said at the second presidential debate on Oct. 7. "I'll bet you, you may never even have heard of them before this crisis. But you know, they're the ones that, with the encouragement of Senator Obama and his cronies and his friends in Washington, that went out and made all these risky loans, gave them to people that could never afford to pay back. "And you know, there were some of us that stood up two years ago and said we've got to enact legislation to fix this. We've got to stop this greed and excess. "Meanwhile," McCain said, "the Democrats in the Senate and some ? and some members of Congress defended what Fannie and Freddie were doing. They resisted any change." Set up decades ago by the federal government to underwrite mortgages and promote home ownership, Fannie Mae (the Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.) became major players in the domestic mortgage market. They don't make loans to homeowners directly, but they purchase mortgages, bundle them into securities, and sell some of them on the open market. Together, Fannie and Freddie owned or guaranteed about $5-trillion in mortgages, about half of the U.S. market. After years of rapid growth in home prices, foreclosures and mortgage delinquencies began rising by 2006. Some homeowners had adjustable-rate mortgages that were resetting to higher rates they could no longer afford. In other cases, speculators were overextended and dumping properties. Outright fraud had some role: people who took out loans never intending to pay them back. Regardless of the reasons, by 2008 foreclosures were affecting Fannie and Freddie. The agencies didn't have enough money to meet their financial obligations, and the U.S. government took them over on Sept. 7. When McCain points an accusing finger at the Democrats for encouraging Fannie and Freddie to make too many risky loans, he's talking about the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act initiated by Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel in 2005. In 2006, McCain signed on to the Republican-led attempt at regulatory overhaul of the mortgage-financing firms, which both went through multibillion-dollar accounting scandals earlier in the decade. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The occasion that prompted McCain’s involvement was the release of a 340-page report from the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight that concluded that Fannie Mae had manipulated earnings and violated basic accounting principles. It describes an “arrogant and unethical corporate culture” in which executives were more concerned about their bonuses than meeting the company’s housing mission. The findings, based on a 27-month investigation and resulting in a $400-million fine paid to the government, prompted McCain to join other critics and call for more scrutiny of Fannie and its sibling, Freddie Mac."If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole," McCain declared in a May 26, 2006, news release. While McCain is quick to blame Democrats for opposing the legislation — they did — the Republicans controlled Congress at the time, and there was a Republican in the White House. Yet the bill languished in the Senate, and it wasn't until earlier this year that Congress and the Bush administration, shaken by the extent of the subprime crisis, completed a regulatory overhaul by combining OFHEO and the Federal Housing Finance Board into a new regulatory body, the Federal Housing Finance Agency. We should also note that prior to 2000, support for Fannie and Freddie was more bipartisan. In the late 1990s, the Republican-controlled Congress — with the blessing of Democratic President Bill Clinton — eased the credit requirements on loans that Fannie and Freddie purchased. "It's a bipartisan problem," said Bill Beach, director of the Center for Data Analysis at the conservative Heritage Foundation. McCain rightly notes that the 2005-2006 efforts to regulate Fannie and Freddie were Republican-led, and opposed by the Democrats, but McCain's current attempts to depict those efforts as an early warning that could have lessened the current credit crisis don't wash. McCain was talking mostly about potential fallout from accounting troubles, not freewheeling lending standards based on a housing bubble. And he said nothing about major financial institutions becoming badly leveraged on bad loans and new securities products. Even if the 2006 effort to strengthen oversight had succeeded, it’s debatable whether it would have averted the subprime crisis. The extent of the problems was not yet fully known, and it’s a leap of faith to suggest that regulators granted expanded power would have noticed a deterioration in Fannie and Freddie’s loan portfolios soon enough and would have sounded an alarm. So first, when McCain talks about this legislation, it's not the cure-all he suggests it may have been; the focus then was on corruption in Fannie and Freddie, which isn't really what the financial crisis is about. Democrats may have opposed it, but it didn't appear to have all that many champions in a Republican-controlled Senate, either. And last, if you look back in time, Democrats and Republicans supported an easing of lending standards in the late 1990s. So for McCain to lay Fannie and Freddie woes entirely at the feet of the Democrats is unfair. We rate his statement Half True

Obama "voted for ... $3-million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago. Note: This item has been updated since it originally was published, with new information that has changed the ruling. Seeking to paint his Democratic rival as a spendthrift, Sen. John McCain highlighted a request Sen. Barack Obama once made to help a Chicago landmark. “He voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork-barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3-million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois,” McCain said during the Oct. 7, 2008, presidential debate. “My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?” McCain was referring to a spending request for the 2008 budget. And, indeed, the Web site of Obama’s Senate office shows Obama asked for $3-million for the Adler Planetarium. According to Obama’s office, the equipment had begun to fail and deprived people of a learning experience. “The projection equipment in this theater is 40 years old, and is no longer supported with parts or service by the manufacturer,” his office said in a June 21, 2007, announcement. McCain refers to the item as an "overhead projector," conjuring images of those little projectors on carts in public school libraries all over America, but calling this piece of equipment an overhead projector is like calling the space shuttle a bottle rocket. The projector at Adler that would be replaced is 2½ tons, 18 feet in diameter and elevates from 12 to 20 feet. It's used to display 7,000 stars and planets that are visible, said Mark Webb, director of theaters at Adler. It has motors and gears. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 “The characterization of it as an overhead projector is not very accurate,” said Webb, who has been at the planetarium more than 25 years. While the museum has not settled on a specific replacement, the $3-million would help cover most of the cost of a new system of projectors. It will be computerized with light sources that would display all the visible stars plus the deep space stars and planets. It would have hard drives and software to transfer megabytes of data, he said. The projector system is part of a $10-million theater upgrade at Adler, the first U.S. location with a planetarium. As PolitiFact has previously reported , Obama has sought — but not necessarily received — $931.3-million in spending, including the projector system money. More broadly, annual votes for spending bills mean Obama, like other Congress members, has likely supported a lot more earmarks. But Obama didn’t actually vote for the projector as McCain stated. The request — which was a tenfold hike from a failed request a year earlier — never made it past the Senate appropriations committee, said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense. And Obama isn’t a member of the panel. But Obama did go for the money. “I think for most voters it’s a fine line to draw,” Ellis said. We originally rated McCain’s statement as Mostly True when we confined our review to the earmark issue. But after several readers alerted us to the true nature of the projector, we decided further reporting and study of the details of the project were required. McCain is right that Obama sought the money (though not a vote), but because McCain mischaracterizes the size of the projector to enhance his argument that money is being wasted, we have changed our ruling. We say Half True

"(Bill) Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together. For most of the election, Sen. John McCain's campaign has been somewhat subtle about trying to tie Sen. Barack Obama to the former '60s radical William Ayers. No longer. A 90-second Web ad released Oct. 8, 2008, features sinister music, side-by-side photographs of Obama and Ayers, and a series of dubious allegations about their past connections, including this one: "Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together." Ayers was a founding member of the militant Vietnam-era anti-war group the Weathermen. He was investigated for his role in a series of domestic bombings, but the charges were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct. He is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and actively engaged in the city's civic life. The McCain campaign said the "radical education foundation" to which they were referring is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charity endowed by publishing magnate Walter Annenberg that funded public-school programs in Chicago from 1995 to 2001. We'll look at whether the foundation was radical. But first we have to grapple with whether Obama and Ayers ran it. Obama served on the foundation's volunteer board from its inception in 1995 through its dissolution in 2001, and was chair for the first four years. So an argument can be made that he ran it, though an executive director handled day-to-day operations. Ayers, who received his doctorate in education from Columbia University in 1987 and is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was active in getting the foundation up and running. He and two other activists led the effort to secure the grant from Annenberg, and he worked without pay in the early months of 1995, prior to the board's hiring of an executive director, to help the foundation get incorporated and formulate its bylaws, said Ken Rolling, who was the foundation's only executive director. Ayers went on to become a member of the "collaborative," an advisory group that advised the board of directors and the staff. However, Ayers "was never on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge," and he "never made a decision programmatically or had a vote," Rolling said. "He (Ayers) was at board meetings — which, by the way, were open — as a guest," Rolling said. "That is not anything near Bill Ayers and Barack Obama running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge." Now, was the foundation radical? The McCain campaign cited several pieces of evidence for that allegation, including a 1995 invitation from the foundation for applications from schools "that want to make radical changes in the way teachers teach and students learn." The campaign appears to have confused two different definitions of the word "radical." Clearly the invitation referred to "a considerable departure from the usual or traditional," rather than "advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs." The campaign also cited two projects the foundation funded, one having to do with a United Nations-themed Peace School and another that focused on African-American studies. "That is radical in the eye of this campaign and we imagine in the eyes of most Americans," said Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for McCain. "It is a subjective thing, and there are going to be people in Berkeley and Chicago who think that is totally legitimate." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Teaching about the United Nations and African-American studies may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's hardly "radical" in the same way Ayers' Vietnam-era activities were. Moreover, most of the projects the foundation funded (more on that below) were not remotely controversial. The McCain campaign also cited an opinion piece by conservative commentator Stanley Kurtz in the Sept. 23, 2008, Wall Street Journal as evidence of the foundation's radicalism. Kurtz wrote that Ayers was the "guiding spirit" of the foundation, and it "translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice." But Ayers' views on education, though certainly reform-oriented and left-of-center, are not considered anywhere near as radical as his Vietnam-era views on war. And even if they were, there was a long list of individuals involved with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge whose positions provided them far more authority over its direction than Ayers' advisory role gave him. Let's look at a few, starting with the funder. Annenberg was a lifelong Republican and former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Richard Nixon. His widow, Leonore, has endorsed McCain. Kurtz might just as plausibly have accused Obama and the foundation of "translating Annenberg's conservatism into practice." Among the other board members who served with Obama were: Stanley Ikenberry, former president of the University of Illinois; Arnold Weber, former president of Northwestern University and assistant secretary of labor in the Nixon administration; Scott Smith, then publisher of the Chicago Tribune; venture capitalist Edward Bottum; John McCarter, president of the Field Museum; Patricia Albjerg Graham, former dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, and a host of other mainstream folks. "The whole idea of it being radical when it was this tie of blue-chip, white-collar, CEOs and civic leaders is just ridiculous," said the foundation's former development director, Marianne Philbin. The foundation gave money to groups of public schools – usually three to 10 – who partnered with some sort of outside organization to improve their students' achievement. In his opinion piece, Kurtz puts a sinister spin on this: "Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with 'external partners,' which actually got the money...CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN)." Rollings said the foundation tried to fund the schools directly, but doing so proved to be a "bureaucratic nightmare." But any external group that received money had to have created a program in partnership with a network of public schools. And though ACORN is considered a liberal organization, the vast majority of the foundation's external partners were not remotely controversial. Here are a few examples: the Chicago Symphony, the University of Chicago, Loyola University, Northwestern University, the Chicago Children's Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field Museum, the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association. Had Kurtz chosen to accuse Obama of carrying water for the conservative Annenberg, he might have written: "CAC disbursed money to various business-friendly entities, such as the Museum of Science and Industry and the Commercial Club of Chicago." See how easy it is? The programs the foundation funded were designed to allow individuals from the "external partners" – whether the musicians in the symphony or the business leaders in the commercial club – to help improve student achievement. They were along the lines of mentoring by artists, literacy instruction, professional development for teachers and administrators, and training for parents in everything from computer skills to helping their children with homework to advocating for their children at school. This last activity – something suburban parents practice with zeal – is also suspect in Kurtz's view: "CAC records show that board member Arnold Weber was concerned that parents 'organized' by community groups might be viewed by school principals 'as a political threat.'" That is typical of Kurtz's essay – relatively innocuous facts cast in the worst possible light. That's appropriate for an opinion piece, perhaps, but hardly grounds for a purportedly factual political ad accusing the group of radicalism. We could go on and on with evidence that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was a rather vanilla charitable group. For example, under the deal with Annenberg every dollar from him had to be matched by two from elsewhere. The co-funders were a host of respected, mainstream institutions, such as the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Chicago Public Schools. In short, this was a mainstream foundation funded by a mainstream, Republican business leader and led by an overwhelmingly mainstream, civic-minded group of individuals. Ayers' involvement in its inception and on an advisory committee do not make it radical – nor does the funding of programs involving the United Nations and African-American studies. This attack is false, but it's more than that – it's malicious. It unfairly tars not just Obama, but all the other prominent, well-respected Chicagoans who also volunteered their time to the foundation. They came from all walks of life and all political backgrounds, and there's ample evidence their mission was nothing more than improving ailing public schools in Chicago. Yet in the heat of a political campaign they have been accused of financing radicalism. That's Pants on Fire wrong

Barack Obama voted against "born alive" legislation in Illinois that was "virtually identical to the federal law. The hot-button issue of abortion is the subject of two recent political ads and a controversy centering on Barack Obama's votes in the Illinois legislature. An independent advocacy group, BornAliveTruth.org, launched an attack ad on Obama, and the Obama campaign responded with an attack on John McCain's abortion record. For more on these dueling ads, read our story here. As the controversy around the ads played out, the National Right to Life Committee disputed some of Obama's public comments about Illinois legislation concerning infants "born alive," particularly a crucial bit of the legislation that became known as the "neutrality clause." The committee said the legislation had a neutrality clause; Obama said it didn't. Here's the background: Opponents of abortion put forward legislation in 2001, 2002 and 2003 intended to require doctors to provide immediate life-saving care to any infant that survived an intended abortion. The legislation, which included multiple bills, specified that an infant surviving a planned abortion is "born alive" and "shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law." The bills' supporters said it gave added emphasis to laws already on the books, deterring the death of abortion survivors from neglect. One of the bills' strongest supporters was a nurse, Jill Stanek, who said she had witnessed infants left to die in dirty utility rooms. Abortion-rights proponents, on the other hand, said the legislation was a back-door attempt to stop legal abortions. Illinois already had a law on its books from 1975 that said if a doctor suspected an abortion was scheduled for a viable fetus — meaning able to survive outside of the mother's body — then the child must receive medical care if it survives the abortion. The new laws didn't distinguish between viable and nonviable, meaning that an infant of any age that survived an abortion should receive care. We'll state at the outset here that Obama, along with other Democrats in the Illinois legislature, opposed the "born alive" laws every time they came up, and this is not disputed. Why he opposed the legislation has become a controversial point during the presidential campaign, however. The controversy hinges on how the two sides interpret the "neutrality clause." In 2002, two years before Obama was elected to the Senate, the U.S. Congress took up its own version of "born alive" legislation, and passed it with a so-called "neutrality clause," which said the law would not change the legal status or legal rights of anyone prior to being "born alive." Abortion rights advocates said the clause was necessary to make sure the bill would not affect current abortion laws. Obama has said as far back as 2004 that he would have supported the federal bill and that he would have supported the Illinois versions if they had had a similar neutrality clause. The laws the full Senate voted on in 2001 and 2002 did not have such a clause, but 2003 is a different story. The National Right to Life Committee says the 2003 bill did have a neutrality clause, and contends that Obama is misrepresenting the bill. David Brody of CBN News, a Christian news group, asked Obama for his response to that in August 2008. "I hate to say that people are lying, but here's a situation where folks are lying," Obama said. "I have said repeatedly that I would have been completely in, fully in support of the federal bill that everybody supported which was to say that you should provide assistance to any infant that was born even if it was as a consequence of an induced abortion." Read his entire answer on the CBN Web site . We requested documentation from the Illinois State Archives about the 2003 bill and found that it did have a neutrality clause, as the National Right to Life said. The clause was added at the committee level, and those records are not available online. But we have posted the documents we received via fax from the State Archives here. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The records are from the Health and Human Services Committee. They show that on March 12, 2003, the committee voted unanimously to add a neutrality clause to the "born alive" bill. Then the committee voted down the bill on a 6-4 vote. All the Democrats on the committee, including Obama, voted against the legislation, while the Republicans favored it. But there is an important caveat to add here: We don't know what the discussion was at the 2003 committee because the proceedings weren't recorded, but it seems likely that the federal neutrality clause was not considered sufficient at the state level, because the 2005 Illinois law that eventually passed included a more extensive neutrality clause than the federal legislation. Let's compare the language of the various neutrality clauses. The federal born alive legislation has passed and was the law at the time of the 2003 vote. Here's what its neutrality clause states: "Nothing in this section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being ‘born alive’ as defined in this section." The 2003 amendment that was before the Illinois Senate committee said this: "Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive as defined in this Section." Except for minor punctuation, the clauses are identical. But here's the neutrality clause that was included in the successful Illinois "born alive" legislation of 2005. Note that it has two additional paragraphs. "Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affirm, deny, expand, or contract any legal status or legal right applicable to any member of the species homo sapiens at any point prior to being born alive, as defined in this Section." "Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affect existing federal or State law regarding abortion." "Nothing in this Section shall be construed to alter generally accepted medical standards." So the National Right to Life Committee is correct that the 2003 legislation did have a neutrality clause similar to the federal legislation. But the federal neutrality clause wasn't sufficient to reassure the Illinois legislators seeking to protect abortion rights. The law that passed had additional explicit protection for existing state law and generally accepted medical standards. The bill's sponsor said in 2008 that the extra language was included to satisfy "the most zealous prochoice legislators." But the National Right to Life Committee is correct that the 2003 version of the law did include a neutrality clause similar to the federal legislation, and Obama voted against it. We rule its claim Tru

Under Barack Obama's health care proposal, "if you've got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it. Barack Obama defended his health care plan during a debate in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 7, 2008. His opponents have attacked his plan as "government-run" health care. "No. 1, let me just repeat, if you've got a health care plan that you like, you can keep it," Obama said. "All I'm going to do is help you to lower the premiums on it. You'll still have choice of doctor." Obama is accurately describing his health care plan here. He advocates a program that seeks to build on the current system, rather than dismantling it and starting over. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Obama's plan essentially takes today's system and seeks to expand it to the uninsured. It creates national pools for individuals to buy their own cheaper insurance. It increases eligibility for the poor and children to enroll in initiatives like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. And it has several strategies to rein in costs for everyone, such as streamlining medical record-keeping and emphasizing preventive care. Obama has said he would like his plan to be universal, in that everyone has health care coverage. But currently it includes a mandate only for children. Obama has said that he did not include a mandate for adults so as not to penalize people with modest incomes. It remains to be seen whether Obama's plan will actually be able to achieve the cost savings it promises for the health care system. But people who want to keep their current insurance should be able to do that under Obama's plan. His description of his plan is accurate, and we rate his statement True

Barack Obama opposed a bill that would have saved Gianna Jessen's life An ad from an independent advocacy group, BornAliveTruth.org, criticizes Barack Obama's votes on abortion when he was a state senator in Illinois. The ad shows a young woman, Gianna Jessen, looking directly at the camera and saying the following: "Can you imagine not giving babies their basic human rights, no matter how they entered our world? My name's Gianna Jessen, born 31 years ago after a failed abortion. But if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn't be here. Four times Barack Obama voted to oppose a law to protect babies left to die after failed abortions. Senator Obama, please support born alive infant protections. I'm living proof these babies have a right to live." View the ad here . The ad refers to Illinois legislation put forward in 2001, 2002 and 2003 by opponents of abortion. The intent was to require doctors to provide immediate life-saving care to any infant that survived an intended abortion. The legislation, which included multiple bills, specified that an infant surviving a planned abortion is "born alive" and "shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law." The bills' supporters said it gave added emphasis to laws already on the books, deterring the death of abortion survivors from neglect. One of the bills' strongest supporters was a nurse, Jill Stanek, who said she had witnessed infants left to die in dirty utility rooms. Abortion-rights proponents, on the other hand, said the legislation was a back-door attempt to stop legal abortions. Illinois already had a law on its books from 1975 that said if a doctor suspected an abortion was scheduled for a viable fetus — meaning able to survive outside of the mother's body — then the child must receive medical care if it survives the abortion. The new laws didn't distinguish between viable and nonviable, meaning that an infant of any age that survived an abortion should receive care. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Obama did vote against the laws, by voting no or present on the bills. (In Illinois, a present vote has the same weight as a no vote.) But because of the older law, Jessen is wrong when she says "if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn't be here." According to the medical records provided by the organization that produced the ad, Jessen was born at 29 weeks, which would have been a viable pregnancy and subject to the older Illinois law requiring that she receive medical care. So it's not correct to say that Obama opposed that. Also, Jessen was born in California, not Illinois. We know Jessen is speaking somewhat figuratively here, but the fact is that someone born under similar circumstances in Illinois would have been protected under the law. Obama has said he supported the existing law and felt it provided sufficient protection for abortion survivors like Jessen. We rule her statement False. For more on the born alive controversy, please read our extended story here.

"I want to give every American a $5,000 refundable tax credit. Candidates often try to place their proposals in the best possible light. But John McCain went a step too far in saying at a debate in Nashville on Oct. 7, 2008, that he wants to give "every American a $5,000 refundable tax credit." It's actually half that: $2,500 for singles and $5,000 for couples. The tax credit is part of McCain's health proposal, which seeks to increase competition for health care by reducing reliance on employer-provided health insurance. Most Americans who have health insurance get it through their employer. Usually, the premiums are split so that the employer pays part and the employee pays part. Strictly speaking, the part that the employer pays is compensation, and workers would owe taxes on it if there wasn't a tax exemption in federal law. The exemption makes employer-provided health insurance more attractive to both workers and employers. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 McCain's idea is that people should be able to go out on the open market and buy their own health insurance, and not be pushed into an employer-provided insurance plan by tax incentives. So under McCain's plan, the tax exemption for employer-provided health insurance would disappear, and people would get a tax credit to spend on any health insurance they wish. They might choose to use their employer's plan and use the tax credit to offset the new tax on the benefit, or they might go off and buy insurance on their own. Another caveat about McCain's tax credit: You can't get cash for it. To ensure that it goes to health care, the credit is payable directly to insurance companies. Any remainder would go into a special health spending account. We've seen Barack Obama talk about a $1,000 tax cut for working families, when it's actually a $500 per person tax credit. McCain would be accurate if he had said $5,000 per family, but his statement in the debate takes things too far. It's $2,500 for single people. We rate his statement Half True

John McCain accused Barack Obama "of letting infants die. Barack Obama recently released an attack ad on John McCain after Obama's abortion votes in the Illinois state legislature came under attack. The ad says that McCain accused Obama of "letting infants die." But we do not find that to be the case. Our story begins with an ad from an independent advocacy group, BornAliveTruth.org, that exists to criticize Obama's votes on abortion when he was a state senator in Illinois. The group's ad shows a young woman, Gianna Jessen, looking directly at the camera and saying the following: "Can you imagine not giving babies their basic human rights, no matter how they entered our world? My name's Gianna Jessen, born 31 years ago after a failed abortion. But if Barack Obama had his way, I wouldn't be here. Four times Barack Obama voted to oppose a law to protect babies left to die after failed abortions. Senator Obama, please support born alive infant protections. I'm living proof these babies have a right to live." View the ad here . The ad refers to Illinois legislation put forward in 2001, 2002 and 2003 by opponents of abortion. The intent was to require doctors to provide immediate life-saving care to any infant that survived an intended abortion. The legislation, which included multiple bills, specified that an infant surviving a planned abortion is "born alive" and "shall be fully recognized as a human person and accorded immediate protection under the law." The bills' supporters said it gave added emphasis to laws already on the books, deterring the death of abortion survivors from neglect. One of the bills' strongest supporters was a nurse, Jill Stanek, who said she had witnessed infants left to die in dirty utility rooms. Abortion-rights proponents, on the other hand, said the legislation was a back-door attempt to stop legal abortions. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Obama voted against the legislation several times. For more on the complicated history of this legislation read our story here. The Obama campaign has been trying to make inroads with voters who oppose abortion. Though Obama supports the right to abortion, he said he believes the number of abortions performed can and should be reduced. So the campaign released a vigorous response ad to the BornAliveTruth.org ad. But instead of targeting BornAliveTruth.org or Gianna Jessen, the ad attacks McCain . "John McCain's attacks, the sleaziest ads ever. Truly vile. Now, votes taken out of context accusing Obama of letting infants die. It's a despicable lie. Even the bill's Republican sponsor said that it's untrue. Obama's always supported medical care to protect infants. McCain. He's running on a platform to ban abortion, even in cases of rape and incest. Sleazy ads. Anti-choice. That's John McCain." There are a few problems here. Obama's ad shows footage of the BornAliveTruth.org ad, which the McCain campaign did not produce. So the Obama ad is blaming McCain for an attack he didn't make. The first ad clearly states that BornAliveTruth.org created it, as is required by law. Also, though the Republican Party platform does call for a ban on abortion, McCain himself favors exceptions for rape and incest. (His running mate Sarah Palin has said she opposes those exceptions, but the ad doesn't mention her.) We looked for examples, but could find no cases of McCain accusing Obama of "letting infants die." Certainly some antiabortion activists who support McCain have made the charge, but that's quite different from the McCain campaign saying it. McCain's abortion-related attacks usually center on Obama's refusal to confirm conservative judges. We find the claim that McCain made the accusation to be False

A mortgage buyback plan is "my proposal, it's not Sen. Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal. In a debate that featured rehashed candidate positions, one new policy emerged: Sen. John McCain’s proposal to have the government buy and renegotiate what his top adviser later said would be “literally millions” of mortgages on houses whose values have dropped and whose owners are struggling to keep up with payments. Taxpayers would cover the difference between the original loan and the new one, at a cost the McCain campaign estimated to be at $300-billion. “Is it expensive? Yes,” McCain said during the debate on Oct. 7, 2008. “But we all know, my friends, until we stabilize home values in America, we’re never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy. And we’ve got to give some trust and confidence back to America.” In announcing the plan amid the question-and-answer of a town hall meeting, McCain sought to make clear that this was a bold, new idea all his own: “And it’s my proposal, it’s not Sen. Obama’s proposal, it’s not President Bush’s proposal.” The question is whether or not McCain's proposal is as original as he claims. But first, some details on the plan. “Mechanically, the initiative is very simple,” said Doug Holtz-Eakin, senior policy adviser for the McCain campaign. “A home­owner would initiate the process by calling a mortgage broker or other originator and basically saying, 'I’d like to refinance my home,’ and they would start the underwriting process, verify incomes.” The government loans would be available to mortgage holders who: • Live in the home as a primary residence. • Can prove their creditworthiness (and made a down payment at the time of the purchase). The FHA would then issue a 30-year fixed rate mortgage at a rate Holtz-Eakin estimated would be “in the low 5 percent” range. Mortgage rates for 30-year fixed home loans are currently about 5.82 percent. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Taxpayers would pick up the difference between the value of the two loans. While at least part of the expense of McCain’s plan would be borne by the recently approved $700-billion bailout plan, the initiative also would tap some of the $300-billion tied to the Housing and Economic Recovery Act passed this summer. That’s a plan that seeks to refinance loans for low- to moderate-income homeowners struggling to pay for homes they bought for more than they are now worth. The McCain plan outlines a dramatic shift in emphasis for the $700-billion bailout plan. While the bailout contained provisions to allow the Treasury to purchase mortgages directly, the legislation primarily was intended as a means for the government to buy troubled assets from financial institutions that might otherwise fail and that could later be sold when the markets recover. The hope, said Holtz-Eakin, is that McCain’s “bottom level up” plan will offset the need for some of that $700-billion. When McCain announced the plan at the debate, Obama supporters were quick to note that Obama had in previous weeks recommended that the bailout plan include the option of buying individual mortgages. “We can’t simply bail out Wall Street without helping the millions of innocent homeowners who are facing foreclosure — or, for that matter, are seeing their home values decline,” Obama said. McCain argued, during the debate and afterward, that his proposal is nothing like what Obama talked about. And after hearing details the next day, the Obama campaign agreed with McCain. Obama has always supported plans to have the government buy loans at market prices (in other words, the loan companies would have to swallow some loss), said Obama campaign economic policy director Jason Furman. And homeowners would have to share some of the profits should the value of the home rise. But McCain's proposal wouldn't do either of those things. The government would refinance homes at their new, lower value and absorb the loss in propoerty values entirely. Okay, so who's idea is it? Charlie Black, a senior adviser to McCain, told the New York Times the mortgage renewal idea actually originated with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who borrowed it from a Depression-era New Deal agency, the Home Owner’s Loan Corp. Clinton spoke about her plan before Congress on Sept. 18, 2008. "A new government entity like the HOLC with a focus on attacking the source of the problem can serve the purpose of clearing a lot of those toxic mortgage securities from the market," Clinton said. "We know there will not be any semblance of a normal or orderly marketplace until we have found a way to resolve these mortgage securities that are metastasizing in the bottom of our markets. By taking this paper out of the market and quarantining it in this new entity we will be able to give the market breathing room to recover. We will also be able to set the stage for an orderly sale of these securities and in turn allow some of them to recover and actually regain some of their value. Perhaps just as importantly, not only would our financial markets stabilize but so would our housing markets." Although Clinton did not offer specifics of her plan, she seemed to suggest that it would entail buying mortgages at discounted current market rates, and that taxpayers might ultimately turn a profit on them. That's not McCain's plan. So here's where we stand: It's true that terms of the $700-billion bailout plan first initiated by President Bush contains authority for the Treasury to purchase mortgages directly. And it's true that Obama has called for a component of the buyout plan to include direct purchase of mortgages to alleviate homeowners struggling to make payments. Finally, it's true that Clinton sketched out a plan last spring that shared some of the goals and traits of McCain's proposal. The method McCain proposes — buying mortgages at their original value and renegotiating at the current market value (with taxpayers picking up the difference) — is indeed new. But while McCain can rightly take credit for the details of his proposal, he is by no means alone with the idea of having the federal government buy mortgages directly. We rate his statement Mostly True

Barack Obama's plan calls for "mandates and fines for small businesses. At the second presidential debate in Nashville, John McCain attacked Barack Obama's health care plan. Obama's plan calls for "mandates and fines for small businesses," McCain said. "If you're a small business person and you don't insure your employees, Senator Obama will fine you — will fine you. That's remarkable," McCain said. But we find that when you dig into the nitty gritty of Obama's plan, that's not the case. Obama's plan expands health care coverage for those who don't have it by a number of strategies, such as creating national pools for individuals to buy their own insurance. It increases eligibility for the poor and children to enroll in initiatives like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. And it aims at reining in costs for everyone by streamlining medical record-keeping and emphasizing preventive care. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Obama's plan does not mandate coverage, except for children. Obama said often during the Democratic primary campaign that he did not include a mandate for adults so as not to penalize people with modest incomes. If there's a mandate on anyone to purchase health care, the mandate would be on parents, not small businesses. Obama's plan says that employers who don't offer their employees insurance will be required to contribute to the national pool. Obama's plan exempts small businesses from contributing to the pool. The plan does not define what's a small business and what's not. McCain calls this a "fine," but being required to contribute to a pool is not the same as paying a penalty for some wrongdoing. So even by a generous definition, Obama does not fine "small businesses." Indeed, they are not even subject to the mandate. We rate McCain's claim False

John McCain "is proposing tax cuts that would give the average Fortune 500 CEO an additional $700,000 in tax cuts. In a debate in Nashville on Oct. 7, 2008, Barack Obama and John McCain tussled over tax policy. Obama, responding to a question about fiscal responsibility, said the federal debt needs to be reduced in a way that shares the burden fairly. "Now, when Senator McCain is proposing tax cuts that would give the average Fortune 500 CEO an additional $700,000 in tax cuts, that's not sharing a burden." To come up with that number, the Obama campaign cites an average CEO salary of $12.8-million and a tax savings of 5.5 percent for the top earners during the year 2012 under a McCain administration. That comes to about $705,000. The math is accurate, but the numbers require a small amount of explanation. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The $12.8-million comes from a Forbes magazine study of the average CEO compensation in 2007 for the 500 largest companies. Technically speaking, this would not be the Fortune 500, a listing compiled by Fortune magazine. An extremely minor point, but we note it to give Forbes its due for compiling the study. The 5.5 percent tax savings comes from the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, which estimated tax impact for income brackets under the McCain plan. They created an analysis that draws on the candidates' campaign stump speeches, and found that according to those proposals, the top 0.1 percent of taxpayers would get a 5.5 percent decrease in their tax rates in 2012 under McCain's plan. That comes to $700,000. But the center also did an analysis based on information from the candidates' economic advisers, and those policies are slightly more conservative than what the candidates say in their stump speeches. For example, the candidates will talk about a proposal as if it will begin immediately, when the advisers say it will actually be phased in. Using the more conservative analysis, CEOs would receive a tax rate decrease of 2.1 percent, or about $270,000. That's still a big number, but not quite as big as $700,000. It's not surprising that candidates select the numbers most advantageous to their argument, but it's worth noting that there is a different way to look at this calculation that is also valid. Still, Obama is using credible numbers from independent sources to make his point. It does seem that high earners do better under John McCain's plan. We rate his statement Mostly True

"Two years ago...I wrote to Secretary Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke, and told them [subprime lending] is something we have to deal with. As the U.S. and world economic systems continue to falter, both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama claim to have seen the crisis coming to some degree, and tried to head it off. McCain has cited his endorsement of legislation in 2006 that would have reined in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac somewhat. And at the second presidential debate, Obama cited a letter he wrote to federal officials "two years ago." "Understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system," Obama said during the Oct. 7, 2008 debate. "Senator McCain, as recently as March, bragged about the fact that he is a deregulator. On the other hand, two years ago, I said that we've got a subprime lending crisis that has to be dealt with. "I wrote to (Treasury) Secretary (Henry) Paulson, I wrote to Federal Reserve Chairman (Ben) Bernanke, and told them this is something we have to deal with, and nobody did anything about it." The last sentence appeared to refer to this letter that Obama sent to Paulson and Bernanke on March 22, 2007. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Obama's comments in the debate suggest the letter warned about the then-looming subprime lending crisis and its potential impact on the wider economy. So let's check the text. "There is grave concern in low-income communities about a potential coming wave of foreclosures," he wrote. "We cannot sit on the sidelines while increasing numbers of American families face the risk of losing their homes." He went on to suggest the two officials convene a homeownership-preservation summit where banks, investors, regulators and consumers could forge a plan to stave off foreclosures. "Rampant foreclosures are in nobody’s interest... There is an opportunity here to bring different interests together in the best interests of American homeowners and the American economy," he wrote. So yes, Obama characterized the letter accurately. In it, he not only called for action to head off the unraveling of the subprime mortgage market, but also warned about its impact on the nation's economy. He sent the letter about 18 months ago, a time frame for which "two years" is a fair estimate. We find his claim to be True

"Senator McCain has been talking tough about earmarks, and that's good, but earmarks account for about $18-billion of our budget. The presidential candidates argued about the economy and fiscal policy at a debate on Oct. 7, 2008, in Nashville. Barack Obama criticized John McCain's talk of earmarks, saying that cutting earmarks would not significantly affect the federal deficit. "Senator McCain has been talking tough about earmarks, and that's good, but earmarks account for about $18-billion of our budget," Obama said. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Fiscal conservatives concerned about the national debt — which is now more than $9-trillion in total — often mention earmarks as something that needs fixing. But earmarks are only a small part of the problem. According to an Office of Management and Budget tally, earmarks totaled $18-billion for the 2008 budget, or roughly 10 percent of the deficit for that year. Another report found that appropriations bills in fiscal year 2008 included $16.5 billion for earmarks. Those numbers are lower than previous years because earmarking dropped considerably following the congressional lobbying scandals of 2005 and 2006. But even at their peak in 2005, when earmarks hit $52-billion, according to the Congressional Research Service and the OMB, that was only 16 percent of that year’s deficit of $318-billion. The numbers show Obama gets his earmark number correct. We rate his statement True

"1.3-million people in America make their living off eBay. Asked during the second presidential debate whom he would consider for treasury secretary, Sen. John McCain floated the name of former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman, then talked her up with an astounding statistic. "I like Meg Whitman," McCain said during the Oct. 7, 2008, debate. "She knows what it's like to be out there in the marketplace. She knows how to create jobs. Meg Whitman was the CEO of a company that started with 12 people and is now — 1.3-million people in America make their living off eBay." That's way off. We hate to nitpick apparent misstatements, but this one's a doozy — 1.3-million is the number of people worldwide who make some money off eBay, according to a 2006 A.C. Nielsen study. As of 2003, some 20,000 Americans made their living off eBay, company executive Jim Griffith told a Colorado newspaper at the time. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 These days, the company only keeps track of eBay entrepreneurs worldwide, and doesn't distinguish between full time and part time online auctioneers, a representative told us. But it's not conceivable that the number of Americans making a living off eBay has climbed to 1.3-million. In 2005, the latest year for which statistics are available, just 724,000 Americans made money selling on eBay, according to a Nielsen study. But that includes many who made just a few bucks – not a living. We examined this issue before , when McCain said 50,000 Americans made their living off eBay. The company told us it didn't know where he got that number, but we gave him a Half True because we couldn't be certain he was wrong. This time, his number is more than a million higher, and not even conceivably true. McCain bought himself a False

"Senator Obama has voted 94 times to either increase your taxes or against tax cuts. As the presidential campaign heads into its final weeks, John McCain’s camp increasingly is portraying Barack Obama as a classic liberal who has never met a tax hike that he can’t support. McCain’s camp contends Obama’s addiction to taxes would further weaken the already staggering economy by placing new burdens on middle-class Americans and prompting U.S. corporations to shift more jobs overseas. This line of attack allows McCain and his proxies to point to the Arizona Republican’s lengthy record in Congress of opposing tax increases while supporting reduced federal spending. During the second presidential debate in Nashville, Tenn., McCain made the charge directly. "Senator Obama has voted 94 times to either increase your taxes or against tax cuts. That's his record." Ninety-four times? Not that we could find. The tally more accurately demonstrates how easy it is to distort a candidate’s record by characterizing in broad strokes complicated bills and resolutions that contain myriad policy proposals. The 94-vote count first appeared in a June 9 Republican National Committee “tax backgrounder” that purported to document the tax increases Obama proposed or supported in the U.S. Senate and Illinois Legislature, when he served in the state Senate. The RNC didn’t respond to a request from PolitiFact to provide a breakdown of all 94 votes it says its research staff unearthed. It indicated the results were gleaned using the Library of Congress’ legislative search engine, Thomas (named for Thomas Jefferson and found here ). With the right query, it’s possible to get that result, but the GOP’s list is misleading for a number of reasons. First, it counts votes on Democratic budget resolutions, which set nonbinding parameters for considering tax and spending legislation but don’t have the force of law. For example, the Republicans cite Obama’s votes in support of a fiscal 2009 budget resolution they say would raise taxes on individuals earning as little as $31,850. We’ve previously dealt with this claim and ruled it False . The document assumes that many of President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts will be allowed to expire at the end of 2010, or that their cost will be offset by new sources of revenues. Republicans point to this as evidence that Democrats want to raise taxes. But the documents don’t have line items on tax proposals. And even if they did, they would amount to little more than political statements, because the documents cannot change tax law. So voting in favor of the resolution isn’t akin to voting to raise taxes. The budget resolutions do provide a perennial source of fodder for incendiary claims because while they’re largely symbolic, they prompt lengthy debates with numerous votes. Obama voted on 43 occasions with the majority of Democrats during various stages of debate on the 2009 budget resolution, including instances in which he helped defeat Republican proposals dealing with borrowing from the Social Security trust fund and erecting new procedural hurdles to any legislation that would raise income taxes. The 94-vote list also takes liberties characterizing which votes actually are “for higher taxes.” McCain’s folks count Obama’s opposition to extending lower tax rates for dividends and capital gains (at least nine votes), and his votes against exemptions to the Alternative Minimum Tax for middle-class taxpayers (at least five votes). These proposals were hallmarks of Republican efforts to extend a variety of popular tax breaks that were expiring when the GOP controlled Congress. Many Democrats, including Obama, opposed them as fiscally irresponsible and primarily benefitting the rich. But if voting against a tax cut is the same as voting for higher taxes, then it’s worth noting McCain’s rather well-documented record in this regard. In 2001, McCain antagonized conservatives when he voted against President Bush’s tax cuts, saying they needed to be paired up with equivalent cuts in spending. He voted against the 2003 round of cuts, too. We give McCain credit for adding the phrase "or against tax cuts" to Obama’s list of alleged misdeeds, because unlike the RNC tax backgrounder, this captures the essence of at least 20 of his documented votes. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 However, McCain and the RNC both fail to note that some of the other votes would not have resulted in a net tax increase, but instead redistributed the burden among different payers. The 94-vote tally, for example, cites Obama’s support of higher taxes on the oil and gas industries. But some of those Democratic tax plans that would have eliminated a tax break for domestic production or imposed a “windfall profits” tax on the biggest oil companies would have applied the proceeds to wind energy, cellulosic ethanol, geothermal power and other emerging energy sources that produce less pollution than traditional sources. They also would have created a new incentive for consumers to buy plug-in hybrid cars and extend tax breaks for energy-efficient homes and businesses. The Obama campaign says the 94-vote figure is dishonest and misleading, and with a wink compiled its own list of McCain votes, using his camp’s methodology. The results: the Republican candidate voted for higher taxes 477 times since arriving in Congress in 1982, including 105 occasions since 2005. Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden invoked the 477 figure during the vice presidential debate when Gov. Sarah Palin made the very same 94-vote charge. Biden said, “It’s a bogus standard.” We didn't track down all 477 votes the Democrats claimed, but we looked at a few and found that McCain, indeed, could be depicted as having voted to raise multiple taxes, just as Obama did, if one reads the fine print. For example, in May 2006, McCain voted for a massive fiscal 2006 tax and spending bill that, among other things, increased excise taxes on public charities and expanded the base of the tax on private foundation investment income. These revenue-raisers helped offset $70-billion in tax cuts, including reduced rates on capital gains and dividends and writeoffs for small businesses, according to a summary prepared by the Joint Committee on Taxation. In 1997, McCain voted for a $100.4-billion, five-year tax cut package that, among other things, raised cigarette taxes 10 cents per pack in 2000 and 15 cents per pack in 2002. In the record, there are many instances in which Obama supported actual tax increases. We found more than 20 examples, such as an August 2007 vote on legislation to expand the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that called for increasing the federal cigarette tax by 61 cents per pack, to $1. Obama also supported a plan enacted in June to pay for a new veterans’ education benefit by levying a new 0.5 percent surtax on individuals who make more than $500,000 or couples who make more than $1-million in adjusted gross income annually. But 94 still is awfully far away. The McCain campaign could easily claim that Obama has "repeatedly" supported higher taxes according to his record in the Senate. But by using such a precise number, the McCain campaign's charge carries a greater level of authority and credibility, which it really doesn't deserve. It's not merely that their count is wrong, but that they're misleading with their attempt at unsupported precision. We say False

"Oil companies ...currently have 68-million acres that they're not using. In the second presidential debate on Oct. 7, 2008, Sen. Barack Obama listed energy independence as one of the nation's biggest priorities, and touched briefly on the controversial issue of whether to open up new areas to offshore drilling. "I believe in the need for increased oil production," Obama said. "We're going to have to explore new ways to get more oil, and that includes offshore drilling. It includes telling the oil companies, that currently have 68-million acres that they're not using, that either you use them or you lose them." Obama has been a consistent opponent to opening new areas to offshore drilling. But in early August, Obama softened that position when he said he was open to supporting the New Energy Reform Act of 2008, a bipartisan compromise bill that includes alternative energy incentives that Obama wants — such as $84-billion over 10 years on research and development of better batteries, fuels and energy-saving technologies and tax incentives for people who buy hybrid and alternative-fuel cars — but also would allow drilling for oil and natural gas as close as 50 miles from Florida’s west coast. As he did in the debate, Obama has often bolstered his case against moving too fast on drilling with the argument that before opening up new areas to drilling, oil companies should be required to drill the acreage they already have. Obama is echoing a June report from the Democratic staff of the House Natural Resources Committee, which cited the fiscal 2007 statistics from the Interior Department's Minerals Revenue Management that classified 67,055,715 acres of oil and gas leases as "non-producing." The line sounds good as a Democratic rebuttal to Republican demands that Democrats move to allow drilling in Alaska's protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and offshore areas that also are currently off limits to the oil and gas companies. A Democratic House bill would bar new oil and gas leases to leaseholders who have not met benchmarks to "ensure" oil and gas production within five years on the leases they already hold. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 But Obama's statement is misleading, inasmuch as it suggests that oil and gas companies have access to 68-million acres of oil and gas fields that they deliberately are not drilling. What Obama did not take into account is the long, complex process that companies must work through, both in federal red tape and in geologic exploration, before leased property becomes a producing oil or gas field. The government classifies that acreage as "non-producing" simply because the companies aren't taking oil and natural gas out of it now. David Curtiss, director of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists' Geoscience and Energy Office in Washington, D.C., says it's wrong to assume that "the only lease that is being actively worked is one that has a drill rig on it." The Interior Department issues leases for onshore territory for 10-year initial terms. The department issues offshore leases for five-, eight- or 10-year initial terms, depending on the depth of the water. Dave Smith, a spokesman for the department's Minerals Management Service, which handles offshore leases, says those initial terms are calculated according to how long the government thinks it will take oil and gas companies to find and start producing oil or gas. For both onshore and offshore leases, the companies have to comply with government permitting requirements as they undertake a lengthy scientific exploration process that culminates in test drilling to determine whether there is enough oil or natural gas in a particular spot to warrant full-scale drilling. All the while, the companies are paying rent to the federal government for acreage that is classified as "non-producing." It can take more than 10 years for a company to start producing oil or natural gas from a leased parcel, but as long as the company can demonstrate that it is making serious efforts to find some, the leases are extended. If the company cannot show that it's actively working the parcel, the lease is not renewed. Sometimes companies don't renew leases if their early work leads them to believe adequate reserves of oil or gas don't exist. Obama's statement suggests that "non-producing" acreage where drilling is permitted is land that oil companies are ignoring. That is simply not true. Years of exploration and federal permitting must be completed before leased land yields oil or gas. As a result, we find Obama's claim to be False

"I have disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue" of global warming During the second presidential debate, Sen. John McCain drew a distinction with President Bush on the issue of global warming. "We have an issue that we may hand our children and our grandchildren a damaged planet," McCain said when environmental issues arose during the Oct. 7, 2008, debate. "I have disagreed strongly with the Bush administration on this issue." He went on to say he traveled all over the world looking at the effects of greenhouse gas emissions, and introduced legislation on the subject of global warming. But let's check the record – as we have in the past when McCain made similar claims on the campaign trail – and see if he was in fact at odds with Bush on global warming. McCain spoke up about global warming in January 2003. And as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, he held hearings on the issue several years before that. On Jan. 9, 2003, McCain and Sen. Joe Liberman introduced the Lieberman-McCain Climate Stewardship Act, which sought to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by capping them and allowing companies and utilities to sell or trade their emission rights. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 When he introduced the bill, McCain called it "the first comprehensive piece of legislation" in capping emissions. "The U.S. is responsible for 25 percent of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions," he said. "It is time for the U.S. government to do its part to address this global problem, and legislation on mandatory reductions is the form of leadership that is required to address this global problem." By contrast, the Bush administration has opposed cap-and-trade programs and preferred voluntary efforts on climate change. Manik Roy, director of congressional affairs for the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said McCain had actually been working on the climate change bill in 2001, but it got delayed after the 9/11 attacks. The Lieberman-McCain bill ultimately failed in October 2003 by a 43-55 vote, but Roy said it was a key step in "educating the Senate" about how government could respond to global warming. "It is absolutely correct that McCain stood up on this issue, forced the Senate to focus on this issue when nobody else thought it made sense and did it with strong opposition from the White House," Roy said. He called McCain "a huge leader on this issue in the Senate." And so we find McCain's statement to be True

"Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers's home. And they've worked together on various projects in Chicago. We at PolitiFact wondered when the toaster would pop on the William Ayers -Sen. Barack Obama connection. Back in the primary, Sens. Hillary Clinton and John McCain made some political hay of Obama’s relationship with Ayers, a onetime member of the Weather Underground, a leftist fringe of the 1960s antiwar movement that was responsible for bombings at several federal buildings in the early 1970s. PolitiFact looked at the claim then and found from 1999 to 2001, Obama and Ayers served overlapping terms on the board of directors for the Woods Fund, a philanthropic organization in Chicago. We also noted that campaign finance reports show Ayers donated $200 to Obama’s state senate re-election campaign in 2001. Since the general election began, the McCain campaign had largely kept the issue on the shelf. But with the economy sagging and McCain’s numbers dipping in the polls, an Oct. 3, 2008, a story in the New York Times that added some new details to the association between the two provided the McCain campaign just enough kindling to revisit Obama’s long-ago association with the controversial figure. And now, Gov. Sarah Palin is running with it. "Well, I was reading my copy of The New York Times the other day, and I was really interested to read about Barack’s friends from Chicago," Palin said at a rally in Clearwater, Fla., on Oct. 6. "Turns out, one of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers. And according to The New York Times , he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, ‘launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.’ Wow. "And there’s even more to the story," Palin said. "Barack Obama said Ayers was just someone in the neighborhood. But that’s less than truthful. His own top advisor said they were, quote, ‘certainly friendly.’ In fact, Obama held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers’s home. And they’ve worked together on various projects in Chicago." First, a little background on Ayers. He was, in fact, a founding member of a group known as the Weathermen, who were responsible for bombings of the New York City police headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971 and of the Pentagon in 1972 in protest of the Vietnam War. Ayers and his wife, Bernardine Dohrn, also a Weather Underground member, spent years as fugitives in the 1970s, but federal riot and bombing conspiracy charges were dropped in 1974 because of illegal wiretaps and other prosecutorial misconduct. Since then, Ayers has rehabilitated his image with many in the Chicago community, including Mayor Richard M. Daley. Ayers is now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago and has developed a reputation as an advocate for school reform. Which is, according to Ben LaBolt, an Obama campaign spokesman, how the two met. The recent New York Times story added to the understanding of Obama's association with Ayers, through an education project. Ayers helped Chicago win nearly $50 million for Chicago schools as part of a national school reform project, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 In March 1995, Obama was named chair of the six-member Chicago Annenberg Challenge board that distributed the grants. A New York Times review of archives of the Chicago Annenberg project found that the two attended six board meetings together. Later that year, the Ayers’ hosted a coffee at which Illinois State Sen. Alice Palmer, who planned to run for Congress, introduced Obama to some of her long-time supporters as her chosen successor. According to the New York Times story, it was one of several neighborhood events held that year on Obama’s behalf, and it was not the first. Obama campaign officials also note the event at Ayers’ home was not a fundraiser. And they claim that Obama did not know Ayers’ history with the Weather Underground at that time. They did not say when Obama found that out. Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt told PolitiFact the two have not communicated by phone or e-mail since Obama became a U.S. senator in 2005, and that they last spoke to one another about a year ago, when they bumped into each other in the neighborhood - they live just a few blocks apart. "The suggestion that Ayers was a political adviser to Obama or someone who shaped his political views is patently false," LaBolt said. "As the New York Times confirmed, the two were not close." Asked about his relationship at a Democratic debate on April 16, 2008, Obama said, "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. "And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn’t make much sense." For what it’s worth, the story Palin cited in her comments, the Oct. 3, 2008, New York Times piece, concluded after a review of Chicago Annenberg archives and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, that Obama "has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers...But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers." In previous speeches the day before her appearance in Clearwater, Palin accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists." We think that statement goes too far, and is just false, as there is no evidence that Obama has had any relationship with Ayers as a U.S. senator. But let’s review what Palin said in Clearwater, and weigh it against the facts as we know them. Palin called Ayers one of Obama’s "earliest supporters" and said Obama "held one of the first meetings of his political career in Bill Ayers’ home." Obama campaign officials acknowledge Ayers hosted a coffee in 1995, the purpose of which was to introduce Obama to some local political players leading up to his first run for public office. Obama campaign officials say Obama didn’t know Ayers’ past at that time, and McCain campaign officials wonder why this week was the first time that has ever been mentioned. Make of that what you will, but that part of Palin’s statement is true. Palin said Ayers was a "domestic terrorist." The Weather Undergound group was labeled a "domestic terrorist group" by the FBI, and Ayers was a founding member of the group, but charges against him were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct. Palin said Obama claimed Ayers was "just someone in the neighborhood," but her remark ignored Obama's condemnation of Ayers in that very sentence she quotes. Obama did seem to downplay his relationship with Ayers, stating that he was "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," but Obama in that same answer acknowledged that he knew Ayers and called his actions 40 years ago "detestable" and said they do not reflect his own values. Lastly, Palin said Obama and Ayers have "worked together on various projects in Chicago." They were both involved with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. And they both served for a time as directors of the Woods Fund. Neither chose the other to work with either group. Voters can decide for themselves how much stock to put in all that. And they may disagree with the implications that are inherent in Palin mentioning such connections. Palin generally has her facts right here, but she ignores an important element -- Obama's condemnation of Ayers' history -- and implies a closer relationship than the record supports. We find her claim Mostly True

McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators... that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers Days after Sen. John McCain's campaign started attacking Sen. Barack Obama's past association with the 1970s radical William Ayers, Obama's campaign countered with a 13-minute Web video on McCain's history with convicted banker Charles Keating, Jr. The documentary burrows deep into the details of McCain's role in the Keating Five, a quintet of senators investigated for pressuring regulators on Keating's behalf prior to his notoriety as a villain in the late 1980's savings-and-loan crisis. This sentence, from a blurb introducing the video on a Web site set up by the Obama campaign on Oct. 6, 2008, best encapsulates their attack: "McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry – actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers." Let's check the evidence. Keating and McCain, both former Navy fliers, met at a Navy League dinner in 1981, and became friends and mutual supporters. Keating, a prominent Arizona banker, organized fundraisers for McCain's campaigns for the House and later the Senate, and donated $112,000 to McCain by 1987. He also hosted the McCain family at least nine times at his lavish vacation home in Cat Cay, Bahamas. "I genuinely liked him and enjoyed being around him, especially on those occasions when Cindy and I and our oldest child, Meghan, were invited to his family's vacation home in the Bahamas," McCain wrote in his 2002 book Worth the Fighting For: A Memoir . Keating complained frequently to McCain about regulations – and regulators – that he said threatened the success of the Lincoln Savings and Loan, a subsidiary of Keating's American Continental Corp. McCain was persuaded to act. On two occasions in 1987, he and fellow Sens. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, John Glenn of Ohio and – in the second meeting – Don Riegle of Michigan, (all Democrats aside from McCain), met with federal regulators at Keating's request and asked them to back off Lincoln. During the second meeting, the regulators told the senators they suspected Lincoln of criminal misconduct, and intended to refer the matter to the Department of Justice. That took the senators aback – McCain, in particular, did nothing more on the matter after the regulators mentioned criminality, a Senate investigation later found. The regulators went on to recommend a criminal investigation of Lincoln, but little came of the recommendation until the government seized the failing institution in 1989. Different players in the drama have different interpretations of whether the senators' involvement delayed the investigation. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 But it is clear that indeed McCain "intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud," as the Obama campaign claimed. In fact, McCain had intervened on Keating's behalf before. Having "heard frequently from Charlie" about a proposed savings-and-loan regulation called the "direct investment rule," Mcain tried to fight the regulation or get an exemption for Lincoln, he wrote in his book. "I sent or cosigned as many as five letters to (Federal Home Loan Bank Board Chair) Ed Gray and White House officials, and in January 1985, I cosponsored a House resolution calling for the promulgation of the regulation to be postponed," McCain wrote. "All such efforts came to naught, however. The rule was promulgated on schedule, and Lincoln's application for an exemption was rejected." So yes, McCain also "championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry," the second component of the Obama campaign's claim. But here we have a quibble with the Obama campaign. It's hard to see how McCain's championing of the legislation "allowed Keating to continue his fraud," since the legislation failed. The Obama campaign did not respond to our requests to defend its claim. It's also important to note that the Senate Ethics Committee, after a 14-month investigation into the Keating Five, largely exonerated McCain, citing him only for "poor judgment." "The Committee concludes that Senator McCain exercised poor judgment in intervening with the regulators," the committee said in a statement at the conclusion of its investigation in 1991. "Senator McCain has violated no law of the United States or specific Rule of the United States Senate."' Nevertheless, revelations about his relationship to Keating tarred McCain. He did not reimburse Keating for $13,433 worth of airfare to Keating's home in the Bahamas until the trips were exposed years later by reporters in Arizona. And reporters also discovered that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a shopping center with Keating in 1986. Keating was convicted in 1993 of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud, and served 50 months before the conviction was overturned because the jury had been told of his conviction in state court. In 1999 he pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud and was sentenced to time served. The government seizure of Lincoln cost taxpayers more than $2 billion, a sum that many would find "incredible," as the Obama campaign claimed. So it's clear that McCain did "intervene on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators" – language lifted almost directly from the Senate committee report. And McCain also "championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry" – as he acknowledged in his own book. It's debatable whether the first of those actions "allowed Keating to continue his fraud," and the second certainly didn't, since the legislation didn't pass. But yes, Keating's fraud did exact a huge cost from taxpayers. We find this claim Mostly True

"John McCain voted against funding the troops because of . . . a timeline in it to draw down American troops. UPDATED: We updated this item on Oct. 6 and changed the ruling to True. See explanation at end. During an exchange with Sarah Palin in the St. Louis vice presidential debate on Oct. 2, 2008, Joe Biden tried to rebut a charge that Barack Obama had failed to "fund the troops" in Iraq by saying John McCain had done the same thing on a different bill. Palin began the exchange by saying that "Barack Obama voted against funding troops there after promising that he would not do so. And Senator Biden, I respected you when you called him out on that. You said that his vote was political and you said it would cost lives. And Barack Obama at first said he would not do that. He turned around under political pressure and he voted against funding the troops." Biden replied that Obama had offered a withdrawal plan that would shift responsibility to the Iraqis over the next 16 months and would draw down U.S. combat troops. As for the allegation about failing to fund the troops, Biden said, "John McCain voted the exact same way. John McCain voted against funding the troops because of an amendment he voted against had a timeline in it to draw down American troops. And John said I'm not going to fund the troops if in fact there's a timeline." Republicans candidates have charged that Obama "failed to fund the troops" because of his May 24, 2007, vote against an appropriations bill that included funding for the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. (It passed, 80-14.) We addressed that charge in this item and found it was misleading to say Obama did not want to fund the troops. We noted that Obama's primary reason was that the bill lacked a timetable for withdrawal. “We must fund our troops," he said at the time. "But we owe them something more. We owe them a clear, prudent plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else's civil war. ... We must negotiate a better plan that funds our troops, signals to the Iraqis that it is time for them to act and that begins to bring our brave servicemen and women home safely and responsibly.” Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Biden's rebuttal in the vice presidential debate seems to be a reference to a war spending bill that first passed the Senate in March 2007. When Biden refers to an "amendment," we believe he was referring to the provision that would require a withdrawal of troops. And Biden is correct that McCain voted against the bill when it included that requirement. The bill, H.R. 1591 , included $97 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and set a goal to withdraw most U.S. troops in Iraq by 2008. It passed 51-47 but was opposed by most Republicans because of its timetable for withdrawal. McCain said he opposed the bill because it had been loaded with political pork and because it required a withdrawal regardless of conditions in Iraq. "Such a mandate would have grave consequences for the future of Iraq, the stability of the Middle East and the security of Americans at home and abroad. For these reasons, I do not support this bill," McCain said at the time. (The bill passed but was vetoed by President Bush.) Biden is right that McCain opposed a war spending bill. We find Biden's statement True. UPDATE: We originally rated Biden's statement Half True because, although McCain had issued a statement opposing the bill, he missed the vote on the bill on April 26, 2007. But after a reader called our attention to this vote, which occurred one month earlier, we changed our ruling to True

"As mayor, every year I was in office I did reduce taxes. In the vice presidential debate on Oct. 2, 2008, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin reached back to her tenure as mayor of a small Alaska town to make a point that she has some history as a tax cutter. "I’m going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," Palin said. "As mayor, every year I was in office I did reduce taxes. I eliminated personal property taxes and eliminated small business inventory taxes and as governor we suspended our state fuel tax. We did all of those things knowing that that is how our economy would be heated up." We’re going to focus here on the claims Palin makes about her record as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, from 1996 to 2002. During that time, Wasilla’s property tax rate did inch down year after year, from 2 mills to 0.5 mills. But did taxes actually go down? That depends on how you define taxes. The overall amount of taxes collected increased by 25 percent under Palin. According to a review of Wasilla's financial reports, the amount of revenue taken in during 1996 was $6,070,806 and rose to $8,710,166 in 2002. That’s a 43 percent increase (25 percent when adjusted for inflation). So how is it possible to lower the property tax rate but take in more in taxes? The simple answer is sales tax. The sales tax is overwhelmingly the chief source of revenue in Wasilla. In 2002, the sales tax brought in nearly $6-million, compared to $343,000 from property taxes. And according to a city analysis, the amount of money brought in by the sales tax increased each year, by a total of about 50 percent between 1997 and 2002. That's a testament to economic growth in Wasilla, said current Mayor Diane M. Keller. In fact, under Keller, property taxes were later eliminated. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The increased sales tax revenues allowed Palin to cut the property tax rate each year at the same time spending increased. The operating budget for Wasilla went from $6,050,160 in fiscal year 1996 to $9,393,768 in 2002, according to figures provided by the city. That’s a 55 percent increase (35 percent when adjusted for inflation). While the property tax rate decreased on Palin's watch, the sales tax rate increased from 2 percent to 2.5 percent. The increase was approved by voter referendum to pay for construction of a multiuse sports complex. Due to the economic growth in the community, Keller said, Wasilla is going to be able to stop charging that extra 0.5 percent sales tax two years earlier than anticipated. Under Palin’s mayorship, the city also took on an additional $23.7-million in long-term debt to finance the sports complex as well as for street and water projects. According to Keller, much of the additional spending under Palin was due to the growth of the city during those six years, both economically and in increased population. Palin is right when she says personal property tax and business inventory taxes were eliminated. But those cuts were mostly offset by an increase in a vehicle tax enacted by Matanuska-Susitna Borough — the equivalent of a county in many states — where Wasilla is located. A portion of the vehicle tax is distributed to Wasilla. According to a Dec. 24, 1997, article in the Anchorage Daily News , the elimination of Wasilla's personal property tax and business inventory taxes amounted to a revenue loss of about $93,000 a year. The borough's vehicle tax increase brought Wasilla an additional $70,000 a year. Palin can rightly claim that the property tax rate decreased when she was mayor. But she fails to note that while property tax rates went down, sales tax revenues went up. Some may not consider that a tax increase. But in addition to more revenue from increased economic activity, the sales tax rate also was increased. That increase was tied to funding a new sports complex, and was passed by referendum, but it’s still an additional tax. And so we find Palin's statement Half True

"We're building a nearly $40-billion natural gas pipeline, which is North America's largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever. In the vice presidential debate, Gov. Sarah Palin repeated claims she has made from time to time about a plan to build a natural gas pipeline in Alaska. After arguing the wisdom of the chant, "Drill, baby, drill" — heard frequently at McCain-Palin rallies — she followed up with this: "Even in my own energy-producing state we have billions of barrels of oil and hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of clean, green natural gas. And we're building a nearly $40-billion natural gas pipeline — which is North America's largest and most expensive infrastructure project ever — to flow those sources of energy into hungry markets." It certainly would be something to boast about if Alaska had started building a natural gas pipeline under Palin. The state has been trying to get a pipeline built from its natural gas-rich North Slope for some three decades. But her claim is premature. We've scrutinized her claims on the pipeline before (see our review of her claim about the cost here and a look at the status of the project here ) and found them less than accurate. Palin did spearhead a plan under which TransCanada Corp., a Canadian company, will get $500-million in state funds to design and seek approvals for the pipeline. But they are not obligated to build it. Financing and approvals are far from certain, and the company can back out even if those contingencies come through. TransCanada does not anticipate construction beginning until at least 2015, and several experts we spoke to were skeptical that the company's plan would come to fruition. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 "I'll believe it when I see it," said Sarah Ladislaw, a fellow specializing in Western Hemispheric energy issues at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Palin has repeatedly mischaracterized the agreement with TransCanada. In a news conference in Alaska on Aug. 1, 2008, she said the state never before had "commitments to build this line. Now we do." In its news story the next day, the Anchorage Daily News wrote: "That's incorrect. TransCanada has not promised to actually build the gas line, one of the state's grandest and most frustrated economic development dreams." Now what about Palin's claim that the pipeline would cost "nearly $40-billion"? We're not sure where she got that figure — neither her office in Alaska nor the McCain campaign has ever returned our calls to tell us. TransCanada estimates the cost at $26-billion. Yes, there could be cost overruns. But experts were skeptical the price could reach Palin's estimate. Palin was certainly wrong that the pipeline would be the "most expensive infrastructure project ever." What we suspect she meant to say — and has said repeatedly in the past — is that it would be the most expensive privately funded infrastructure project ever. But she's probably wrong on that count, too. We talked to several experts in pipelines and large-scale engineering projects, who said the only private infrastructure project on the scale of Palin's proposed pipeline was the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, an oil pipeline also from the North Slope that is often referred to as the Alaska Pipeline. The Alaska Pipeline was completed in 1977 at a cost of $8-billion. In 2007 dollars that would be just over $27-billion, edging out Palin's proposed natural gas pipeline. While there are plans on the drawing board to build a pipeline, and Palin moved them forward in certain respects as governor, her claim in the debate suggests construction is underway, when that's not true. And she overstated the estimated cost of the project. We find her claim to be False

"You had supported John McCain's military strategies pretty adamantly until this race. During the vice presidential debate in St. Louis, Gov. Sarah Palin claimed that before the presidential campaign, Sen. Joe Biden agreed more with Sen. John McCain than with Sen. Barack Obama on military matters. Her claim came during a discussion of the Iraq war. "You're one who says, as so many politicians do, I was for it before I was against it or vice-versa," Palin said during the Oct. 2, 2008, debate. "Americans are craving that straight talk and just want to know, hey, if you voted for it, tell us why you voted for it and it was a war resolution. "And you had supported John McCain's military strategies pretty adamantly until this race and you had opposed very adamantly Barack Obama's military strategy, including cutting off funding for the troops — that attempt all through the primary." Palin was correct to say that both Biden and McCain voted to authorize the Iraq war in 2002, and voted for a military-funding bill that Obama opposed in 2007. But was she right to state broadly that Biden "supported McCain's military strategies pretty adamantly"? First let's look closely at just how adamant Biden and McCain were about voting for the Iraq war resolution. McCain was a strong supporter of granting Bush broad authority to invade pre-emptively. "The president has spoken clearly of the threat Saddam Hussein's regime poses to America and the world today," he said in the Senate on Oct. 10, 2002, the day before the vote. "In this new era, preventive action to target rogue regimes is not only imaginable but necessary ... In the new era we entered last September, warning of an attack before it happens is a luxury we cannot expect." By contrast, Biden was a reluctant supporter of the resolution. Before it was approved, he and Sen. Richard Lugar, the Indiana Republican, offered an unsuccessful alternative resolution narrowing the goal of American military action to disarming Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, and emphasizing multinational support for any military action. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 When Biden did vote for the resolution, he voiced misgivings. "I find myself supporting this resolution but worried that supporting this resolution will get us into real trouble," he said in the Senate on Oct. 10, 2002. "I hope we don't walk out of here with my voting for this final document and somebody six months from now or six years from now will say we have the right now to establish this new doctrine of pre-emption and go wherever we want anytime." So he did not support McCain's position on the war resolution "pretty adamantly." More like pretty reluctantly. The other example to which Palin referred of Biden siding with McCain rather than Obama was their vote in favor of a military funding bill on May 24, 2007. Obama voted against the measure because it did not include a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Here's what Biden said about his vote on CNN on May 27, 2007: "I'm not going to use the troops as a pawn in this game...I've worked very hard...on getting these new mine-resistant vehicles into the field, which will cut casualties by two-thirds...We delay this funding, it kicks down the road another two to three months before these vehicles get on the road." That's pretty adamant. But there's a major area of military strategy on which Biden and McCain have not agreed: the surge. McCain pushed for an influx of troops to Iraq for several years before Bush finally adopted the strategy in early 2007. For that reason, it is the military strategy most closely associated with McCain. But Biden spoke out against it forcefully. On Meet the Press on Jan. 7, 2007, Biden said a surge would be "a tragic mistake." In April 2007, he told the Washington Post the surge would not succeed. He even singled out McCain as misguided. "Assume the surge worked, then what?" he told the Post . "Stay there forever?" So Biden "supported McCain's military strategies pretty adamantly," as Palin claimed, only when it came to military funding. He voted to authorize the war, but his reluctance stood in stark contrast to McCain's zeal. And he and McCain were utterly at odds on the surge. We find Palin's claim to be Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

John McCain said "he wouldn't even sit down with the government of Spain, a NATO ally that has troops in Afghanistan with us now. During the vice presidential debate in St. Louis, Joe Biden argued for a vigorous diplomacy and attacked John McCain's approach to foreign policy. "John McCain said as recently as a couple of weeks ago he wouldn't even sit down with the government of Spain, a NATO ally that has troops in Afghanistan with us now. I find that incredible," Biden said. Biden was referring to an interview McCain gave with Radio Caracol in Miami on Sept. 17 in which McCain was asked if he would invite José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, to the White House. McCain's tangled and somewhat confused response prompted lots of criticism. Democrats said it illustrated reluctance by the Bush administration — and now McCain — to engage in diplomacy even with longtime allies. Here's the relevant portion of the interview: Q: Senator, finally, let’s talk about Spain. If you’re elected president, would you be willing to invite President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to the White House, to meet with you? A: I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are our friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion. And by the way, President Calderón of Mexico is fighting a very, very tough fight against the drug cartels. I’m glad we’re now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan, and I intend to move forward with the relations and invite as many of them as I can of those leaders to the White House. Q: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government? To the president, itself? A: Uh, I don’t, you know, honestly, I have to look at the relations and the situations and the priorities, but I can assure you: I will establish closer relations with our friends, and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America. I know how to do both. Q: So, you have to wait and see if he’s willing to, to meet with you, or you be… able to do it? In the White House? A: Well, again… I, I don’t… All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us, and standing up to those who are not, and that’s judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America, and the entire region. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Q: OK, what about Europe? I’m talking about the President of Spain. Are you willing to meet with him, if you’re elected president? A: I’m willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom. And I will stand up to those that do not. McCain's reluctance to meet with Zapatero was odd because Spain is a member of NATO and a longtime U.S. ally. The CIA World Factbook calls it "a global champion of freedom." The U.S. State Department says "Spain and the United States have a long history of official relations and are closely associated in many fields." But it's worth noting that U.S.-Spain relations have suffered since Zapatero became prime minister in 2004 and withdrew Spanish troops that were helping the U.S. war in Iraq. We listened to the McCain interview several times and got the impression that the senator was confused during the first few questions. The interviewer says Zapatero's name quickly and it seemed to us that McCain did not recognize the name. His answer suggests he is focused on other leaders from Latin America. But the interviewer seems to notice his confusion and reminds him "OK, what about Europe? I’m talking about the president of Spain." But McCain's reply does not suggest that registered with him and he offers a more general reply about meeting with "any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are." We would have accepted a McCain-was-confused explanation for this one, but when the issue first came up during the campaign, the McCain campaign sent reporters a statement from foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann that said McCain's answer was intentional. "The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero — and id'd him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred. Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview," Scheunemann said in an e-mail sent to the Washington Post and CNN. Scheunemann said that if elected, McCain "will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance." To us, McCain seemed confused. But Scheunemann's statement is adamant that McCain knew the subject was Spain. As a result, his comment that "I have to look at the relations and the situations and the priorities" indicates at least some doubt about U.S.-Spanish relations. Which bring us back to Biden's statement. Biden said, "John McCain said as recently as a couple of weeks ago he wouldn't even sit down with the government of Spain, a NATO ally that has troops in Afghanistan with us now." Our reading of the interview is that McCain won't commit himself in advance to meeting or not meeting with the government of Spain. That's very different from refusing to meet with Spain. Biden could have criticized McCain for that noncommittal stance and been more accurate. But instead Biden took it a step further and said McCain refused outright to meet with Spain. We rate Biden's statement Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

Barack Obama's health care plan is "to mandate health care coverage and have a universal government-run program. At the vice presidential debate in St. Louis, Sarah Palin defended John McCain's health care plan and criticized Barack Obama's. Obama has a plan "to mandate health care coverage and have a universal government-run program," Palin said. "And unless you're pleased with the way the federal government has been running anything lately, I don't think that it's going to be real pleasing for Americans to consider health care being taken over by the feds." Problem is, Obama's plan keeps the free-market health care system intact, particularly employer-based insurance. It is not a goverment-run program and is very different from the health care systems run by the government in some European countries. Obama's plan essentially takes the health care system as it is today and seeks to expand it to the uninsured. The plan increases eligibility for the poor and children to enroll in initiatives like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. It also creates pools for individuals to buy their own cheaper insurance. And it outlines several strategies aimed at reining in costs for everyone, such as streamlining medical record-keeping and emphasizing preventive care. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Obama's plan does not mandate coverage, except for children. Obama said often during the Democratic primary campaign that he did not include a mandate for adults so as not to penalize people with modest incomes. His reasoning for not including a mandate for adults was this: If premiums don’t drop enough after his reforms are implemented, people will still be unable to afford insurance. If a law mandates they buy it anyway, they probably won’t. Obama’s argument is that if you then fine them, you’re essentially punishing the poor — and they will still be uninsured. Obama said he hopes his plan will lower costs enough that many of the estimated 47-million uninsured will sign up without a mandate, and a mandate will come later. Obama has said he would like it to be universal, in that everyone has health care coverage. So Palin is mostly wrong about Obama's plan having a mandate; it only has one for children. He would like it to be universal at some point. She also emphasized that Obama proposes government-run health care, a statement that is completely inaccurate. Taking all that together, we rate her statement Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

Sen. McCain's tax plan provides "virtually nothing to the middle class. In the much-anticipated vice presidential debate, Sen. Joe Biden and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin sparred over distribution of the tax burden under the tax plans proposed by the top of their tickets. Biden picked up a refrain hammered by his running mate, Sen. Barack Obama, saying that Obama’s plan would provide more relief for the middle class. Biden would have been on solid footing had he stopped there, but he went one step further, claiming Sen. John McCain’s plan has nothing for the middle class. "The economic engine of America is middle class," Biden said. "It’s the people listening to this broadcast. When you do well, America does well. Even the wealthy do well. This is not punitive. John wants to add $300-million, billion in new tax cuts per year for corporate America and the very wealthy while giving virtually nothing to the middle class. We have a different value set. The middle class is the economic engine. It’s fair. They deserve the tax breaks, not the superwealthy who are doing pretty well. They don’t need any more tax breaks." Though independent analyses of the income tax provisions have generally concluded McCain’s plan would most benefit wealthy Americans, his plan does have provisions that would help individuals with lower household incomes. Chief among these is a proposed increase to the exemption taxpayers may claim for each dependent — currently $3,500 — by $500 each year beginning in 2010 until it would reach $7,000 in 2016, after which it would be indexed for inflation. Under the McCain plan, married couples that file a joint return reporting adjusted gross income of $50,000 or less would be eligible for the $7,000 exemption immediately. So clearly, middle- and lower-income households with children would receive above-average tax cuts. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 McCain also would raise and index for inflation the threshold for the alternative minimum tax, or AMT, a separate income tax that was intended to ensure that people did not use loopholes to avoid paying taxes but that has been ensnaring more and more middle-income Americans. Congress in recent years has extended the AMT exemption for a year or two at a time so that large numbers of taxpayers don’t become subject to the tax. Congress is almost certain to enact another temporary "patch" covering the 2008 tax year. But McCain would permanently extend the AMT exemption, index it for inflation and allow individuals to claim personal nonrefundable credits against the AMT. How much this would help middle-class families largely depends on how you define middle class. The Tax Policy Center says it would primarily benefit more affluent households in the 80th to 95th percentile of income — those earning between $111,645 and $226,918 in 2008 dollars, were McCain’s plan to be fully phased in next year. Still, households with more modest means would not be subjected to the AMT under McCain’s proposal. McCain would also extend President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, currently set to expire at the end of 2010. Those cuts collectively reduced top marginal tax rates on individuals’ incomes, cut the rates on capital gains and dividends, expanded the child tax credit and reduced taxes on married couples compared to singles. The Tax Policy Center says McCain’s policy proposals collectively would reduce the tax exposure of 60 percent of all American households, though fewer than half of those making between $18,981 and $37,595. But for the middle 20 percent of taxpayers — people making between $37,595 and $66,354 — here’s how the Tax Policy Center sees the respective tax plans shake out: Under McCain’s plan, their tax bill would go down by $325 in 2009, on average, and $1,118 under Obama’s plan. If you look down the road to 2012, those in the middle quintile would see tax cuts of $1,441 under McCain’s plan and $2,197 under Obama’s. The analysis backs up Obama’s broad contention that McCain’s tax policy is weighted to give the largest benefit to higher-income taxpayers. However, it’s wrong to say McCain’s plan would provide no relief to middle-class Americans. Its more generous exemption for dependents and lower tax rates would cut across income levels and reduce or eliminate many taxpayers’ AMT exposure. For this reason, we rule the Biden’s comment Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

"You ... said that Barack Obama was not ready to be commander in chief. Trying to challenge Sen. Barack Obama’s preparedness to be president, Gov. Sarah Palin used Sen. Joe Biden’s own words against him. As Biden and Palin debated records on Iraq during the St. Louis debate, Palin noted, “You also said that Barack Obama was not ready to be commander in chief.” Indeed Biden did. In an Aug. 19, 2007, debate among Democratic hopefuls, moderator George Stephanopoulos pressed Biden whether he stood by a recent quote that Obama was “not ready” to be president. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Biden said he stood by it. It’s worth noting that in May 2008, Biden changed his tune. “He’s learned a hell of a lot,” Biden said. Still, he said what he said. Based on those first comments, Palin’s assessment is True

"Barack Obama ... 96 percent of his votes have been solely along party line. In the vice presidential debate in St. Louis, Republican Gov. Sarah Palin tried to take a hammer to Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama’s postpartisan campaign tack. “Now, Barack Obama, of course, he’s pretty much only voted along his party lines. In fact, 96 percent of his votes have been solely along party line,” Palin said, questioning whether he could reduce polarization in Washington. In fact, Obama — who joined the Senate in 2005 — has voted with his party 96 percent of the time, according to a study by Congressional Quarterly . CQ’s calculation of party unity measures how often members vote with their party on bills where the parties split. By comparison, rival Sen. John McCain has voted with his fellow Republicans at an 81 percent clip over the entire Bush presidency. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 But as PolitiFact has reported before , voting studies can be skewed depending on a lot of factors, such as attendance, the roll-call votes picked and the issues that arise during the course of the year. Some congressional sessions may have more head-to-head party line votes than others. Examining votes that matched the position of President Bush — the titular head of the GOP — shows McCain has supported him 90 percent of the time, while Obama has gone along 40 percent, CQ found. But the question here is if it's true that Obama voted along party lines 96 percent of the time, and that claim is True

"John McCain said...in December he was surprised there was a subprime mortgage problem. On two occasions in the vice presidential debate, Sen. Joe Biden alleged that Sen. John McCain said some time ago that the mortgage crisis had taken him by surprise. "Two years ago Barack Obama warned about the subprime mortgage crisis," Biden said early in the Oct. 2, 2008, debate. "John McCain said shortly after that in December he was surprised there was a subprime mortgage problem." Then a few minutes later Biden said: "John McCain said as early as last December, quote – I'm paraphrasing – 'I'm surprised about this subprime mortgage crisis.'" This was likely an attempt to mute McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin's recent touting of McCain's advocacy in 2006 for stricter oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the federally sponsored mortgage companies. McCain has cited that position to suggest he saw the mortgage crisis coming. (Indeed McCain did support more oversight of Fannie and Freddie, as we reported here .) But is it true that McCain said he was "surprised" at the mortgage crisis? We believe Biden was referring to McCain's remarks in this interview with the editorial board of the Keene Sentinel , a newspaper in New Hampshire, on Nov. 4, 2007. Turning to the subject of the mortgage crisis, one of the journalists asked him: "The dimension of this problem may be surprising to a lot of people, but to many people, many others, there were feelings that there was something amiss, something was going too fast, something was a little too hot, going back several years. Were you one of them? Or, you're a busy guy, you're looking at a lot of things, maybe subprime mortgages wasn't something you focused on every day. Were you surprised?" Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 McCain: "Yeah. And I was surprised at the dot-com collapse, and I was surprised at other times in our history – I don't know if 'surprised' is the word, but –" Question: "S&L's?" McCain: "Yeah the S&L –" Question: "Is this bigger than that?" McCain: "You know, I don't know the dimensions of this. It's hard to know what the dimensions of it are. As I say, I never thought I'd pick up the paper and see a city in Norway somehow dramatically impacted by it. When I say 'surprised,' uh, I'm not surprised when in capitalist systems that there's greed and excess. I think it was Teddy Roosevelt who said unfettered capitalism leads to corruption or something like that..." McCain went on to say that a handful of people, including an adviser of his, Doug Holtz-Eakin, did sense something amiss in the economy. But he concluded with this: "I'd like to tell you I did anticipate it, but I have to give you straight talk, I did not." So yes, McCain said the mortgage crisis surprised him. And he concluded by acknowledging flat-out that he did not anticipate the crisis. So there is certainly truth to Biden's accusation. But McCain also said he didn't know if 'surprised' was the word. And he issued a blanket caveat about how greed and excess among capitalists never surprised him. So the context undermines Biden's claim a bit. (Not to mention that Biden flubbed the month that McCain made his comments.) We give Biden a Mostly True

"Obama, Biden and their liberal allies oppose clean coal. "Clean coal," the promising yet distant ideal of burning coal for electricity without releasing harmful pollution, appeals to just about everybody. Yet a new radio advertisement by Sen. John McCain's campaign, targeted to the coal-rich states of Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, alleges that Sen. Barack Obama opposes it. "Clean coal is important to America. And to Colorado/Ohio/Pennsylvania/Virginia," the ad says, tailoring the narration to the state. "For [residents of that state], coal means thousands of jobs. Economic growth. More affordable electricity. For America, coal means energy independence. And clean coal means cleaner air. But Obama-Biden and their liberal allies oppose clean coal. Listen to Joe Biden." The ad then replays part of an exchange between Biden and a voter on a rope line in Maumee, Ohio, in on Sept. 17, 2008: "Senator, wind and solar are flourishing here in Ohio, so why are you supporting clean coal?" the voter asked. "We're not supporting clean coal," Biden replied. "Guess what, China is building two every week, two dirty coal plants, and it's polluting the United States, it's causing people to die." He touted his record on supporting solar energy and fighting global warming, then continued: "But guess what, China's going to burn 300 years of bad coal unless we figure out how to clean their coal up, because it's going to ruin your lungs, and there's nothing we can do about it. No coal plants here in America. Build them if they're going to build them over there. Make them clean, because they're killing you." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The phrase "clean coal" refers to a number of technologies, some in use and others early in the development stage, which would allow the burning of coal for energy without the harmful pollution that coal-fired power plants currently emit. Chief among them is "carbon sequestration," a process by which the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide would be captured and injected underground or into the ocean, where it would not contribute to global warming. That is at least a decade or two away. Strictly speaking, Biden's comments in Maumee were not evidence that he "oppose[s] clean coal," as the ad claims – rather they suggest he opposes clean coal plants in the United States, but supports the idea of developing the technology here and providing it to China. In fact, Biden himself has voiced support for clean coal, calling for "carbon capture and sequestration technologies that will allow us to use coal cleanly" in the energy plan he released during his presidential campaign in the autumn of 2007. In a statement , Obama campaign spokesman David Wade explained Biden's comments this way: "Senator Biden's point is that China is building coal plants with outdated technology every day, and the United States needs to lead by developing clean coal technologies." Moreover, Biden's remarks are far outweighed by the many instances in which Obama has spoken out in favor of clean coal, as our fellow fact-checkers at FactCheck.org pointed out recently . Here's Obama in his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver on Aug. 28, 2008: "As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power." Here he is in Detroit, Mich., on May 7, 2007: "We'll also need to find a way to use coal – America's most abundant fossil fuel – without adding harmful greenhouse gases to the environment." If there were any doubt that Obama supports the development of clean-coal plants in the United States specifically, the energy plan on his Web site makes that explicit: "Barack Obama and Joe Biden will...develop and deploy clean coal technology. Carbon capture and storage technologies hold enormous potential to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as we power our economy with domestically produced and secure energy...Barack Obama and Joe Biden will instruct DOE (the Department of Energy) to enter into public private partnerships to develop “first-of-a-kind” commercial scale coal-fired plants with carbon capture and sequestration." So no, Obama and his "liberal allies" do not oppose clean coal. Nor does Biden, unless you interpret comments he made off the cuff on a rope line overly broadly, and give them more credence than the energy plan he developed during his presidential campaign. We find McCain's claim to be False

"Palin (proposed) a $150 bounty for the severed foreleg of each killed wolf. In a jarring television advertisement, the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund attempts to show a less friendly side of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin by noting how the Alaska governor championed an intensive predator management program. "The more voters learn about Sarah Palin, the less there is to like. As Alaska governor, Sarah Palin actively promotes the brutal and unethical aerial hunting of wolves and other wildlife," the narrator says. "Using a low-flying plane, they kill in winter, when there is no way to escape. Riddled with gunshots, biting at their backs in agony, they die a brutal death. And Palin even encouraged the cruelty by proposing a $150 bounty for the severed foreleg of each killed wolf. And then introduced a bill to make the killing easier," the narrator says. "Do we really want a vice president who champions such savagery?" For this item, we'll focus on this part of the ad: “And Palin even encouraged the cruelty by proposing a $150 bounty for the severed foreleg of each killed wolf.” “The cruelty” in question was a state-sanctioned hunt intended to thin out the wolf population. Indeed, Palin’s administration announced the $150 bounty for the “left forelegs of wolves” as part of a larger effort to reduce wolf populations in five areas of the state, according to a press release from the Alaska Department of Fish & Game dated March 21, 2007. The payments are made to volunteer pilots and shooters who are permitted to track and kill predators in the winter months. State biologists planned to use the forelegs as specimens to study the wolf population. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Department spokesman Tim Barry said the idea came from state biologists and Palin’s office played a key role in developing the cash incentive program. Proposals of this nature ultimately are approved by the state’s Board of Game, which is appointed by the governor’s office. The release contends the payment isn’t a “bounty,” but that’s a matter of semantics. An Alaskan judge who later declared the payments illegal called it a “bounty, pure and simple” in his ruling. In fact, the Defenders of Wildlife Action, which made this ad, was among the conservation groups that took Alaska to court over the incentive program. What’s missing from the campaign ad is the context about wildlife management in Alaska, and the history of the program. Unlike other areas where wolves are protected, Alaska officials estimate the state’s vast wilderness holds 7,000 to 11,000 wolves. These elusive predators hunt moose and caribou, which are favorite targets for hunters seeking food and sport in Alaska. In 2003, then-Gov. Frank Murkowski initiated the program to manage the wolf population. In 2007, the state wanted to kill between 382 and 664 wolves, but the nearly 200 permitted hunters had shot only about 100 wolves as the hunting season neared its April 30 end. High fuel prices and limited snowfall made it hard to track the animals, so Palin’s administration offered the $150 per wolf as an extra incentive “to motivate permittees to redouble their efforts and to help offset the high cost of aviation fuel,” the release states. The organization behind the ad, along with other environmental groups, filed a lawsuit to stop the payments because wildlife bounties were outlawed in 1984. About 40 wolves were killed after the bounty was offered, but the payments were never made to hunters. The judge struck down the incentive program 10 days after it was announced, Barry said. The advertisement is intended to shock viewers by presenting Palin without the context of political life in frontier Alaska, where wildlife management is a high-profile government function. But the facts are right and the missing context has more to do with sensibilities than factual accuracy. We rate the attack True

Says McCain "voted to let governments charge rape victims" for forensic exams A new ad from Planned Parenthood makes two charges against Sarah Palin and John McCain. It says Wasilla, Alaska, charged rape victims for forensic exams when Palin was mayor and that, as a senator, McCain "voted to let governments charge rape victims" for forensic exam kits. We've examined the controversy over the Wasilla rape kit policy in this previous article, so here we'll examine the charge that McCain voted to let governments charge the victims. The ad begins with a rape victim named Gretchen who says, "I just didn’t think it would happen to me. I was drugged and raped." The announcer says, "Under Mayor Sarah Palin, women like Gretchen were forced to pay up to $1,200 for the emergency exams used to prosecute their attackers." The screen says "Charged rape victims for exams - Source: CNN, September 22, 2008." (We reported earlier that Gretchen is from Illinois, not Alaska , and was not subject to the Wasilla policy.) The announcer continues: "In the Senate, John McCain voted against legislation to protect women from these same heartless policies" while the screen says, "Voted to let governments charge rape victims." Gretchen then says, "That is something to me that’s unthinkable. It scares me to death." The screen attributes the McCain allegation to a vote on Aug. 25, 1994, on a crime bill that included the Violence Against Women Act, which itself included a provision that required states to provide free forensic exams for rape victims. Planned Parenthood's logic: Because McCain opposed that bill, he voted to let governments charge victims for their rape kits. That's quite a stretch. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Indeed, McCain voted that day against a conference report on the crime bill, but he opposed it not because of the Violence Against Women provisions, but because it included extra spending that McCain considered unrelated to crime and it had a provision that would have banned so-called assault weapons. Nine months earlier, McCain had supported the original bill, which included the Violence Against Women Act, when it passed the Senate 95-4. So that alone is a significant contradiction of Planned Parenthood's claim. Also, McCain has supported the Violence Against Women Act when it has come up for reauthorization. In 2000, McCain joined a unanimous vote on a crime bill that included the Violence Against Women Act. In 2005, he praised the law when he introduced a companion bill to provide protections for Indian women. "The 1994 Violence Against Women Act has had a tremendous impact on raising the national awareness of domestic violence and providing communities, including Indian tribes, the resources to respond to the devastating impact of domestic violence," he said. When we asked Planned Parenthood if it had any other evidence to bolster its claim, spokesman Tait Sye scrounged up a few more: a vote against a 2008 justice spending bill that included all justice programs (McCain opposed it because it had too many earmarks), and a couple of other votes that are not directly related to the rape provision of the Violence Against Women Act. That's the best they got? That's the classic kind of cherry-picking we've seen in campaign ads and it is flimsy evidence for the serious charge that McCain opposed the program, especially in light of his clear support at other times. Planned Parenthood has virtually nothing to back up its charge that McCain voted to let states charge for rape exams. Sure, McCain voted against a larger crime bill in 1994, but that vote was about assault weapons and spending, not the Violence Against Women Act. And McCain has supported the law before then — and twice since. Planned Parenthood's claim isn't just False, it's ridiculously so, which merits a Pants on Fire

Says that under his tax plan, seniors making less than $50,000 per year won't pay any income taxes In a new 2-minute TV ad, Barack Obama explains his economic plans and contrasts them with John McCain's. In two other Truth-O-Meter rulings, we examined Obama's claims about his plans for small businesses and the middle class. Here, we'll address his plan for senior citizens. He says in the ad that "seniors making less than $50,000, who are struggling with the rising costs of food and drugs on fixed incomes, won’t pay income taxes at all." That is correct. Obama's tax plan specifies that he would "eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year." The campaign estimates it will cut taxes an average of $1,400 for 7-million seniors. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 It's worth noting that Obama's proposal has been criticized on several fronts. Some economists have questioned whether it's a wise policy because seniors already receive favorable tax treatment. The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan tax research group, said Obama's plan would create inequity by eliminating taxes for senior citizens who earn a modest income but continuing to tax younger workers earning the same amount. Also, it would help seniors who are currently paying income taxes but provide no benefit for those too poor to owe any tax. Still, Obama accurately describes his plan in the ad. We rate his statement True

"John McCain fought to rein in Fannie and Freddie...but Democrats blocked the reforms. Seeking to portray Sen. John McCain as prescient on the financial crisis, McCain's campaign unveiled a new advertisement saying he had spotted problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac two years ago. "John McCain fought to rein in Fannie and Freddie ... but Democrats blocked the reforms," McCain's new ad says. As evidence, the ad points to McCain's support of a bill in 2006 to strengthen oversight of Fannie and Freddie, and Democrats' opposition to that bill. Those points merit caveats, but first, some context. Fannie and Freddie, private corporations created and sponsored by Congress to lower the cost of mortgage capital, quintupled in size between 1995 and 2004, as they pioneered the practice of selling bundled mortgages in the form of securities. Federal officials in both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations sought greater authority to regulate them, but were largely stymied by Congress. In early September 2008, with home values plummeting, the government seized control of Fannie and Freddie to prevent them from failing, a move that could cost U.S. taxpayers tens of billions of dollars. McCain has taken heat for recent revelations that Freddie Mac paid a lobbying firm co-owned by his campaign manager, Rick Davis, $15,000 a month from 2005 through August 2008. But the campaign has called attention — in advertisements like this one — to McCain's support for tighter oversight of the companies. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 McCain did indeed co-sponsor the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, a bill that would have enhanced oversight of Freddie and Fannie. Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., introduced the bill in January 2005 and immediately garnered co-sponsorship from two other Republican senators. McCain signed on in May 2006 after a damning federal report on accounting practices at Fannie Mae was released. "If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole," he said in a statement . The National Association of Home Builders opposed the bill, as did the National Association of Realtors. Senate Democrats said they supported some form of stricter oversight, but would not support a provision of Hagel's bill that would limit the size of the company's portfolios. Negotiations stalled and the bill never made it to the floor. Does McCain's support for that bill amount to fighting to rein in Freddie and Fannie? Sort of. Others had been fighting for Fannie-and-Freddie reform for more than a decade, and McCain signed onto the bill a year-and-a-half after it was introduced. And he reportedly didn't do too much for the bill beyond co-sponsoring it and issuing a statement. The McCain campaign has also noted that in 2003 he was one of five Republican senators to co-sponsor a prior bill to tighten oversight of Fannie and Freddie. Still, if he "fought" for reform, it wasn't exactly guns-a-blazin'. Did Democrats block the reforms? More or less. They preferred a pared-down bill, and so did not support Hagel's. McCain overstates his role in pushing for Fannie and Freddie reform, and slightly oversimplifies the dynamic at work in the Senate. We give his claim a Half True

"There are so many loopholes ... our businesses pay effectively one of the lowest tax rates in the world. In the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, 2008, Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama sparred briefly over corporate tax rates. One of the hallmarks of McCain's tax platform is his plan to reduce the top corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent. McCain often compares that 35 percent rate to those in other countries to bolster his point that America competes for businesses and jobs internationally, and he did so again in the debate. "Right now, the United States of America’s businesses pay the second-highest business taxes in the world, 35 percent. Ireland pays 11 percent," McCain said. "Now, if you’re a business person, and you can locate any place in the world, then, obviously, if you go to the country where it’s 11 percent tax versus 35 percent, you’re going to be able to create jobs, increase your business, make more investment, et cetera. "I want to cut that business tax. I want to cut it so that businesses will remain in the United States of America and create jobs." Obama challenged McCain for presenting misleading numbers. "Now, John mentioned the fact that business taxes on paper are high in this country, and he’s absolutely right," Obama said. "Here’s the problem: There are so many loopholes that have been written into the tax code, oftentimes with support of Senator McCain, that we actually see our businesses pay effectively one of the lowest tax rates in the world." Who’s right? Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 McCain accurately cites the United States’ top corporate tax rate. Combined with state corporate taxes (which vary), the statutory corporate tax rates for the United States are among the highest in the world. Three years ago, the Congressional Budget Office compared U.S. corporate tax rates to other countries to get a sense of where we stand. They found that the United States’ statutory corporate tax rates in 2003 came to 39.3 percent. Only Japan (40.9) and Germany (39.6) were higher. Among the top industrialized countries, the United States ranked third of seven. But the corporate tax picture is more complex than McCain — and that statistic — makes it seem. Note the word "statutory" in the last paragraph. It excludes other very important factors such as a country’s depreciation system (how quickly businesses are allowed to write off investment in equipment and buildings); how much companies can write off from debt; and investor-level taxes such as capital gains, dividends and interest. That’s why many economists like to cite "effective marginal tax rates," the percentage of the income from an investment that must be paid as corporate income tax. The United States fares much better in these tables, although it varies by industry and other factors, such as how much a company borrows for equipment or structures (generally, the more debt a company carries, the more it can write off). The United States has fairly generous depreciation rules, but is less generous when it comes to investment in structures. So, for example, the United States ranks second lowest in the world among industrialized nations when it comes to the effective corporate tax rates for debt-financed investments in machinery. For equity-financed investments in machinery, the rates are closer to the upper middle of the pack. And for equity-financed investments in industrial structures (buildings, factories, etc), the effective corporate tax rates were second highest in the world (behind Japan). As an aside, it is precisely this tax system, weighted to favor debt-financed investments, that's part of why the current credit crisis is seen as so dire. The nonpartisan, business-backed Tax Foundation noted in a news release this summer that "while America has left the major features of its business tax system unchanged over the past 15 years, virtually all developed nations have lowered their corporate tax rates, potentially hurting the competitiveness of the United States." The statutory rates — nearly the highest in the world — should not be discounted, they argue. And while marginal "effective" rates put the United States more around the middle of the pack, they say, America's effective tax rate has largely stayed the same while other countries have lowered theirs. But the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center tends to agree with Obama's acounting. "In any company, these deductions reduce the tax rates well below what the statutory rule is," said the center’s Bob Williams. "It depends on the type of company and the kinds of investments you are making." While the Tax Foundation and the Tax Policy Center disagree somewhat on how important the statutory tax rate is and where the United States ranks among nations based upon the marginal "effective" rates, they do agree that the statutory rate is only part of the story for what U.S. companies pay in taxes. McCain’s repeated citation of statutory corporate tax rates is misleading because it does not take into account various deducations to which businesses are entitled. But we also think Obama’s assertion that these deductions result in the United States having one of the lowest corporate tax rates in the world similarly oversimplifies things. It’s true for some business, particularly ones that can write off a lot of debt payments. But it’s not true for others. So we rate Obama’s statement Half True

"My plan offers three times as much tax relief to the middle class as Senator McCain's. Middle class. According to a recent study, more than half of Americans say that’s what they are. More than a third of Americans with incomes below $20,000 describe themselves as middle class. So do a third of people with incomes above $150,000. The government doesn't officially define the "middle class." But this much is certain: Since most people consider themselves middle class, politicians want their vote. In a recent campaign ad focusing on economic issues, Sen. Barack Obama directly appealed to this important constituency. "Instead of extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest — I’ll focus on you," Obama said. "My plan offers three times as much tax relief to the middle class as Senator McCain’s." The claim refers to a report from the Tax Policy Center, which analyzed the tax plans of Sens. Obama and John McCain after interviews with their top economic advisers. The analysts concluded that under Obama’s plan, people with incomes in the middle 20 percent would see their federal income tax burden go down by $1,118 in 2009. Under McCain’s plan, those same people would see their federal taxes cut by $325. That’s more than "three times as much tax relief." But a couple qualifiers are in order. First, those figures are for just one year of Obama's tax plan, 2009. If you look down the road, say at 2012, those in the middle quintile would see tax cuts of $2,197 under Obama’s plan; $1,441 under McCain’s. Not "three times as much." Also consider that the middle 20 percent of incomes translates to people making between $37,595 and $66,354. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Suppose you consider yourself middle class, but you make between $66,354 and $111,645 (in the 60 to 80 percent quintile). Then Obama’s plan would translate to a tax cut of $1,264 in 2007, as opposed to a cut of $994 under McCain’s plan. Not "three times as much." "Like all of these things, everyone is cherry-picking the facts," said Bob Williams of the Tax Policy Center. Obama’s claim that his tax plan would result in three times as much tax relief for the middle class "is for one year (2009), not the whole lifespan of the tax plan," Williams said. "There’s so many things happening at different times in the plan." The nonpartisan, business-backed Tax Foundation points out another caveat. The tables cited by the Obama campaign in the Tax Policy Center analysis don’t include the candidates’ health care plans. The McCain camp has argued that some of his biggest proposed tax cuts for the middle class come through his idea to replace the income tax exclusion of employer-paid health insurance with a refundable income tax credit of $2,500 for individual coverage or $5,000 for family coverage. Obama has a direct pay plan that would provide subsidies to help low- and middle-income families purchase insurance, as well as a mandate for health insurance coverage for children. As both health plans are not part of the tax code, it’s probably not fair to include them in a head-to-head comparison of McCain’s and Obama’s tax plans. But the Tax Policy Center did provide a preliminary report that concluded that under McCain’s health care plan, people with incomes in the middle 20 percent would see after-tax income increase by $1,559 in 2009. Under Obama’s health plan, those folks would see their income rise $269. While it’s not fair to simply add the difference between those figures to the earlier analysis, "it’s probably safe to say that if you include McCain’s health care tax cuts, you do not get this three times greater figure" that Obama cited, said Gerald Prante, a senior economist with the Tax Foundation. And then there’s the issue of defining the middle class. Is it the middle 20 percent? The middle 60 percent? It’s certainly fair for Obama to pick the middle 20 percent. But picking, say, the middle 60 percent would yield much different results. This much we can say for sure: A higher fraction of Obama’s tax cuts would go to the middle class than McCain’s. Perhaps the most stark contrast in tax distribution comes for those in the top quintile, people making more than $111,645. Under Obama’s plan, those folks, on average, would be paying $3,017 a year more in federal taxes in 2007, according to the Tax Policy Center analysis. Under McCains plan, they would be paying $6,498 less. As for Obama’s claim that his plan offers "three times as much tax relief to the middle class as Senator McCain’s," it’s true for one year, and under one sensible definition of middle class. But since it’s not true when you look at the fourth year of the plan — and we are talking about electing a president for four years — we rate Obama’s claim Half True

Barack Obama "pays for every dime" of his spending plans At the first presidential debate in Oxford, Miss., John McCain and Barack Obama discussed spending. McCain accused Obama of dramatically increasing spending, and Obama responded. "I don't know where John is getting his figures," Obama said. "Let's just be clear. What I do is I close corporate loopholes, stop providing tax cuts to corporations that are shipping jobs overseas so that we're giving tax breaks to companies that are investing here in the United States. I make sure that we have a health care system that allows for everyone to have basic coverage. I think those are pretty important priorities. And I pay for every dime of it." Obama often discusses how to pay for varying proposals, and he has said he believes "that if you want to propose a new program, you better cut some old ones." He says he will pay for his health care plan, for example, by reducing inefficiencies in the health care system and by rescinding the Bush tax cuts on those making $200,000 or more. But "pay for every dime"? Not to our way of thinking. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that the deficit grows dramatically under both candidates' proposals. Without any changes, the deficit will stand at $2.3-trillion in 2018. Under Obama's plan, the deficit grows even more, to $5.9-trillion by 2018. And it grows even more than that under John McCain's plan, to $7.4-trillion (in part because McCain will continue the Bush tax cuts for all income levels). That doesn't sound like pay-as-you-go to us, for either candidate. The Tax Policy Center's analysis does not include spending cuts to existing programs, but it's difficult to see how spending cuts would erase deficits of this size. Obama has said he would curtail the war in Iraq to save money, while McCain talks about eliminating pork and earmarks from the budget. Neither of those measures would close the gap. Another watchdog group, the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, used a different method to examine the candidates' proposals. They chose to take a snapshot of a single year — 2013 — and calculate how the candidates' proposal would affect the deficit for that year alone. They found that Obama's plan adds about $286 billion to the deficit for that year, while McCain's adds about $211-billion. A few important caveats here: Calculating the costs for new spending proposals, tax cuts, tax increases and spending cuts for the federal government can be complicated. Nobody knows exactly how much some of the candidates' proposals will cost in the end (health care is a good example), and some of their proposals for reducing spending are vague and impossible to substantiate. As for Obama's claim that he "pays for every dime" of his spending plans: If the deficit were to stay the same or grow only modestly as a result of Obama's policies, we would give him a better rating. But independent groups agree that the deficit will grow significantly under an Obama administration, and that's an important yardsitck. We give Obama credit for the level of detail many of his proposals have when it comes to spending and cost. But Obama doesn't pay "for every dime" of his proposals. We rate his statement Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

John McCain "has threatened extinction for North Korea and sung songs about bombing Iran. John McCain and Barack Obama debated foreign policy on Sept. 26, 2008, including policies for dealing with Pakistan. "(Obama) said that he would launch military strikes into Pakistan," McCain said. "Now, you don't do that. You don't say that out loud. If you have to do things, you have to do things, and you work with the Pakistani government. ... I guarantee you I would not publicly state that I'm going to attack them." McCain is distorting Obama's position by saying he wants to attack Pakistan, a statement we checked previously and found to be a Pants on Fire! This time, Obama responded directly to McCain's criticsm. "Nobody talked about attacking Pakistan," Obama replied. "Here's what I said — and if John wants to disagree with this, he can let me know — that if the United States has al-Qaida, bin Laden, top-level lieutenants in our sights, and Pakistan is unable or unwilling to act, then we should take them out." Then he added, "And, John, you're absolutely right that presidents have to be prudent in what they say. But coming from you, who in the past has threatened extinction for North Korea and sung songs about bombing Iran, I don't know how credible that is." It's a snappy comeback, but let's check its accuracy. We reviewed McCain's previous comments on North Korea and found the "extinction" claim dates back to 1994, when McCain appeared on the interview show This Week with David Brinkley to discuss North Korea. At the time, North Korea's leader, Kim Il Sung, was refusing to allow inspections of his nuclear program. Brinkley asked McCain what he would do about that. "Well, I would make sure that China and Japan realize that it is in the United States' and their vital national security interests that North Korea not be a nuclear power and possess nuclear weapons, and that they should go along with and help enforce strong sanctions against Korea," McCain said. "If not, then the United States will have no choice but to militarily disable that nuclear capability." Reporter Sam Donaldson, who also sat in on the interview, then asked McCain about the prospects of outright war with North Korea if the situation escalated. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 " I think history shows us, especially in dealing with dictators, that a strong, resolute policy and position is what usually avoids what you're talking about," McCain said. " You think they're bluffing?" Donaldson asked. " I don't know, but I know what they understand and that is the threat of extinction," McCain replied. So, he said it. The threat was implied rather than direct, but there's no mistaking the point McCain was seeking to make. But it was one time in 1994. That was 14 years ago, when McCain was not a candidate for president, and North Korea had a different leader. (Kim Il Sung would die later that year; the leadership would pass to his son, the current leader, Kim Jong Il.) Now, about McCain's singing songs about bombing Iran. The basis for this statement is something McCain said at an April 18, 2007, campaign appearance held at a VFW hall in Murrells Inlet, S.C. A man in the audience told McCain he thought Iran was causing problems in the Middle East. He then asked, "How many times do we have to prove that these people are blowing up people now, never mind if they get a nuclear weapon? When do we send an airmail message to Tehran?" The audience clapped and there were a few scattered cheers. "That old Beach Boys song, Bomb Iran," McCain said, apparently referencing the Beach Boys' 1965 single "Barbara Ann." The audience laughed, then McCain sang softly, "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb. Anyway..." Video of the incident is available on YouTube. McCain said later it was a joke. "When veterans are together, veterans joke," McCain said. "And I was with veterans and we were joking. And, if somebody can't understand that, my answer is, please get a life." The McCain campaign never shied away from the bombing reference and played "Barbara Ann" at many of its rallies. Obama's charge is based on things McCain did say. His comments about North Korea sound like an implied threat, even if it wasn't a direct ultimatum. But given that it was one remark from 14 years ago, we question its relevancy to today's campaign. Because Obama omits the context of the remark and North Korea is still in the headlines, voters would likely think McCain said it recently, which was not the case. In the end, Obama is right that McCain said both things. But since the context of the Obama claim was a discussion of what "a president" should or shouldn't say publicly, we're not going to give full weight to the 14-year-old tough-talking remarks of a senator who at the time hadn't ever declared himself a candidate for the presidency. We rate Obama's statement Half True

McCain "said the other day that he would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain, because he . . . wasn't sure whether they were aligned with us. During the first presidential debate, Barack Obama said John McCain has been too reluctant to support high-level diplomacy with other nations. Obama said that was true not just with U.S. enemies such as Iran, but also with a longtime ally like Spain. Obama said that McCain "even said the other day that he would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain, because he — you know, he wasn't sure whether they were aligned with us," Obama said. "I mean, Spain? Spain is a NATO ally." Obama was referring to an interview McCain gave with Radio Caracol in Miami on Sept. 17 in which McCain was asked if he would invite José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Spanish prime minister, to the White House. McCain's tangled and somewhat confused response prompted lots of criticism. Democrats said it illustrated reluctance by the Bush administration — and now McCain — to engage in diplomacy even with longtime allies. Here's the relevant portion of the interview: Q: Senator, finally, let’s talk about Spain. If you’re elected president, would you be willing to invite President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to the White House, to meet with you? A: I would be willing to meet with those leaders who are our friends and want to work with us in a cooperative fashion. And by the way, President Calderón of Mexico is fighting a very, very tough fight against the drug cartels. I’m glad we’re now working in cooperation with the Mexican government on the Merida plan, and I intend to move forward with the relations and invite as many of them as I can of those leaders to the White House. Q: Would that invitation be extended to the Zapatero government? To the president, itself? A: Uh, I don’t, you know, honestly, I have to look at the relations and the situations and the priorities, but I can assure you: I will establish closer relations with our friends, and I will stand up to those who want to do harm to the United States of America. I know how to do both. Q: So, you have to wait and see if he’s willing to, to meet with you, or you be… able to do it? In the White House? A: Well, again… I, I don’t… All I can tell you is that I have a clear record of working with leaders in the hemisphere that are friends with us, and standing up to those who are not, and that’s judged on the basis of the importance of our relationship with Latin America, and the entire region. Q: OK, what about Europe? I’m talking about the President of Spain. Are you willing to meet with him, if you’re elected president? Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 A: I’m willing to meet with any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are for human rights, democracy and freedom. And I will stand up to those that do not. McCain's reluctance to meet with Zapatero was odd because Spain is a member of NATO and a longtime U.S. ally. The CIA World Factbook calls it "a global champion of freedom." The U.S. State Department says "Spain and the United States have a long history of official relations and are closely associated in many fields." But it's worth noting that U.S.-Spain relations have suffered since Zapatero became prime minister in 2004 and withdrew Spanish troops that were helping the U.S. war in Iraq. We listened to the McCain interview several times and got the impression that the senator was confused during the first few questions. The interviewer says Zapatero's name quickly and it seemed to us that McCain did not recognize the name. His answer suggests he is focused on other leaders from Latin America. But the interviewer seems to notice his confusion and reminds him "OK, what about Europe? I’m talking about the president of Spain." But McCain's reply does not suggest that registered with him and he offers a more general reply about meeting with "any leader who is dedicated to the same principles and philosophy that we are." We would have accepted a McCain-was-confused explanation for this one, but the McCain campaign sent reporters a statement from foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann that said McCain's answer was intentional. "The questioner asked several times about Senator McCain's willingness to meet Zapatero — and id'd him in the question so there is no doubt Senator McCain knew exactly to whom the question referred. Senator McCain refused to commit to a White House meeting with President Zapatero in this interview," Scheunemann said in an e-mail sent to the Washington Post and CNN. Scheunemann said that if elected, McCain "will meet with a wide range of allies in a wide variety of venues but is not going to spell out scheduling and meeting location specifics in advance." So where does that leave us? Obama is right that McCain "said the other day that he would not meet potentially with the prime minister of Spain." McCain's words make that clear and are reinforced by Scheunemann's statement. It's less clear if McCain "wasn't sure whether (Spain is) aligned with us." To us, McCain seemed confused. But Scheunemann's statement is adamant that McCain knew the subject was Spain. As a result, his comment that "I have to look at the relations and the situations and the priorities" indicates at least some doubt about U.S.-Spanish relations. So we find Obama's claim to be Mostly True

Henry Kissinger "said that we should meet with Iran — guess what — without precondition. From the start of his campaign, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has said that as president he would personally negotiate with the leaders of rogue states who have long been denied face-to-face meetings with U.S. presidents, such as Iran. Sen. John McCain raised the issue during the first presidential debate, arguing that Obama's willingness to meet with dictators — without conditions — would provide enemies of the United States, like Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with a platform to spread propaganda. Ahmadinejad, McCain pointed out, has called for the destruction of Israel and denied that the Holocaust ever happened. McCain's point, notably, is one on which he agrees with New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who differed with Obama on the same issue during the Democratic primaries. To parry McCain's criticism at the debate, Obama said that McCain's own foreign policy adviser, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who served under President Richard Nixon, has called for high-level negotiations with Iran, without condition. And Obama's statement suggests that Kissinger was supporting presidential-level negotiations. Here's what Obama said: "So let's talk about this. First of all, Ahmadinejad is not the most powerful person in Iran. So he may not be the right person to talk to. But I reserve the right, as president of the United States to meet with anybody at a time and place of my choosing if I think it's going to keep America safe. "And I'm glad that Senator McCain brought up the history, the bipartisan history of us engaging in direct diplomacy. "Senator McCain mentioned Henry Kissinger, who's one of his advisers, who, along with five recent secretaries of state, just said that we should meet with Iran — guess what — without precondition. This is one of your own advisers." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 McCain opposes direct, president-to-president meetings with Ahmadinejad; Obama favors them. Kissinger may differ with McCain on when negotiations should begin – the Sept. 20, 2008, remarks Kissinger made on CNN, which Obama was referencing, aren't entirely clear – but he did not endorse a meeting between the presidents of Iran and the United States. Here's what Kissinger said during the CNN forum with other secretaries of state at George Washington University: "Well, I am in favor of negotiating with Iran. And one utility of negotiation is to put before Iran our vision of a Middle East, of a stable Middle East, and our notion on nuclear proliferation at a high enough level so that they have to study it. And, therefore, I actually have preferred doing it at the secretary of state level so that we — we know we're dealing with authentic," Kissinger said. "At a very high level right out of the box?" asked moderator Frank Sesno. "Initially, yes," Kissinger said. "And I always believed that the best way to begin a negotiation is to tell the other side exactly what you have in mind and what you are — what the outcome is that you're trying to achieve so that they have something that they can react to. Now, the permanent members of the Security Council, plus Japan and Germany, have all said nuclear weapons in Iran are unacceptable. They've never explained what they mean by this. So if we go into a negotiation, we ought to have a clear understanding of what is it we're trying to prevent. What is it going to do if we can't achieve what we're talking about?" Kissinger then added, "But I do not believe that we can make conditions for the opening of negotiations. We ought, however, to be very clear about the content of negotiations and work it out with other countries and with our own government." That would seem to differ from McCain's position. McCain has made clear he would hold "no unconditional summits." After the debate, the McCain campaign was quick to say that Obama had incorrectly described Kissinger's remarks, issuing a statement from Kissinger that said, "I would not recommend the next president of the United States engage in talks with Iran at the presidential level.” Obama is right that Kissinger supports meetings without preconditions, but he neglects to mention that Kissinger specified they would be "at the secretary of state level." And Obama's comments imply that he was referring to meetings at the presidential level. So we find Obama's statement to be Half True.

"The average South Korean is 3 inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag. The first presidential debate focused on the economy and foreign affairs, and Barack Obama and John McCain discussed a broad range of topics that included the economic bailout, the Iraq war and . . . whether South Koreans are taller than North Koreans. McCain called North Korea the "most repressive and brutal regime probably on Earth. The average South Korean is 3 inches taller than the average North Korean, a huge gulag." (That statement occurs about 1:00 into the accompanying video.) We've examined a lot of unlikely facts in this campaign, including the cooking of squirrels and the regulation of ham and cheese sandwiches , but this was a new one to us. So we did some checking and found that McCain is right. South Koreans are, indeed, taller than North Koreans. In his study Height and weight differences between North and South Korea, Daniel Schwekendiek, an economist from the University of Tuebingen in Germany, compared 2002 data that showed preschool children in North Korea were up to 5 inches shorter and up to 14 pounds lighter than children who were brought up in South Korea. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 A 2006 study of 1,075 North Korean defectors aged 20 to 39 put the difference for adults at 4 inches for men and 2.5 inches for women. A 2004 study said the difference was 2.3 inches for young men and 1.6 inches for young women. The studies blame malnutrition in North Korea for the height difference. So McCain is on solid ground with his claim. The studies vary, but his 3-inch claim is a reasonable approximation of the various studies and his underlying point is correct. We find his claim to the True

Under Obama's tax plan, "95 percent of you will get a tax cut. At the presidential debate in Oxford, Miss., Barack Obama described his tax plan and said, "Here's what I can tell the American people: 95 percent of you will get a tax cut." We checked a similar claim of Obama's recently, that 95 percent of working families would get lower taxes under Obama's plan, and found it to be True . But Obama stretched things when he said that 95 percent of "you" — everyone — would receive a tax cut. The part of Obama's tax plan that results in widespread tax cuts is a tax credit for workers, intended to offset payroll taxes. Single workers would get $500, and working couples would get $1,000. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 But not all taxpayers get paychecks from an employer, and those who don't would not get the credit. Additionally, Obama intends to raise taxes on higher brackets ($200,000 for singles and $250,000 for couples) which would offset any tax cuts for those incomes. A detailed analysis by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that if you look at all tax filers, 81 percent of tax filers would see reduced taxes under the Obama plan. So Obama's statement at the debate glosses over a few important details about who would get tax cuts under his plan. If you're talking about everyone, it's 81 percent. If you're talking about working families, it's 95 percent. The difference between 81 percent and 95 percent is not insignificant. We rule his debate statement Half True

Obama "has voted in the United States Senate to increase taxes on people who make as low as $42,000 a year. During the presidential debate, John McCain said Barack Obama voted to raise taxes on the middle class. "He has voted in the United States Senate to increase taxes on people who make as low as $42,000 a year," McCain said. "That's not true, John. That's not true," Obama said, interrupting him. "And that's just a fact. Again, you can look it up," McCain said. We looked it up already because it's not the first time McCain has made this statement. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 To support the claim, the McCain campaign has pointed to two votes Obama made on budget resolutions, one in March 2008 and another in June 2008. Problem is, neither of these votes actually raised taxes, nor were they expected to. Instead, the votes approved budget resolutions, which are blueprints for the federal budget. The resolutions set targets for the committees that write legislation on taxes and spending. Obama joined Democrats on what were largely party-line votes, expressing the desire to roll back the Bush tax cuts in order to fund popular programs. The tax cuts would have been rescinded on people making about $42,000 and higher. The McCain campaign is correct that Obama voted for the measures, which expressed approval for tax increases. But it's inaccurate to suggest votes on nonbinding budget resolutions, which don't have the force of law and don't include precise details on taxes or spending, are the same as votes on legislation that sets policy. The statement also suggests that Obama as president would favor tax increases for incomes of $42,000. He does not. Obama's tax proposals are crafted so that tax increases hit those couples $250,000 or more a year, or $200,000 for singles. He also proposes a $1,000 tax credit on income for working families ($500 for singles). McCain here makes his statement on a vote that would not have directly changed the tax code. We find the statement Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

John McCain wants to "give oil companies another $4-billion" in tax breaks During the presidential debate, John McCain and Barack Obama sparred over taxes. McCain discussed his support for a reduction in corporate tax rates, which he said would help create jobs. A few moments later, he criticized Obama for voting for the 2005 energy bill, which McCain said was full of unnecessary spending. "It was festooned with Christmas tree ornaments," McCain said. "It had all kinds of breaks for the oil companies, I mean, billions of dollars worth. I voted against it; Sen. Obama voted for it." "John, you want to give oil companies another $4-billion," Obama retorted. We've checked the controversy over Obama's energy vote previously . We found the bill, which did become law, included both incentives for clean energy and tax breaks for oil companies. Obama has said he felt the good in the bill outweighed the bad. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Here, we'll look at Obama's claim that McCain wants to give oil companies $4-billion in tax breaks, a claim he's made several times. The Obama campaign defends this claim because McCain supports cutting corporate taxes, reducing them from a maximum rate of 35 percent to a maximum rate of 25 percent. Based on that tax change, the Obama campaign estimates that oil companies would save $4-billion a year. Specifically, they cite a study from the left-leaning Center for American Progress Action Fund. That group analyzed financial statements from the Securities and Exchange Commission for the five largest oil companies and calculated current and deferred taxes paid in 2007 to the federal government for income earned from U.S. operations. They then calculated how much less those companies would pay if the corporate tax rate were dropped from 35 percent to 25 percent. The total savings to the five oil companies, $3.8-billion; $1.2-billion Exxon Mobil alone. In our previous look at this $4-billion claim, Obama didn't mention McCain's position on cutting corporate taxes for all companies. We concluded that Obama was cherry-picking by singling out oil companies. That led us to rule his statement Barley True. But at the debate, the two candidates had just discussed McCain's position on corporate taxes and were talking about how overarching policy could affect tax breaks for oil companies. The context of the exchange explained McCain's overall policy on corporate taxes. As a result, when Obama made the claim in the debate, it was True

"Senator Obama has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate. In the first debate of the 2008 general election, John McCain accused Barack Obama of being too liberal. "Senator Obama has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate," McCain said. "It's hard to reach across the aisle from that far to the left." Republican candidates often brand their Democratic opponents as liberals to portray them as lefties who favor big government and high taxes. Linguists who study political rhetoric say Republicans have been so effective at giving the word a negative connotation that many Democrats won't call themselves liberals. They prefer "progressives." Still, many political scientists and journalists use the term to represent the Democratic extreme of the political spectrum, and National Journal, a nonpartisan political magazine, uses a liberal-conservative scale for its annual rating of congressional votes. The magazine's editors and reporters choose key votes on major issues and those that they believe exhibit a split between liberals and conservatives and then calculate how often senators and House members vote each way. They calculate the liberal/conservative votes in three areas — economic, social issues and foreign policy — and then average them for a composite score. The annual rankings generate some publicity for the magazine, especially in election years. In 2004, the magazine said the most liberal senator was Sen. John Kerry, who became the Democratic nominee for president. On Jan. 31, 2008, five days before the Super Tuesday primaries, National Journal published an article headlined "Obama: Most Liberal Senator in 2007." The article said Obama had missed 33 of the 99 votes that were rated but that it was enough for a calculation. The magazine said McCain was not rated because he missed more than half the votes in the economic and foreign-policy categories. Since Obama's rating was announced, McCain and other Republicans have frequently cited it to criticize Obama. Yet other ratings don't show Obama as the Senate's top lefty. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 He wasn't the top liberal in his two other years in the U.S. Senate according to National Journal . He was 10th-most liberal in 2006 and 16th in 2005. The McCain campaign has previously cited a 2006 rating by the liberal group Americans for Democratic Action that gave Obama 95 percent, which the campaign noted was the same as Kerry and Sen. Barbara Boxer. But there's a little sleight of hand in that one. Although the McCain campaign is correct that Obama earned a 95 percent rating that year for voting the way ADA wanted, there were 10 senators who got more liberal scores than Obama, including Barbara Mikulski of Maryland and Richard Durbin of Illinois. (In the latest ADA rating, for 2007, Obama missed five of the 20 votes the group scored, so he received a 75 percent rating. But he voted the way ADA wanted on each of the 15 votes he attended.) Voteview.com, a site created by political scientists that plots lawmakers on a liberal-conservative scale based on their voting patterns, calculated there were nine senators more liberal than Obama in the current Congress, including Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Obama is a liberal, but he’s not the most liberal," said Keith Poole, a University of California-San Diego professor who runs the site, whom we interviewed when we first looked into similar statements in June 2008. Ratings from Congressional Quarterly don't measure liberal/conservative votes, but they show Obama is not quite as partisan as other senators. In CQ’s calculation of party unity, which measures how often members vote with their party on bills where Republicans and Democrats split, Obama got a 97 percent rating last year. Ten Democrats had higher scores. On votes where President Bush indicated his position, CQ found Obama supported the Republican president 40 percent of the time in 2007, which put Obama in the middle of the pack for Democrats. He supported Bush 49 percent the previous year. If McCain had made a more general statement about Obama's ideology, he could have been more accurate. But McCain's statement that Obama "has the most liberal voting record in the United States Senate," suggests it is a cumulative rating for all of Obama's time in the Senate. But in fact, it is true for only one rating for one year. Measurements for other years and by other groups show Obama is not the No. 1 liberal — in some cases, far from No. 1. So we find McCain's statement to be Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

"He has asked for $932-million of earmark pork-barrel spending, nearly a million dollars for every day that he’s been in the United States Senate. Sen. John McCain has a long reputation as an opponent of pork-barrel spending, those billions of dollars for local projects earmarked quietly every year into massive federal spending bills. In the first presidential debate on Sept. 26, 2008, McCain said Sen. Barack Obama, in his relatively brief senatorial career, has asked for $932-million in pork for his home state of Illinois. Just to be sure everyone heard it, McCain cited the number three times. "He has asked for $932-million of earmark pork-barrel spending, nearly $1-million dollars for every day that he’s been in the United States Senate," McCain said. In response, Obama noted, correctly, that he has eschewed any pork spending for fiscal 2009. Said Obama: "Well, Senator McCain is absolutely right that the earmarks process has been abused, which is why I suspended any requests for my home state, whether it was for senior centers or what have you, until we cleaned it up." McCain shot back that Obama did not suspend his requests for pork-barrel projects until after he was running for president, and then reminded viewers of that number again. "He didn’t happen to see that light during the first three years as a member of the United States Senate, $932-million in requests," McCain said. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 And in case you missed it the first two times, McCain cited the number yet again a few minutes later. "And Senator Obama is a recent convert, after requesting $932-million worth of pork-barrel spending projects." We should note that PolitiFact has found that while McCain has a well-deserved reputation in Washington as a pork-buster, his record is not entirely pristine. For example, McCain in 2006 co-sponsored legislation that asked for $10-million for an academic center at the University of Arizona to honor the late United States chief justice William Rehnquist. But as for his claim in the debate: Is it accurate? Obama, on his Web site, has listed every earmark he’s requested – but not necessarily received – as a U.S. senator. It totals $931.3-million. McCain is also correct that it comes to nearly a million dollars for every day that Obama’s been in the United States Senate, provided you include just working days. The math goes like this: Obama was elected in 2004 and took office January 3, 2005. Since then, there have been about 930 working days, as they are defined by most people, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays, which would mean McCain would be completely right if he had specified working days. Technically, Obama's been "in Congress" for more than 1,350 days, if you count weekends. So how many points do you take off for McCain not saying "every working day"? Not many. We say this claim is Mostly True

"President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion...[wrote a] letter of resignation to the United States Army for the failure of the landings at Normandy. Early in the first presidential debate, Sen. John McCain veered into military history during a discussion of the financial crisis. To make a point about accountability, he relayed an anecdote about Dwight D. Eisenhower. Only McCain got the story wrong in a way that undermined his point. After moderator Jim Lehrer pressed McCain on whether he would support the financial bailout package Congress is crafting, McCain said, "I hope so, sure." Then he said: "But there's also the issue of responsibility. You've mentioned President Dwight David Eisenhower. President Eisenhower, on the night before the Normandy invasion, went into his room and he wrote out two letters. One of them was a letter congratulating the great members of the military and Allies that had conducted and succeeded in the greatest invasion in history, still to this day, and forever. And he wrote out another letter, and that was a letter of resignation to the United States Army for the failure of the landings at Normandy. Somehow, we've lost that accountability." McCain went on to link Eisenhower and his letter to McCain's repeated calls in recent days that Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox resign for his role in the financial crisis. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 17, 2022 in una publicación en Facebook "Ministros de Defensa de OTAN deciden invadir a RUSIA para prevenir ataque de Putin”. By Maria Ramirez Uribe • October 17, 2022 McCain was almost certainly referring to this note , which Eisenhower, then the U.S. Army general commanding the Normandy assault, prepared and stuck in his wallet on June 5, 1944, the day before the invasion in case the mission failed. It says: "Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion to duty could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone." A noble sentiment — but not a letter of resignation. "That must be what McCain is referencing," said David Fitzpatrick, a military historian at the University of Michigan. "I never heard that Eisenhower had prepared a letter of resignation. That would be incorrect." The invasion was a success and Eisenhower did not have to use the note. McCain ought not use it either — at least not as an example of prewritten resignation letter. Though Eisenhower did intend to take responsibility for the failure, that's quite different from preparing to resign his generalship. We find this anecdote to be False

House Republicans "weren't part of the negotiations" on the Wall Street bailout plan The public is skeptical of the massive Wall Street bailout plan pending on Capitol Hill. So during the first presidential debate, both candidates were reluctant to say precisely where they stood on the proposal that is likely to cost about $700-billion. The same is true on Capitol Hill, where House Republicans sank a plan offered by a president from their own party, and offered one of their own that would include less taxpayer money. During the debate, John McCain complained that the House GOP members had been left out. "I went back to Washington, and I met with my Republicans in the House of Representatives. And they weren't part of the negotiations, and I understand that," McCain said. "And it was the House Republicans that decided that they would be part of the solution to this problem." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 But they were and are. If McCain's point is that Republicans have felt that Democrats – and President Bush – have tried to rush a deal, there's more evidence for that. When Democrats and President Bush claimed a deal was at hand on Sept. 25, 2008, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, said there was no deal. "There may be a deal among some Democrats, but House Republicans are not a part of it," he said. Soon, House Republicans revealed that they were pushing a rival plan that would offer government insurance to failing firms in place of Bush's strategy, which involves the government purchasing bad debts held by U.S. and foreign banks. Charges and countercharges flew. Republicans said Democrats were trying to rush a deal and prevent McCain – who had suspended his campaign to return to Washington to participate in the negotiations – from helping to forge an agreement. Democrats said Republicans were delaying unnecessarily in order to allow McCain to score political points. But later that day, as Congressional Quarterly reported, Boehner's tone had moderated. "The speaker and I have worked together to try and craft a bipartisan plan that will pass the House," he said. On its face, McCain's remark clearly is not accurate because Republicans were part of the discussion. But we'll give McCain a few points because it also is clear that Republicans didn't feel fully involved in negotiations because they expressed their frusration by killing the plan proposed by Bush. We'll rate it Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

"If an Iranian woman shows too much hair in public, she risks being beaten or killed. In arguing for a hard line against Iran, Gov. Sarah Palin invoked not just that country's uranium-enrichment efforts and attitude toward Israel, but also its treatment of women. "It is said that the measure of a country is the treatment of its most vulnerable citizens," Palin wrote in a Sept. 22, 2008, opinion piece in the New York Sun . "By that standard, the Iranian government is both oppressive and barbaric. Under (President Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad's rule, Iranian women are some of the most vulnerable citizens. If an Iranian woman shows too much hair in public, she risks being beaten or killed." We've looked elsewhere at how candidates from both parties have strayed from the truth in their tough rhetoric about Iran's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. Now let's check Palin's grasp of the consequences of improper head-covering. Restrictions in Iran go back centuries, but the strength of enforcement has varied. Modesty has been a component of Islam since the Prophet Mohammed revealed purported advice on the subject from God in the seventh century. It has been interpreted differently among and within Muslim cultures around the world, including Iran. In 1936, Iran's largely secular ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi, intent on modernizing the country, banned the practice of wearing the veil, known in the Muslim world as hejab. That law was rescinded after Pahlavi was forced to relinquish power in 1941, but the policy of discouraging and disparaging hejab remained, said Ziba Mir-Hosseini, an Iranian anthropologist and a visiting professor at the New York University School of Law. In the 1960s, many women did not go to college because they would be forced to remove their hejab, Mir-Hosseini said. "They were caught between tradition and resistance on the one hand and education and modernity on the other," she said. "Many women took up hejab in the early 1970s as a sign of protest." An Islamic revolution overthrew Pahlavi's son in 1979 and instituted a 180-degree turn with respect to hejab, mandating it in 1983. The punishment for breaking that law was imprisonment or 70 lashes of flogging. The penalty was changed in 1988 to a fine and imprisonment of one to two months. "It has been really rare that it has been applied," Mir-Hosseini said. "It goes so much against people's sense of justice and public order in Iran. But at the same time the radicals, the hard-liners, the hejab is so central to them. It is not only religious, it is anti-Western." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Hejab remains mandatory today. The custom has evolved under the influence of modern fashion, though. Some Iranian women still wear the chador , a full-length garment, often black, that fully covers their hair and drapes over their entire body. But many might wear colorful, tight-fitting overcoats, long boots, and a light scarf that covers only a token amount of their hair. The government has periodically cracked down on dress it does not consider conservative enough, typically for a month or so as the weather warms in the summer. In recent years, though, the crackdown has persisted, as hard-liners such as Ahmadinejad have gained influence. Generally, women who are stopped are told to cover up, or asked to sign an agreement to cover up more in the future, or perhaps fined or even arrested. There have been regular reports of confrontations between the police and women who resent being hassled for alleged immodesty. And yes, there have been accounts of brutality by police against some women after such stops. In defending Palin's statement, the McCain campaign pointed us to three such accounts, one from the Asia Times , one from the U.S.-funded Radio Farda, and a third from the Economist of Aug. 25, 2007. The latter said: "Much of the police action has been accompanied by complaints of brutality, and in many cases by documentary evidence such as graphic footage of beatings, posted on dissident Web sites." There's an important caveat to make here, though. The beatings are not administered by the government as punishment for an improper hejab — that was outlawed in 1988. Rather they are imposed in the course of an arrest and are generally due to resistance, according to the vast majority of news accounts we read and our interviews with experts on Iran. (Similarly, plenty of protesters in the United States are arrested, but it would be innaccurate to say they're arrested for protesting — in fact they're arrested for other offenses, such as ignoring police requirements about where to protest, or disrupting traffic.) "For some of the younger people, this (defying modesty rules) is a way of protesting. They get away with it as long as they can. But usually the punishment for that is just paying fines," said Faegheh Shirazi, an Iranian women's rights advocate, professor of Middle-Eastern Studies at the University of Texas and author of the forthcoming book, Velvet Jihad: Muslim Women's Quiet Resistance to Islamic Fundamentalism. "When the police come, you have to abide by what they say. I'm sure if the woman resists and starts backfiring, there would be some struggle." To the extent that there are beatings, they are extrajudicial, said Elizabeth Rubin, an expert on Middle Eastern culture at the Council on Foreign Relations. "If you are showing too much hair you may be asked to fix your scarf," she said. "You would not generally be beaten or killed except by a crazy zealot outside the law." To be sure, Iran has been widely criticized by human-rights organizations for harsh restrictions on dissent and personal behavior. Adultery is punishable by death. Abortion is illegal, and punishable by blood money. Gay people have been subject to arbitrary arrests and harassment . And the government regularly tries to quash dissent, holding political activists without charge and denying them access to counsel. But in this instance Palin overstated the case. The McCain campaign did not provide any account — nor could we find any — of an Iranian woman being killed for improper hejab. If there are any such instances they are extremely isolated. So it was misleading for Palin to suggest beatings are punishment for immodesty in Iran. More to the point, the restrictions related to modesty are routinely flouted without consequence. And her claim that killing was a possible consequence of immodesty pushed her statement into the realm of outright falsehood

McCain "has opposed stem cell research. Competing radio ads from the McCain and Obama campaigns in the last week may have left voters confused about where Sen. John McCain stands on stem cell research. First, you had a McCain campaign ad highlighting McCain’s support for stem cell research. Then you had an Obama campaign ad that portrayed McCain as an opponent of stem cell research. Which one is wrong? For the most part, that dubious honor goes to the Obama ad. Here’s what the Obama ad says: "Stem cell research could unlock cures for diabetes, cancer and Alzheimer’s too. But John McCain has stood in the way...he’s opposed stem cell research...picked a running mate who’s against it...and he’s running on a platform even more extreme than George Bush’s on this vital research. "John McCain doesn’t understand that medical research benefiting millions shouldn’t be held hostage by the political views of a few." At one time, McCain did oppose embryonic stem cell research. In February, 2000, McCain joined 19 other senators in asking the National Institutes of Health to withdraw its new proposals to fund federal embryonic-cell research. But then McCain changed his mind. McCain explained why in an interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press on July 15, 2001. "I’ve looked at the issue more carefully," McCain said. "I have talked with numerous scientific experts. I believe that under stringent safeguards and under the most rigorous kinds of procedures, that this can help in finding the cure for Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other serious diseases. I had supported, in the past, fetal tissue research, and this is an earlier stage, as you know, of the process. So, I think it’s an issue that I was educated on." In June 2004, McCain was among 58 U.S. senators — most of them Democrats — who signed a letter urging President Bush to change his position and allow federal funding for scientific research on embryonic stem cells. McCain has backed up that position with votes in the U.S. Senate, putting him in the distinct minority among his Republican colleagues. On July 18, 2006, and again on April 11, 2007, McCain voted in favor of a bill that would allow the use of federal funds in research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from surplus embryos at in-vitro fertilization clinics. In both cases, McCain ran counter to the majority of Republicans, although both bills passed with overwhelming support from Democrats. Republican U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who also voted for the bills, noted that it was a position unpopular in Republican circles. "The fact is John McCain has been a champion for stem cell research, which holds the promise of curing devastating diseases like cancer, diabetes and heart disease," Specter said in a statement released on Sept. 23, 2008. "John McCain bucked the majority of our party in standing strong with me in urging the Bush administration to lift restrictions on stem cell research, and last year voted to overturn the Bush policy." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 So how does the Obama campaign back up its claim that McCain has stood in the way of — and opposed — stem cell research? First, the Obama campaign accuses McCain of pandering to social conservatives at a private meeting in Ohio in June. The campaign cites a Los Angeles Times article which states that McCain "told the small assembly that he was open to learning more about their opposition to embryonic stem cell research despite his past disagreements with them on the issue." But the article also notes that "several participants said McCain did not offer any indication he would change his mind, but they said they were impressed that he appeared open to" points made by one of the country’s leading opponents of using embryonic stem cells. The Obama campaign also notes that the recently adopted GOP platform calls for "a major expansion" of adult stem cell research but also "a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes." Again, however, this is a position at odds with McCain’s. The Obama campaign also notes that McCain selected a vice presidential running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who opposes embryonic stem cell research. That’s accurate. In a 2006 Alaska gubernatorial debate , Palin said stem cell research ran counter to her prolife position. "Stem cell research that would ultimately end in destruction of life," she said, "I couldn’t support." In an interview that aired Sept. 12, ABC’s Charles Gibson asked Palin about embryonic stem cell research, given McCain’s support. "You know, when you’re running for office, your life is an open book and you do owe it to Americans to talk about your personal opinion, which may end up being different than what the policy in an administration would be," Palin said. "My personal opinion is we should not create human life, create an embryo and then destroy it for research, if there are other options out there. And thankfully, again, not only are there other options, but we’re getting closer and closer to finding a tremendous amount more of options, like, as I mentioned, the adult stem cell research." Palin’s clear opposition to embryonic research is actually our biggest problem with McCain’s ad on stem cell research, which begins by calling McCain and Palin "the original mavericks." The ad states: "John McCain will lead his congressional allies to improve America’s health. Stem cell research to unlock the mystery of cancer, diabetes, heart disease. Stem cell research to help free families from the fear and devastation of illness. Stem cell research to help doctors repair spinal cord damage, knee injuries, serious burns. Stem cell research to help stroke victims. And, John McCain and his congressional allies will invest millions more in new NIH medical research to prevent disease. Medical breakthroughs to help you get better, faster. Change is coming. McCain-Palin and congressional allies. The leadership and experience to really change Washington and improve your health." By including Palin in the ad, it suggests she is in step with his position. And as we have noted, she is not. But it should be noted that when asked about the issue directly, Palin made clear that while her "personal opinion" would be in disagreement with a policy supporting embryonic stem cell research, she would respect a McCain-led administration's right to set such a policy. Ultimately, the McCain ad is substantially more accurate than the one from the Obama camp. We get that it may make some stem cell proponents nervous when McCain tells hard-line opponents to embryonic stem cell research that he is open to listening to their arguments; or that he chose a running mate who opposes embryonic stem cell research; or that the GOP platform calls for a ban on experimentation on human embryos for research purposes. But McCain has not backed away from his position. Asked in a Republican debate in California on May 3, 2007, what he thought about federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, McCain was unequivocal. "I believe that we need to fund this," McCain said. "This is a tough issue for those of us in the prolife community. I would remind you that these stem cells are either going to be discarded or perpetually frozen. "We need to do what we can to relieve human suffering. It’s a tough issue. I support federal funding." And McCain has backed up his words with his vote twice in recent years, even when it meant challenging President Bush and a majority of his fellow Senate Republicans. That’s not standing in the way of, or opposing, stem cell research. We rate the Obama ad False

"Grateful insurance company executives and their lobbyists" from Bermuda gave McCain $50,000 An attack ad from Barack Obama looks at a trip John McCain made to Bermuda last year. "Bermuda. It’s more than just a vacation destination for John McCain," the ad says over jaunty, Caribbean-style steel drum music. "McCain went to Bermuda, and while he was there pledged to protect tax breaks for American corporations that hide their profits offshore. And grateful insurance company executives and their lobbyists who benefit from the tax scheme gave McCain $50,000." We looked in detail at McCain's visit in this statement . Here we'll look at the campaign contributions angle. Bermuda, a British territory with significant autonomy, is home to many international companies seeking to avoid taxes. In 2006, there were 14,267 international companies registered in Bermuda, many of them American owned, according to the U.S. State Department. A 2004 GAO report also listed Bermuda as a tax haven. To come up with its $50,000 number, the Obama campaign compiled a list of 30 people and one political action committee connected to insurance and reinsurance companies based in Bermuda. We obtained a copy of the list from the campaign and cross-checked with Federal Election Commission records and found it to be accurate. It seems likely that the Obama campaign's numbers undercounted contributions from lobbyists connected to Bermuda-based insurance companies. We were able to independently document another $8,150 in contributions to McCain. And finally, among the Bermuda-connected contributors, we found four donors also gave a combined total of $8,200 to Obama. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The timeline seems to be that McCain visited Bermuda in August 2007, a fundraiser for him was held in October (which he did not attend) and contributions were reported to the Federal Election Commission in November 2007 and afterward. The ad stops short of saying there was a quid pro quo at work, though we get the feeling the Obama campaign wouldn't mind if you assumed there was. A story in the Royal Gazette's sister newspaper Mid Ocean News noted that McCain's 2007 comments were at odds with comments he made in 2002 deploring companies moving overseas. McCain said then, "More and more U.S. companies are using this highly profitable accounting scheme that allows a company to move its legal residence to offshore tax havens such as Bermuda, where there is no corporate income tax, and shield its profits from taxes. I applaud efforts to discourage this practice." The McCain campaign responded to the Obama ad by pointing out that the Obama campaign rents office space from Accenture, which is based in Bermuda. The Chicago Sun-Times reported in 2007 that the Obama campaign was leasing the 11th floor of an office tower for its headquarters from Accenture. The company is based in Bermuda. The ad states that McCain got $50,000 from people connected to Bermuda-based companies, and we find this accurately portrays the contributions received. We rate Obama's statement True.

"Barack Obama has the longest track record of any candidate in this election in support of the 'Bridge To Nowhere.' They say the best defense is good offense. Which probably explains the latest tack by John McCain's campaign on the Bridge to Nowhere backlash. For weeks, the media has castigated Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for her repeated claim "I told the Congress ‘thanks, but no thanks,’ on that Bridge to Nowhere." In our analysis , we noted that while Palin formally put an end to the project, it was nearly dead anyway, and Alaska still kept the money for other transportation projects. We also noted that Palin flip-flopped , having supported the bridge project during her run to become governor. Recently, the McCain campaign has tried to turn the tables. According to several recent campaign press releases: "Barack Obama has the longest track record of any candidate in this election in support of the 'Bridge To Nowhere.' " We’re betting if you’re on this Web site, you’re enough of a political junkie to know what the Bridge to Nowhere is. But just in case, it was a plan to build a nearly $400-million Alaska bridge to connect the tiny city of Ketchikan to Gravina, an island with just a few dozen residents and an airport. The project was derisively nicknamed the Bridge to Nowhere by a government watchdog group and became a national symbol of federal pork-barrel spending. As Exhibit A to show Obama’s longtime support, the McCain campaign notes that Obama voted in 2005 for the conference report on the Highway Reauthorization Bill, which included $225-milion for the Gravina Island bridge. The conference report passed 91-4. And yes, McCain was among the four who voted against it. In a floor statement explaining his opposition, McCain specifically referenced the Gravina Island bridge among his many concerns with the bill. But does Obama’s vote for the bill equal support for the Bidge to Nowhere? Let’s put this in some perspective. The bill included $286.5-billion though 2009 for highway, mass transit, safety and research programs. The Alaska bridge was less than a tenth of 1 percent of the spending in the bill. "So they’re saying that because Obama was among the 91 senators who voted for the highway funding bill, that makes him a supporter of the bridge? That’s laughable," Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor told PolitiFact. We agree. The bill included more than $1.3-billion for transportation projects in Illinois, which also could explain Obama's vote. "This gets so goofy," said Keith Ashdown, a spokesman for Taxpayers for Common Sense. Ashdown is the guy who saddled the Gravina Island project with the dubious moniker, "Bridge to Nowhere," a catchy name that helped the project become a national poster child for wasteful government spending. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 "He (Obama) voted for the bill that would have made the Bridge to Nowhere a reality," Ashdown said. "But I don’t know if that means he supported it. I don’t think that’s true." But there’s some more to consider. With the Bridge to Nowhere a national laughingstock, U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in October 2005 proposed an amendment that would have redirected $125-million in funding for the Alaska bridge toward reconstruction of a New Orleans bridge damaged by Hurricane Katrina. Obama voted against the amendment, which failed. McCain was not present and didn’t vote. On Nov. 15, the Chicago Tribune printed a commentary from Obama which, in part, explained his decision. "Others intent on cutting spending have pointed to Alaska’s ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ as a wasteful project," Obama wrote. "I agree and believe that it represents the first type of project we should cut. But it’s wrong to single out one state’s pork project. If we’re serious about shared responsibility, let’s eliminate all pork projects in all states." Due to uproar over the so-called Bridge to Nowhere project, a congressional committee directed the $225-million earmarked for the Gravina Island bridge to the Alaska Department of Transportation. So Alaska would keep the money, but it would no longer be tied to the Bridge to Nowhere. Alaska could decide how to spend the money as it saw fit. They could even decide to spend it on the bridge. By way of timeline, it was a year later — in the fall of 2006 — that Palin, then a candidate for governor of Alaska, assured the Ketchikan Chamber of Commerce she was all for the bridge, and told the Anchorage Daily News "the window is now — while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist." It was a view she changed when she became governor. Early in 2007, she did not include funding for the bridge in her budget. And faced with a project whose pricetag had ballooned to $400-million, the fact that much of the federal money for the project had been spent on other transportation projects, and little prospect that the federal government would throw any more money at the unpopular project, she formally pulled the plug. Palin’s role has been well-reported in the media. But back to Obama. Yes, he voted in favor of the massive transportation bill that included funds for the Bridge to Nowhere. But we don’t think that translates to support for the project. Some might argue that the Coburn amendment gave Obama a clear opportunity to kill the Bridge to Nowhere — where it was not lumped in with other projects — but Obama chose not to. But again, does that equate to support for the project? In his commentary, Obama made clear he did not support the project, but didn't think it was right to single out one specific earmark from one state. The original bill inlcuded literally thousands of projects, with a little something for every state. And it passed with a resounding 91 senators in favor. We think it’s a stretch to claim that Obama supported the Bridge to Nowhere. Certainly not the way Palin once did when she was running for governor of Alaska. Voting for a $236-billion spending bill that included the Alaska bridge is hardly support for it. But because Obama could have voted to kill the project with the Coburn Amendment, we’ll give it a Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

"Obama's Ten Point Plan to 'Change' The Second Amendment….Ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns. In a hard-hitting direct-mail piece to its members, the National Rifle Association detailed an alleged plan by Sen. Barack Obama to transform gun-ownership regulations. Obama's "plan" appeared on a section of the mailer designed to be cut out and carried around in a wallet. The front of the wallet card said, "Barack Obama's Ten Point Plan to 'Change' the Second Amendment." The reverse listed the 10 parts of the alleged plan, including: "3) Ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns." We examined item No. 1 here , and found it to be Pants on Fire wrong. Some of the other items sound just as dubious, such as: "4) Close down 90 percent of the gun shops in America." And "6) Increase federal taxes on guns and ammunition by 500 percent." But let's stick to No. 3 for now. An NRA spokeswoman confirmed the authenticity of the direct mail piece, which first appeared in early August 2008. She would not delve into the details of how the organization supported its charges, but we're pretty sure we know where the NRA is coming from on this one. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 In 1996, as a candidate for the Illinois state Senate, Obama filled out a questionnaire for a community group called Independent Voters of Illinois-Independent Precinct Organization. It asked if the candidate supported state legislation to “ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns.” Obama’s answer: “Yes.” The Obama campaign claimed the questionnaire was filled out by a campaign aide who “unintentionally mischaracterize[d] his position” on gun control and other issues, even though Obama's writing was on another part of the questionnaire. (Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for Obama’s campaign, said in an e-mailed statement to Politico, “He may have jotted some notes on the front page of the questionnaire at the meeting, but that doesn’t change the fact that some answers didn’t reflect his views.”) But let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Obama approved of what was on the questionnaire. There are still serious problems with using that to justify a claim that Obama has a plan to "ban the manufacture, sale and possession of handguns." For one thing, the question was about a state law. The NRA claims without qualification that Obama wants to ban handguns, implying that he intends to do so on a national level. Obama says frequently that gun regulation should be tailored to different geographical areas. For another thing, Obama's answer on the questionnaire was a long time ago. On a more recent questionnaire, he said, "A complete ban on handguns is not politically practicable," but reasonable restrictions should be imposed, according to the Associated Press . At the Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia on April 16, 2008, Obama said: "I have never favored an all-out ban on handguns." His vote in 2004, for a bill that authorized the Illinois State Police to issue concealed weapon permits to retired police officers and military police officers, supports that claim. Furthermore, as a state legislator and U.S. senator, Obama has had plenty of opportunity to propose a ban on handguns, and has never done so. Obama's alleged endorsement of a proposed state law in 1996 does not add up to a plan to ban handguns, particularly in light of evidence to the contrary that has accumulated since then. We find the NRA's claim to be False

"Last week Senator Obama's running mate said, get this, 'Raising taxes is patriotic.' Joe Biden may never live down his Sept. 18, 2008, comment on ABC's Good Morning America that wealthy Americans should act patriotically by paying more taxes. The Delaware senator and Democratic vice presidential nominee's remarks have proved a useful rallying cry for Republican nominee John McCain in painting Barack Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal. But that doesn't mean it's okay to distort the record, which is what McCain did during a Sept. 22 campaign rally in Reading, Pa., when he told an audience of supporters that "last week Senator Obama's running mate said, get this, 'Raising taxes is patriotic.' " Let's go to the transcript. Kate Snow, the ABC reporter conducting the interview with Biden, starts out discussing Obama's plan to roll back the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, effectively raising taxes on families making more than $250,000. Snow begins: "Anyone making over $250,000…" Biden finishes her thought: "… is going to pay more. It's time to be patriotic, time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut." Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Biden made the same point at a Sept. 3 town hall in Sarasota, Fla. One woman wondered what to tell friends who worry that an Obama-Biden victory will mean higher taxes. "It's time to be patriotic. That's what you say to them," Biden answered. It's a debatable argument Biden makes, but clearly he is not praising Obama's patriotism for planning to raise taxes. Rather he's invoking the patriotism of those wealthy taxpayers footing the bill. Still, McCain's twisting of Biden's words isn't totally off base, given that Biden brought up patriotism while justifying Obama's plan to raise taxes on some wealthy Americans. We rule McCain's claim Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

"Obama's Ten Point Plan to 'Change' the Second Amendment…Ban use of firearms for home defense. (Published Sept. 23, 2008) In a hard-hitting direct-mail piece to its members, the National Rifle Association detailed an alleged plan by Sen. Barack Obama to transform gun-ownership regulations. Obama's "plan" appeared on a section of the mailer designed to be cut out and carried around in a wallet. The front of the wallet card said, "Barack Obama's Ten Point Plan to 'Change' the Second Amendment." The reverse listed the 10 parts of the alleged plan, starting with, "Ban use of firearms for home defense." An NRA spokeswoman confirmed the authenticity of the mailer, which first appeared in early August 2008, but would not provide details of what its claims were based on. For that, she referred us to various NRA Web sites. We could find no support on any of them for the allegation that Obama has a plan to ban the use of firearms for home defense. What we did find, and what we suspect is the root of this allegation, was information about a vote Obama cast as an Illinois state senator in May 2004. (See this essay by NRA executive vice president officer Wayne LaPierre.) The bill in question was a response to the case of Hale DeMar, a Wilmette, Ill., man who shot and wounded a burglar in his home in December 2003. Prosecutors did not charge him for the shooting, since they determined that he acted in self-defense, but they did fine him $750 for violating the local handgun ordinance. An outcry of sympathy for DeMar prompted the state legislature to take up a bill that would let people claim a self-defense protection for using a gun in their homes in violation of local weapons bans. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Obama voted against the measure. The legislature passed it, and later overrode the veto of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Like Blagojevich, Obama framed that debate as a home-rule issue. He told the Associated Press at the time that he voted against the measure out of respect for local governments' authority to set gun policy. Here's what LaPierre wrote about the vote: "When Obama turned thumbs down on the bill, he voted against the most basic element of the Second Amendment — the right of defense of self and family — the reason that millions of Americans own firearms." That's a bit of a leap. In concrete terms, Obama's thumbs-down was a vote against the state legislature tweaking a local gun ban. In any event, there's no fair way to interpret it as evidence that Obama has a future plan to ban the use of firearms for home defense. Moreover, there's ample evidence to the contrary. Here's Obama speaking at a forum sponsored by WJLA-ABC7 and Politico.com on Feb. 12, 2008: "I think we have two conflicting traditions in this country. I think it’s important for us to recognize that we’ve got a tradition of handgun ownership and gun ownership generally. And a lot of people — law-abiding citizens use it for hunting, for sportsmanship, and for protecting their families (emphasis added). We also have a violence on the streets that is the result of illegal handgun usage…We can have reasonable, thoughtful gun control measures that I think respect the Second Amendment and people’s traditions.” That doesn't sound to us like someone planning to "ban use of firearms for home defense." Quite the opposite, actually. Ignoring that sort of evidence, and instead extrapolating from one vote on a jurisdictional debate in Illinois a broad-ranging plan to ban guns for home defense, is not just misleading, it's intentionally dishonest. That is, Pants on Fire wrong

"But if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week. With the stock market on a roller coaster last week, Sen. Barack Obama decided it was a good time to take a shot at Sen. John McCain on Social Security. McCain has, in the past, supported plans that would allow workers, if they want, to have a portion of their Social Security put into personal retirement accounts that allow investment in the stock market. "And I’ll protect Social Security, while John McCain wants to privatize it," Obama said in a speech in Daytona Beach, Fla., on Sept. 20, 2008. "Without Social Security half of elderly women would be living in poverty — half. But if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would’ve had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week. Millions would’ve watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes. Millions of families would’ve been scrambling to figure out how to give their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, the secure retirement that every American deserves. So I know Senator McCain is talking about a 'casino culture' on Wall Street — but the fact is, he’s the one who wants to gamble with your life savings." To be sure, it was a volatile week on Wall Street. Down 504 points Monday; up 141 Tuesday; down again, 449 points Wednesday; then back up again 410 points Thursday; and up another 319 Friday. The market ended up down just 34 points for the week. But whew, there was certainly a lot of angst. But there are a couple problems with Obama’s attack on McCain’s plans for Social Security. First and foremost is that McCain hasn’t actually laid out his plan for Social Security. In July, McCain was asked it. "I cannot tell you what I would do, except to put everything on the table," he told reporters. A few weeks later, he was asked about new taxes to shore up Social Security. "There is nothing that’s off the table. I have my positions, and I’ll articulate them. But nothing’s off the table," McCain said. "I don’t want tax increases. But that doesn’t mean that anything is off the table." We’re still waiting to hear McCain articulate his positions. "No one really knows what his plan is, including him," said John Rother, policy director at AARP. McCain’s statements on Social Security so far have been "too contradictory or too vague," to pin down, he said. To make any statements about McCain’s plan going forward would require a bit of mind-reading, Rother said. In lieu of that, we think it’s fair for Obama to take aim at McCain’s previous support for personal retirement accounts. In 1998, McCain voted in favor of a budget amendment to express "the sense of Senate" that any budget surplus should be used to reduce Social Security payroll tax and to establish personal retirement accounts. The vote — 50-48 in favor — largely came down along partisan lines. And in 2005, McCain supported President George W. Bush’s push to allow workers to divert a portion of the program’s payroll taxes to personal investment accounts. McCain supported Bush’s plan, going so far as to accompany the president on a series of town hall meetings in March 2005. The plan fizzled, though, and the initiative went down as one of Bush’s biggest defeats in domestic policy. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 McCain has since modified his stance. When we wrote about McCain’s plan back in April, McCain’s campaign Web site stated that McCain "supports supplementing the current Social Security system with personal accounts — but not as a substitute for addressing benefit promises that cannot be kept. John McCain will reach across the aisle, but if the Democrats do not act, he will." That’s no longer on the Web site, and the McCain campaign did not respond to an e-mail seeking to clarify his position on Social Security. We’re not inclined to give McCain a pass just because he has failed to articulate his plan. But Obama’s statement is misleading, even when judged against McCain’s earlier support for Bush’s plan. First, Obama seems to be suggesting that today’s retirees would have had their Social Security tied up in the volatile stock market this week. The Bush plan for personal investment accounts would not have applied to those retirees currently getting Social Security. No one born before 1950 would have been eligible to participate in the investment plan; so only people 58 or younger. McCain stressed that point in a town hall meeting in New Hampshire on June 12, 2008. "I will not privatize Social Security, and it’s not true when I’m accused of that," McCain said. "But I would like for younger workers, younger workers only, to have an opportunity to take a few of their tax dollars, and maybe put it into an account with their name on it. That’s their money. ... And we will make sure that present-day retirees, I will commit, have the benefits that they have earned." We also think Obama may have been guilty of using some scare tactics here. For one, participation in the Bush program would have been entirely voluntary. Second, without signing a waiver, upon turning 47, the accounts would have been invested in a "life cycle portfolio," shifting from higher risk growth funds to secure bonds as people neared retirement (and thereby protecting near-retirees from sudden market swings). And last, people would have been able to set aside in their investment accounts only up to 4 percentage points of their payroll taxes (currently 12.4 percent), so only a little over a quarter of one’s Social Security taxes could have been invested. In short, it would have been impossible to see one’s entire nest egg disappear in a down market. And people would have been allowed to choose only from a small number of diversified index funds, preventing people from putting large portions of their retirement savings in just a few stocks. Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor told PolitiFact that Obama wasn’t necessarily talking about current retirees. "You don’t have to be retired to rely on Social Security," Vietor said. "Millions of people who will one day retire rely on Social Security as they plan their futures. Senator Obama’s bottom line is absolutely true. If McCain got his way and we had private accounts (a position he started articulating as early as 1998), people who are relying on that money for their retirement would be in a very difficult situation." There is a legitimate point to be made that to the extent that a person's Social Security plan is tied up in investment accounts, it is certainly subject to the vagaries of the stock market. But we are of the opinion that when Obama talked about "the millions of Floridians who rely on it" he was talking about current retirees. While McCain has remained vague about his plans for Social Security, he has never expressed support for a plan that would allow current retirees to invest a portion of their Social Security in stocks, and neither did the Bush plan McCain once backed. We rule Obama's statement False

John McCain would "reduce oversight of health insurance. The recent meltdown in the financial markets, and the massive government-led bailout it inspired, has made deregulation almost a dirty word. Seizing on the spirit of the times, Barack Obama is accusing John McCain of preparing to eliminate regulations governing the sale of health insurance, in a continuation of what Obama contends are the too-hands-off regulatory policies of the Bush administration. "We’ve seen what Bush/McCain policies have done to our economy. Now, John McCain wants to do the same to our health care," an announcer intones in a new Obama campaign ad, called "Article," that was unveiled Sept. 22, 2008. "McCain just published an article praising Wall Street deregulation, said he’d reduce oversight of the health insurance industry, too. Just as we have done over the last decade in banking. Increasing costs and threatening coverage." The magazine article mentioned in the ad is an opinion piece McCain wrote in the September/October edition of Contingencies , a magazine published by the American Academy of Actuaries devoted to insurance and financial service issues. Obama wrote an accompanying piece in the same issue. We’ve already dealt with the McCain camp’s views on financial regulation in this item about former McCain adviser Phil Gramm , and this story that examined McCain's position on the bailout of insurance giant AIG. On the issue of health insurance, the Obama ad focuses on a section of the McCain article dealing with expanding consumer choice in health care. McCain advocates allowing individuals to purchase health insurance from companies across state lines. Currently, states oversee the health care insurance market within their borders, a system of regulation that McCain and others say limits consumer choices and inflates prices. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 "Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation," McCain wrote. "You should be able to buy your insurance from any willing provider – the state bureaucracies are no better than national ones." McCain is adapting a health care proposal long championed by conservatives in Congress and by the Bush administration that would allow insurers to bypass state-imposed coverage mandates for certain types of treatments and procedures, such as diabetes care and cancer screenings. The theory behind these proposals is that by eliminating the need to comply with a tangle of state regulations, small businesses and consumers would be more likely to band together and better able to negotiate lower prices, and thus reduce the number of uninsured Americans. Several bills that would have permitted this passed the U.S. House when the GOP controlled the chamber, but they died in the more closely divided Senate. Critics of such regulatory streamlining worry that it would destroy state-mandated consumer protections that include limiting how much and how often an employer can raise premiums when an employee gets sick, and eliminate state requirements on mental health and screenings such as those for cervical and breast cancers, leaving consumers at the mercy of insurers. (Health insurance generally is regulated by states, not the federal government, but the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, known as ERISA, does outline some requirements for employee benefit plans.) So, there are two elements here. First is the question of whether or not McCain wants to "reduce oversight of the health care industry." The answer largely hinges on how McCain would license insurance carriers to operate across state lines, and whether he would retain some of the existing rules while streamlining state regulations – complex but important details his campaign hasn’t provided. One scenario that Republicans considered in the Senate in 2006 would have allowed insurers to bypass state coverage mandates if they met certain minimum standards. Insurers who chose to offer such plans would have been required to offer at least one plan that matches the benefits offered to state employees of one of the five most populous states — California, Texas, New York, Florida and Illinois. Democrats blocked the proposal from being considered, so it’s unclear how McCain would have voted. Experts say without more details, it’s difficult to predict an answer to the second element, which is whether or not such changes would "increase costs and threaten coverage." Cori Uccello, the American Academy of Actuaries’ senior health fellow, says if new cross-country insurance rules were made more favorable to people in poor health, for example, sicker individuals would migrate to those interstate plans and gradually force premiums to rise. The opposite could occur if the new market’s rules had less generous coverage requirements and primarily attracted healthier individuals. Uccello says applying the same rules to all interstate plans could avoid such disparities. So it’s impossible to tell whether McCain’s plan would really drive up costs and threaten coverage, never mind unleash a calamity on the scale of what is currently sweeping through the financial sector. McCain certainly is on record supporting less state regulation of health insurance, which would reduce coverage mandates and put more of an onus on consumers to shop for the best deals. Whether this would result in more choice and lower prices, as McCain contends, depends on what kind of rules his administration would draft, and how insurers would respond. But lacking such details and the knowledge of how the market would react, it’s a stretch for Obama to suggest McCain is intent on taking a hands-off approach to health insurance. We rule his claim Half True

Obama ad contends that John McCain endorses Rush Limbaugh's comments about immigration (Published Sept. 19, 2008) A new Spanish-language TV ad from the Barack Obama campaign called "Dos Caras" (Two Faces) begins as most of the attack ads against John McCain do — with McCain pictured next to President Bush. The ad then cuts to a bewildering cameo from Rush Limbaugh. In an ad targeted to Spanish-speaking Latino audiences in Florida, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, the voiceover begins (according to translations provided by the Obama campaign): "They want us to forget the insults we’ve put up with…the intolerance…they made us feel marginalized in this country we love so much." The screen flashes a picture of conservative radio talk show host Limbaugh above two quotes: "…stupid and unskilled Mexicans" Rush Limbaugh "You shut your mouth or you get out!" Rush Limbaugh After the Limbaugh references, the announcer continues: "John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One that says lies just to get our vote and another, even worse, that continues the policies of George Bush that put special interests ahead of working families. John McCain…more of the same old Republican tricks." The whole thing raises the question, what are quotes from Limbaugh doing in an attack ad against McCain, especially one that highlights immigration? Limbaugh is hardly a McCainiac and in particular has been highly critical of McCain’s views on immigration. Limbaugh and other grass-roots conservatives derided McCain’s 2006 efforts to forge a compromise immigration plan in the Senate that combined border security and work-site enforcement to root out undocumented employees, with a guest worker program for most of the illegal immigrants in the country. Limbaugh called the plan "amnesty," as did some of McCain’s opponents during the Republican primary. We looked at the claim and ruled it True when McCain said his plan was not "amnesty." We based that on the fact that it would have required illegal immigrants to apply for a six-year conditional nonimmigrant visa. They then could apply for legal permanent residence — a green card — on the condition that they pay $1,000 in fines, pay all back taxes, pass a criminal background check, stay employed and demonstrate an effort to learn English and civics. However, when asked about his support for that immigration plan during a Republican debate in California on Jan. 30, 2008, McCain backtracked some and said he would no longer favor that plan because public opinion favored enforcement over citizenship measures. Instead, he would focus first on securing the border. In his radio show on Sept. 18, Limbaugh took some time to discuss the Obama campaign ad, and it sure didn’t sound like he’d forgotten McCain’s previous efforts. "This is just absurd because Bush and McCain were both for amnesty!" Limbaugh said. "Bush and McCain were these illegals’ best friends, along with Ted Kennedy." There’s another big problem with the Obama campaign ad; the Limbaugh quotes are lifted out of context. Let’s take the two quotes in order. First: "…stupid and unskilled Mexicans." Featured Fact-check Blake Masters stated on October 15, 2022 in a tweet Immigrants illegally in the country are treated “better than military veterans.” By Jon Greenberg • October 21, 2022 This is a quote from 1993, during the debate over NAFTA. Said Limbaugh: "A caller called here and was giving me grief for not wanting to do what it took to protect American jobs, and so I said to him, ‘If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine ‘cause those are the kinds of jobs NAFTA is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I’m serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do — let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work.’" As is clear here, Limbaugh was not calling Mexicans "stupid and unskilled." The second quote: "You shut your mouth or you get out!" This one comes from 2006, and as you’ll see, Limbaugh here is setting up for a punch line — that he is actually citing Mexican law. "Everybody’s making immigration proposals these days, let me add mine to the mix. Call it the Limbaugh Laws. "First, you emigrate to our country you have to speak the native language, you have to be a professional or an investor, no unskilled workers allowed. Also, there will be no special bilingual programs in the schools with the Limbaugh Laws, no special ballots for elections, no government business will be conducted in your language. Foreigners will not have the right to vote or hold political office. "If you’re in our country, you cannot be a burden to taxpayers. You are not entitled to welfare or food stamps or other government goodies. You can come if you invest here an amount equal to 40,000 times the daily minimum wage. If not, stay home. But if you want to buy land, it will be restricted: no waterfront, for instance, and as a foreigner, you have to relinquish individual rights to the property. "And another thing, you don’t have the right to protest. You’re allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. You’re a foreigner. Shut your mouth or get out. If you come here illegally, you’re going to jail. "Now, you think the Limbaugh Laws are harsh? Well, every one of the laws I just mentioned are actual laws of Mexico today. That’s how the Mexican government handles immigrants to their country. Yet Mexicans come here illegally and protest in our streets. How do you say, 'double standard' in Spanish? How about, ‘no mas’?" In backup material for the ad, the Obama campaign cites a story in which McCain did not come out strongly against Minutemen. McCain said he did not agree with them, "but they are certainly exercising their legal rights as citizens." Hardly damning stuff. The Obama campaign also noted that McCain and other Republican candidates declined an invitation last summer to address NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. And they suggest that McCain has waffled in his support of something called the DREAM Act, Developmental Relief and Education for Alien Minors, a bill he co-sponsored that would allow people under age 16 who have been in the country for five years to remain and apply to be permanent residents. McCain told the editorial board of the Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C., last November that although he agreed with it, he would vote against any issue related to immigration reform until the borders are secured. The Obama campaign suggested McCain presented to a different face when speaking to Latinos at the National Council of La Raza Convention in July, but the full text of his answer does not back that up. Anyway, these relatively minor points raised by the Obama campaign are overshadowed by the larger import of the TV ad, which attempts to link McCain to seemingly racially insensitive remarks by Rush Limbaugh. As ABC’s Jake Tapper so aptly notes in his Political Punch blog , "even if one is uninclined to see Limbaugh’s quotes as having been taken unfairly out of context, linking them to McCain makes as much sense as running a quote from Bill Maher and linking it to Obama." We are inclined to think the Limbaugh quotes were lifted out of context, and we think that presenting them in an ad about McCain’s immigration policy — as if McCain somehow endorsed those comments — isn’t just wrong, it’s "pantalones en fuego" wrong.

"In January, I outlined a plan to help revive our faltering economy, which formed the basis for a bipartisan stimulus package that passed the Congress. With global financial markets shaken by the credit crisis, Barack Obama is promoting his ability to devise solutions for a troubled economy. In a Sept. 16 speech in Golden, Colo., Obama took credit for inspiring the economic stimulus package that Congress enacted and President Bush signed in February, saying its components had roots in an economic plan he outlined a month earlier on the campaign trail. "In January, I outlined a plan to help revive our faltering economy, which formed the basis for a bipartisan stimulus package that passed the Congress," Obama said. He went on to criticize his GOP opponent, John McCain, for promoting corporate tax breaks at the same time. The stimulus package was Congress’ attempt to promote consumer spending and revive the flagging economy through a combination of tax rebates, business tax incentives and housing provisions worth a total of $124.5-billion through the end of fiscal 2018. Despite most lawmakers’ initial optimism, recent signs are it hasn’t achieved its intended effect; August housing starts hit a 17-year low and credit rating agencies are forecasting weak holiday sales this winter. But can Obama really take credit for having "formed the basis" of the plan? He did articulate some policy proposals that found their way into the package, but he was far from the only politician promoting ways to prime the economy. And in many cases, he was endorsing ideas that already had been raised by others. The economic stimulus plan began life on Jan. 11, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., sent President Bush a letter asking him to help hammer out a bipartisan package to shore up the economy. By enlisting White House involvement, Pelosi and Reid hoped to pre-empt a possible avalanche of competing proposals to address the nation's economic problems. Bush endorsed the idea on Jan. 17, and the next day delivered an economic address calling for tax rebates for individuals and tax breaks for businesses to deliver "a shot in the arm" to the faltering economy. Obama announced his plan in a news release on Jan. 13. The backbone of Obama’s plan was tax relief for working-class Americans and senior citizens. He called for an immediate $250 tax cut for workers and their families and a $250 bonus for seniors, to be delivered in their Social Security checks. He advocated further cuts if the economy continued to worsen. And he backed expanding unemployment insurance and providing relief to homeowners hit by the housing crisis. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Congress decided to go much further on the question of rebates. The final package incorporated a House-written stimulus plan that directed $600 payments to individuals who paid taxes in 2007 on wages or investment income, and $1,200 for couples. The payments would phase out beginning with individuals who made more than $75,000 in adjusted gross income and couples with more than $150,000. But anyone qualifying for a check would receive an additional $300 for each dependent child under age 17. It should be noted that the practice of providing tax breaks in tough times is not exactly new, meaning no one in the current Congress can claim credit for thinking up the idea. President Bush’s 2001 tax cuts, for example, sent rebates of $300 for individuals and $600 for married couples filing jointly in the hopes of stimulating the economy, though the payments in that instance were called "advance refunds." Obama’s call for expanded unemployment insurance never made it into the stimulus package, though Democratic leaders included an extension of the program in a supplemental war spending bill that Congress cleared in June. The provision, which gained traction after the nation’s jobless rate recorded its biggest jump in 20 years, extended unemployment insurance in all states by 13 weeks beyond the 26 weeks already authorized under law. States with unemployment rates of 6 percent or higher got an additional 13 weeks. So while Obama might have broached the idea, it took dire news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to prod Congress into taking action. Obama’s somewhat vague call for relief to distressed homeowners also was not included in the stimulus package. However, similar, more detailed plans had floated around Congress for nearly a year, as the depth and intensity of the mortgage crisis became apparent. Lawmakers including Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut — a former Democratic presidential candidate — and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., discussed ways of averting more foreclosures as early as March 2007, including creating public-private "rescue funds" that ease the way for borrowers to rewrite the terms of their mortgages. These discussions eventually led to provisions in a mortgage relief bill that Congress enacted and President Bush signed on July 30 that established a temporary government program to help borrowers who can’t afford current mortgage payments avoid foreclosure. The program, called HOPE for Homeowners, reinsures mortgages between Oct. 1, 2008 and Sept. 30, 2011, thereby making the government liable if the borrower defaults on the new loan and if the amount received in foreclosure is less than the outstanding principal. The costs of the program will be paid for by funds diverted from mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As to Obama's claim that his economic plan "formed the basis" for the package that became law, we see lots to dispute that. Congress had its own ideas about the size of tax rebates to individuals and didn’t adopt Obama’s ideas about unemployment insurance or homeowner relief. What’s more, lawmakers on committees with jurisdiction over the housing market discussed more detailed plans for helping homeowners months before Obama articulated them. Obama clearly deserves credit for offering a plan to bolster the sagging economy before Congress acted. But he is exaggerating the role his plan played in the stimulus package, which was jointly constructed with congressional leaders and the White House. For these reasons, we judge his claim Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

Obama's tax plan cuts taxes "for 95 percent of all working families. With a plummeting stock market grabbing headlines, Barack Obama tackled the economy in a speech in Elko, Nev. "Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it," Obama said. He then went through a litany of his tax proposals, including, "I will cut taxes — cut taxes — for 95 percent of all working families." We've checked out many claims on taxes . It's a subject area that's ripe for distortion and attack. But with this affirmative claim, Obama appears to be on solid ground. The linchpin here is Obama's tax credit for workers, which is intended to offset payroll taxes. Single people can qualify for a $500 credit; married people filing together could get $1,000. Obama wants to roll back the Bush tax cuts for people who make $200,000 or more if single and $250,000 or more as a married couple. His tax credits would phase out as they approach these incomes. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Most people, though, don't make more than $200,000. In fact, according to Internal Revenue Service statistics, about 97 percent of all filers made less than that. Now it's into the nitty-gritty. Obama said his tax plan would reduce taxes for 95 percent of working families. We consulted the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, which has created detailed models for how each candidate's tax proposal would affect American taxpayers. The center's complex model includes the indirect effects of certain tax policies, such as Obama's proposed rate increase for corporations. The Tax Policy Center's analysis does not specifically look at the subset of tax filers who are "working families." But the center can make the following statements about Obama's tax proposal, said principal research associate Bob Williams: • 95 percent of all tax filers (working and nonworking) will get a cut in their individual income taxes. • 95 percent of all families with children (working and nonworking) will get a cut in their total federal taxes. Every taxpayer has different individual circumstances, but if you make less than $200,000 a year and you work, we can't see how your taxes would go up under Obama's proposals. IRS data show that 97 percent of tax filers make less than $200,000, so there are even two percentage points worth of leeway there. We rate Obama's statement True. UPDATE: Since we published this item, the Tax Policy Center researched how Obama's tax proposals would affect workers. They concluded 94.3 percent of workers would receive a tax cut under Obama's plan; read their research here . This item was also updated to include information on Obama's tax credit phase out

McCain "voted to cut education funding, against accountability standards. He even proposed abolishing the Department of Education." It's been nearly 50 years since a sitting senator, John F. Kennedy, has won the presidency, and Barack Obama's recent TV ad assailing John McCain's education record is a good example why. Senators, especially those with long tenures like McCain, have to take a lot of votes and state a lot of positions, all of which can later be used against them – even if the bulk of the senator's record points to a different conclusion than the attacker's. That's certainly the case with Obama's ad, which claims, among other things, that McCain "voted to cut education funding, against accountability standards. He even proposed abolishing the Department of Education." In each case, there's an example or two bolstering Obama's claims, but there are other examples in McCain's nearly 22 years in the Senate, more telling, that show that McCain generally supports increased funding for education, stronger accountability standards and a more powerful Education Department. On the first point, the Obama campaign cites a number of examples where McCain didn't support large increases in education funding backed by Democrats, but only one case in which McCain actually "voted to cut education funding," as the ad alleges. It came in 1995, when McCain voted for a Republican budget resolution calling for a 1 percent cut in the education budget. In the end, the Education Department's budget was cut slightly that year — in the midst of the budget wars pitting then-President Clinton against the new Republican majority in Congress. But the education budget quickly rebounded and McCain in 2001 voted for the law known as the No Child Left Behind Act, which increased federal education funding by a whopping 33 percent, or $14-billion, in a single year. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The McCain campaign in response to the ad's allegations noted a number of other occasions in which McCain has supported increased education funding. It's true that Democrats have supported large funding increases beyond what Republicans have backed, but the Education Department budget today is still 60 percent higher than when Bush took office, increases that have largely enjoyed McCain's backing. Obama again cherry picks the record to make a case that McCain opposes accountability standards. The Obama campaign cites a number of pre-No Child Left Behind votes in which McCain didn't support Democratic efforts to require states to establish accountability standards as a condition of federal funding. Many Republicans long opposed such conditions as a federal imposition on what is traditionally a state responsibility: education. It wasn't accountability standards that they opposed, rather federal intrusion into state responsibilities. Even so, when Bush proposed just that idea in 2001, Republicans, including McCain, voted to create the most rigorous education accountability standards ever imposed by the federal government on the states through the No Child Left Behind Act. Given the McCain campaign's pledge to fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act, and in that way endorse the expanded federal role in education that law calls for, it seems unlikely McCain has any intention of abolishing the Department of Education should he be elected. But for what it's worth, he did way back in 1994, when he said on CNN's Late Edition that "given the origins of the Department of Education, I would favor doing away with it." There's evidence, then, for each of Obama's charges, but entirely absent is the larger context. Obama is citing exceptions in the McCain record rather than the rule, and claims — erroneously — that failing to support the large increases in education funding backed by Democrats is the same as supporting cuts. As a result, we find the Obama campaign ad's claims to be Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

Holding up a BlackBerry, McCain campaign adviser says, "you’re looking at the miracle John McCain helped create. Considering Sen. John McCain’s admissions that he is computer “illiterate,” that he has only recently begun to learn how to surf the Net and that he never e-mails, the comment (joke?) from one of his chief advisers made for some snarky blogosphere chatter. A reporter on Sept. 16 asked McCain’s top economic adviser what McCain did as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that helped him understand financial markets. “He did this,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, holding up his BlackBerry, the ubiquitous handheld wireless device that serves as a mobile phone but also allows users to e-mail, text message and browse the Web. “Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce Committee so you’re looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that’s what he did.” Was he saying McCain invented the Blackberry, or merely helped clear away government hurdles to innovation that allowed for Blackberry-like ideas to flourish? It didn’t take long for the political blogs to reach their own conclusion on that question and snort with Al Gore-invented-the-Internet references. The Obama campaign gleefully piled on as well. “If John McCain hadn’t said that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong’ on the day of one of our nation’s worst financial crises, the claim that he invented the BlackBerry would have been the most preposterous thing said all week,” said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton. Even McCain laughed when told of Holtz-Eakin’s comment, according to senior aide Matt McDonald. “He would not claim to be the inventor of anything, much less the BlackBerry. This was obviously a boneheaded joke by a staffer,” McDonald said. For the record, Gore never actually claimed to have invented the Internet either. We’re just not going to take seriously any suggestion that McCain actually helped create the BlackBerry. It’s absurd. The BlackBerry was developed by a Canadian company, Research in Motion, and released in 2002. But there is a real issue here, and that’s what McCain did, or did not do, as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that might be said to have fostered the growth of the wireless industry. McCain served as chairman of the committee from 1997 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2005. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 According to an AP account of his remarks, Holtz-Eakin said McCain’s handling of regulation and deregulation of the telecommunications industry in particular left him with the skills to help revive the economy amid a mortgage crisis, an energy crisis and a Wall Street meltdown. By far the most important piece of legislation that emerged from McCain’s tenure on the Commerce Committee was the landmark Telecommunications Act of 1996, the first major overhaul of telecommunications laws since the New Deal. "The goal of this new law," according to an FCC Web site, "is to let anyone enter any communications business – to let any communications business compete in any market against any other." The act became law a year before McCain was chairman of the committee, though he was a member. And McCain opposed it and voted against it, arguing that it didn’t go far enough to deregulate the industry. As a result, he argued, it would not create the promised competition and lower prices to consumers. As far as the wireless industry is concerned, perhaps the other most significant government decision was to begin auctioning the airwaves to allow companies to spread wireless communications networks for telephones and computers around the country. Those auctions began in 1994. Again, McCain wasn’t yet the chairman, and he was not the major player driving the auctions. In fact, he voted against the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 that included provisions for the wireless spectrum auctions. The Commerce Committee oversees a wide array of interests: everything from the Coast Guard to communications to interstate commerce; science, engineering, and technology research and development; sports; transportation; and regulation of interstate common carriers, including railroads, buses, trucks, vessels, pipelines and civil aviation. The McCain campaign didn't respond to requests from PolitiFact for details on McCain's role in telecommunications and wireless issues. A February 2000 story in the Christian Science Monitor concluded that as for legislative accomplishments as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, "McCain has chalked up an average list of achievements. "Recently, for example, he has shepherded through bills to limit liability to companies from Y2K-related lawsuits, improve truck and bus safety, protect the privacy of children online, place a moratorium on Internet taxes, and designate a universal 911 emergency number." In 2004, McCain made headlines when, as chairman of the Commerce Committee, he pushed for stricter steroids policies in professional sports. McCain's appetite for deregulation has by and large made him a friend of the telecommunications industry (witness his campaign contributions), but the wireless revolution largely emerged on its own. Congress acted mainly to regulate or deregulate it, and to sell the airwaves as a public asset. For a chief policy adviser to hold up a BlackBerry and suggest McCain was a major player in fostering its development – even from a regulatory perspective – is more than a stretch. We rule the Holtz-Eakin comment False.

McCain economic adviser Phil Gramm is "the architect of some of the deregulation in Washington that helped cause the mess on Wall Street. With a plummeting stock market grabbing headlines, Barack Obama attacked John McCain's economic philosophy in a speech in Elko, Nev. Obama mocked McCain for saying that he would shake up Washington and get rid of the "old boys network." "I mean, where is he getting these lines? The lobbyists running his campaign?" Obama asked. "Maybe it's Phil Gramm – the man who was the architect of some of the deregulation in Washington that helped cause the mess on Wall Street, who also happens to be the architect of John McCain's economic plan and one of his chief advisers. You remember Phil Gramm – he's the guy who said that we were just going through a 'mental recession' and who called the United States of America a 'nation of whiners.'" We should stipulate from the start that Phil Gramm might view the title "architect of deregulation" as a compliment, though he might prefer the title "architect of regulatory efficiency." Gramm gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal editorial page, published on June 28, 2008. His biggest worry about Wall Street in the wake of the subprime mortgage meltdown was that it would be regulated more heavily, according to the story. "Every American should worry a lot about this," Gramm said. "We have benefited enormously from New York being the financial capital of the world because we had a more efficient regulatory structure than other nations did." As a U.S. senator, Gramm promoted two bills that curtailed regulation: The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Gramm had a prominent role as sponsor and co-sponsor of these bills, respectively. But as we've said in other rulings, it takes more than one person to change a law. These bills had other supporters, and President Bill Clinton signed both into law. It's also worth noting that the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve have frowned on increased regulation in the years since those laws were passed. So don't give Gramm all the credit. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Did deregulation "help cause" the disaster on Wall Street? The carnage is still being autopsied, but most Wall Street watchers agree that light regulation allowed irresponsible lending and mortgage fraud to go unchecked. The Commodity Futures Modernization Act in particular has been singled out for spurring the growth of poorly understood, unregulated securities such as credit default swaps, which have been getting a good portion of the blame for the financial crisis of September 2008. Finally, Gramm is no longer a chief adviser to the McCain campaign. He resigned in July 2008 after the "nation of whiners" remark that Obama mentions. So let's go over the elements of this statement: "Architect of some of the deregulation": Not the architect, but fairly described as a key supporter. "That helped cause the mess on Wall Street": Not the root cause, but a contributing factor. "Helped" seems a fair characterization. "One of McCain's chief advisers": He used to be, but isn't anymore. There's some truth here, but it also seems like Obama is exaggerating to make a point. When you add up all the elements, we rate Obama's statement Half True.

"I have never asked for a single earmark, pork barrel project for my state of Arizona. Sen. John McCain has a well-deserved reputation in Washington as a pork-buster. The GOP presidential nominee regularly castigates colleagues when they insert language in spending bills forcing taxpayers everywhere to pay for projects only of interest to a select few. But we sure wish that McCain would stop claiming, as he has repeatedly throughout the campaign, that he has never sought any pork for his own state. The latest instance is in a speech he made in Tampa, Fla., on Sept. 16, 2008. He said: "I have never asked for a single earmark, pork barrel project for my state of Arizona. Sen. Obama has asked for $932-million dollars in earmarks, literally $1-million for every day that he's been in Congress." We examined the claim he's making about Barack Obama's record in another item here. In this one, we'll look at what McCain is boasting about himself. It echoes a point McCain made in a mailer being distributed in Florida in which McCain claims to have "never sought a single dollar" in pork barrel funding. It's just not true. As PolitiFact writer John Frank pointed out earlier this year, McCain in 2006 co-sponsored legislation that asked for $10-million for an academic center at the University of Arizona to honor the late Supreme Court chief justice William Rehnquist. In 2003, Frank noted, McCain won authorization to buy property to create a buffer zone around Luke Air Force Base in Arizona, and in 1992, McCain asked the Environmental Protection Agency to provide $5-million toward a wastewater project in Nogales, Ariz. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 While McCain would surely say these projects don't meet the definition of pork barrel spending, watchdogs disagree. "If it doesn't meet the technical term of earmark, it would probably meet the public idea of one," Pete Sepp, a vice president at the conservative, anti-pork National Taxpayers Union, told the New York Times in reference to the Rehnquist center request. By most senators' standards, McCain's pork barrel requests are minuscule, but they do exist. And given the absolutism in McCain's claim, we rule his statement False.

John McCain said last year he didn't know of a solution to the mortgage crisis Barack Obama promoted his record on the economy and attacked John McCain's policies in a speech in Golden, Colo., on Sept. 16, 2008, the day after the stock market reeled on news of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. "Last September, I stood up at Nasdaq and said it's time to realize that we are in this together — that there is no dividing line between Wall Street and Main Street — and warned of a growing loss of trust in our capital markets," Obama said. "Months later, Sen. McCain told a newspaper that he'd love to give them a solution to the mortgage crisis, 'but' — he said — 'I don't know one.'" Obama did give a speech at Nasdaq on Sept. 17, 2007, in which he talked about the mortgage crisis and how it could affect both homeowners and Wall Street. He proposed several ways that the government could regulate markets more effectively. So that part of his statement is true. We wanted to know if McCain said that he "didn't know" of a solution to the mortgage crisis, as Obama said, and to see if McCain's remarks were taken in context. The source for that claim is a videotaped interview McCain gave to the Keene (N.H.) Sentinel on Dec. 4, 2007. In McCain's defense, it should be noted that at that time, the larger topic of debate was how to help homeowners losing their homes to foreclosure. The crisis in the financial industry then was a lesser, though still serious, concern. When McCain was speaking with the Sentinel board, the collapse of the investment bank Bear Stearns was still more than four months in the future. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 In the interview, McCain disparaged speculators who contributed to bad loans, but his comments focused on how to help homeowners meet their house payments and stay out of foreclosure. McCain specifically mentioned creating a simplified form for mortgages so loan applicants could more easily understand the terms of their mortgages. "In an ideal world, we'd have enough people to go case-by-case and say, okay, you can go back to your previous interest rate, and you can't," McCain said. "But, my God, we're talking about hundreds of thousands, if not millions (of homeowners) and how long would that take? Meanwhile, people are suffering very badly." "I don't know how bad it's going to get, and obviously the worse it gets, then, the more there is a role for goverment," McCain added. "But I can't come down yet and give you a specific solution, because I don't claim to be smart enough, but I do have some confidence in (Treasury Secretary Henry) Paulson and I'm glad to see him more and more active in this issue. I'd love to give you a solution, but I don't know." He also said he he relies on his advisers and other "smart people" to keep him up to speed on economic matters. Let's stipulate that this interview does not showcase McCain at his best on issues of the economy and finance. But Obama's statement that McCain said he "didn't know" of a solution to the mortgage crisis appears to be accurate given the full context of the interview. We rate Obama's statement True.

"Obama has asked for $932-million in earmarks, literally $1-million for every day that he’s been in Congress. John McCain has tried to bolster his reformist credentials throughout the campaign by reminding voters that he has long been a crusader against pork barrel spending – federal money for parochial projects in particular states. At the same time, he's derided Democratic nominee Barack Obama for taking no similar stand. McCain contends that pork spending, which is typically earmarked quietly into massive federal spending bills, forces costs onto every taxpayer that should be borne only by the people who benefit from the projects. The latest broadside by McCain against Obama came in a speech at a rally in Tampa, Fla., on Sept. 16, 2008. “I have never asked for a single earmark, pork barrel project for my state of Arizona. Sen. Obama has asked for $932-million dollars in earmarks, literally $1-million for every day that he’s been in Congress.” We've examined the first part of that sentence, about McCain's own record on pork requests, here. In this item, we'll focus on what he says about Obama, which is nearly identical to what McCain said in a mailer to Florida voters that has been circulating for more than a week. The mailer says, "Obama has requested $1-million in pork barrel spending for every working day he has been in the Senate." Obama, on his Web site, has listed every earmark he's requested – but not necessarily received – during that time. It totals $931.3-million, even though the Illinois senator earlier this year said he would eschew any pork for fiscal 2009. The key phrase in McCain's mailer, "for every working day" is missing from the remarks McCain made in his Tampa speech. Obama was elected in 2004 and took office January 3, 2005. Since then, there have been about 930 working days, as they are defined by most people, Monday through Friday, excluding holidays, which would mean McCain is on solid ground in the mailer. Technically, Obama's been "in Congress" for more than 1,350 days, if you count weekends. So how many points do you take off for McCain not saying "every working day"? Not many. We say this claim is Mostly True. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022

"Through competition as governor, I got agreements to build a nearly $40-billion natural gas pipeline. In her early campaign appearances, Gov. Sarah Palin has repeatedly boasted about her role in advocating a new natural gas pipeline in Alaska. And she has not always stuck to the truth, as we explain in a story here . This is her at a campaign appearance in Fairfax, Va., on Sept. 10, 2008: "I'm ready to join John McCain in Washington so we can end the corrupt practices of the abuse of earmarks once and for all. We'll do that. Through competition as governor, I got agreements to build a nearly $40-billion natural gas pipeline. That's going to help all of you." A commitment to build new natural gas pipeline from Alaska's remote but resource-rich North Slope would indeed be quite an accomplishment. Alaskans have been seeking it for some three decades. As Palin campaigned for governor, she sharply criticized her predecessor's plan to have major oil companies build the pipeline. After she was elected governor, she sought competing proposals. In August 2008, the Legislature accepted one from TransCanada Corp., a Calgary-based company. Under a plan Palin spearheaded, TransCanada will get $500-million in state funds to design and seek approvals for the pipeline. But they are not obligated to build it. Financing and approvals are far from certain, and the company can back out even if those contingencies come through. Several experts we spoke to were skeptical that TransCanada's plan would come to fruition. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 "I'll believe it when I see it," said Sarah Ladislaw, a fellow specializing in Western Hemispheric energy issues at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. Palin has repeatedly mischaracterized the agreement with TransCanada. In a news conference in Alaska on Aug. 1, 2008, she said the state never before had "commitments to build this line. Now we do." In its news story the next day, the Anchorage Daily News wrote: "That's incorrect. TransCanada has not promised to actually build the gas line, one of the state's grandest and most frustrated economic development dreams. The state license ... is not a construction contract and does not guarantee a pipeline will be built. Rather, it's an exclusive deal under which the state will provide up to $500-million plus other incentives, such as a coordinator to speed up permits, in exchange for TransCanada doing its best to secure the customers, financing, and U.S. and Canadian regulatory clearances." Palin also frequently says the pipeline would cost "nearly $40-billion," as she did in this claim. We're not sure where she got that figure — neither her office in Alaska nor the McCain campaign returned our calls to tell us. TransCanada estimates the cost at $26-billion. Yes, there could be cost overruns. But experts were skeptical the price could reach Palin's estimate. Palin's accomplishment sounds impressive in her words — far more than it actually is. The agreement she reached — with the help of the Alaska State Legislature — is not a commitment to build, but rather a commitment to begin planning the massive project. Palin's claim suggests that construction is assured, but that's just not true. And if it were, it wouldn't be a $40-billion pipeline. Those are two significant flaws in this claim Palin makes repeatedly. Still, there is a new agreement that was forged with Palin as governor, so we rate her boast as Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly Fals

"I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history. Since Sen. John McCain named Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin his vice-presidential running mate, she has repeatedly touted her push for a new pipeline in Alaska as evidence of her executive experience and energy expertise. But she has often fudged the truth in the process, as we explain in this article . Here we'll look at a claim Palin made both in her speech at the Republican National Convention on Sept. 3, 2008, and in a radio address three days later. Here's the full context, from the radio address: "Despite fierce opposition from oil company lobbyists, we broke their monopoly on power and resources," Palin said. "As governor, I insisted on competition and basic fairness to end their control of our state and return it to the people. I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history. And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40-billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence." The pipeline, which has been a pipe dream (pardon us) of officials and oilmen in Alaska for three decades, would carry to market natural gas currently stranded under the state's remote and rugged North Slope. Palin's plan is for the Canadian company TransCanada Corp. to build a 1,715-mile line southeast along the Alaska Highway, through the Canadian province of British Columbia to a hub in Alberta. Before her election as governor, Palin opposed the idea of routing the pipeline through Canada, a version of which her predecessor, Frank Murkowski, had advocated. But after she was elected governor she decided to consider all options. She pushed the Legislature to pass a law providing $500-million in state funds to whatever company presented the best proposal for the project. The Legislature accepted TransCanada's proposal in August 2008, and the company now faces the multiyear process of seeking federal approval. So yes, Palin "fought to bring about" a new plan for the pipeline. (Though she also fought to put the kibosh on Murkowski's plan.) Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Her phrasing — "fought to bring about" — could suggest that she did bring about the pipeline — that is, that it has been built, or is at least under construction. That's not true — TransCanada does not plan to begin construction until 2015, if at all. Now, would the pipeline be "the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history"? Palin didn't specify what she meant by "largest," but according to engineering experts, cost is the most common measure of the size of large-scale projects. "Generally when people talk about the size of an infrastructure project they're talking about the cost," said Jay McCauley, vice president of the Society for Industrial Archeology. We talked to several experts in pipelines and large-scale engineering projects, who said the only private infrastructure project on the scale of Palin's proposed pipeline that they could come up with was the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, an oil pipeline also from the North Slope that is often referred to as the Alaska Pipeline. (Most large infrastructure projects are publicly funded, whether directly, like the Interstate Highway System, or indirectly, like the Transcontinental Railroad.) The Alaska Pipeline was completed in 1977 at a cost of $8-billion. At 800 miles, it is physically shorter than TransCanada's proposed pipeline, but its $8-billion price tag would be at least $27-billion in 2007 dollars, according to the three online inflation calculators we consulted. Palin has claimed repeatedly that TransCanada's pipeline would cost "nearly $40-billion." But we could not determine where that estimate came from, and neither Palin's office in Alaska nor the McCain campaign returned our calls to tell us. Alaska's Web site says TransCanada's project would cost about $26-billion, and TransCanada spokeswoman Cecily Dobson confirmed the cost estimate remains "approximately US$26-billion in 2007 dollars." That's less than the $27-billion inflation-adjusted cost of the Alaska Pipeline. Not by much — but it's less. Palin was right to say she "fought to bring about" the pipeline. But she implies that it's further along than it really is. And she was wrong — though not egregiously so — to say it would be the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history. We judge her claim to be Half True.

"When George Bush said we shouldn't investigate why the government's response to Hurricane Katrina was so incompetent, John McCain stood with him. In a speech hammering the theme that Sen. John McCain would not offer much change from the last eight years under President George W. Bush, Sen. Joe Biden hit on what many consider a low point of the Bush presidency: the federal government's slow response to Hurricane Katrina. "When George Bush said we shouldn't investigate why the government's response to Hurricane Katrina was so incompetent, John McCain stood with him," Biden said in a speech in St. Clair Shores, Mich., on Sept. 15, 2008. It's true that McCain joined other Republicans in the Senate to fend off Democratic efforts led by Sen. Hillary Clinton to create an independent commission to examine the federal, state and local response to Hurricane Katrina. On Sept. 14, 2005, McCain and 53 other Senate Republicans rejected an effort by Clinton to establish the commission by attaching an amendment to a spending bill. Republicans said the move violated Senate rules by attempting to legislate policy via a spending bill. Less than five months later, on Feb. 2, 2006, McCain joined with 52 Senate Republicans in a vote to kill a Clinton effort to attach a similar amendment to a tax bill. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Both votes came down entirely along partisan lines. And they came at a time of particularly bitter recriminations over the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, while the White House was refusing to release certain documents or to make senior officials available for sworn testimony before Congress, citing the confidentiality of executive branch communications. But it's misleading to suggest that McCain opposed all efforts to investigate the government's response to Katrina. Republicans in the GOP-controlled Senate threw their support behind a probe by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which looked into the federal role in hurricane preparedness and its response. Republican leaders expressed faith in the bipartisan investigation and derided Democratic efforts to charter an independent commission to conduct a parallel inquiry. An aide to then-Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., called amendments to establish an independent Katrina commission "taxpayer-funded flatulence that would just waste time and money to distract from the inquiry already well under way in the Senate." And Republicans did offer to create a bipartisan congressional committee consisting of senators and representatives to examine the hurricane response. But Democrats took a pass, saying it wouldn't be truly bipartisan because as minority party they wouldn't have subpoena power. Biden is correct that McCain did not support the Democratic plan to create an independent commission to investigate the government's response to Katrina. But McCain didn't oppose all investigation. He supported the Homeland Security investigation. It may not have been the kind of investigation the Democrats wanted. It may not have had the independence Democrats wanted. But it was an investigation. And so we rate Biden's statement Half True.

Sarah Palin was repeating "Abraham Lincoln's words" in discussing the war in Iraq In her first major news interview since being named the vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party, Sarah Palin answered questions about comments she had made about "God's plan" and Iraq. The questioner was ABC News' Charles Gibson. Gibson asked her, "You said recently in your old church, 'Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.' Are we fighting a Holy War?" Palin: "That's a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words, when he said, first he suggested, never presume to know what God's will is, and I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words, but what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was, let us not pray that God is on our side, in a war, or any other time. But let us pray that we are on God's side. That's what that comment was all about, Charlie." Gibson then followed up: "But you went on and said, 'There is a plan, and it is God's plan.'" Here's the rest of their exchange: Palin: "I believe that there is a plan for this world, and that plan for this world is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country, to be able to live and be protected within inalienable rights that I believe are God-given, Charlie. And I believe those are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That in my worldview is the grand plan." Gibson: "Then, are you sending your son on a task from God?" Palin: "I don't know if the task is from God, Charlie. What I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision. What he decided to do, in serving for the right reasons in serving something greater than self, and not choosing a real easy path, where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer." We decided to compare Palin's words and Lincoln's words side-by-side to see if Palin's words were a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 Palin made the original comments in June 2007 to the Wasilla Assembly of God. Her visit there had been videotaped and posted to the church's Web site. The video has since been removed, but copies are available on the Internet. In the video, Palin is speaking informally to a group of students, talking about her family and discussing current events. She offers quotes from the Bible at times, and also makes enthusiastic, casual comments, at one point joking that the students are "a cool-looking bunch of Christians." "My oldest, my son Track, is a soldier in the United States Army now. ... Pray for our military. He's going to be deployed in September to Iraq. Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." We think it's important to note that Palin is asking the audience to "pray for" military men and women, and that national leaders are sending troops out "on a task that is from God." She even repeats "that's what we have to make sure that we're praying for." Gibson doesn't mention the words "pray for" when he questions her. Praying for something implies that you don't yet have it or that it there is some uncertainty, so it seems logical that Palin is expressing a hope that something is true, not a certainty. Meanwhile, we tracked down Abraham Lincoln's words on God's will. The original source appears to be a book titled Six Months in the White House with Abraham Lincoln , written by Francis B. Carpenter and published in 1867, not long after Lincoln's death. The following is from Page 282 of Carpenter's account: "No nobler reply ever fell from the lips of a ruler, than that uttered by President Lincoln in response to the clergyman who ventured to say, in his presence, that he hoped 'the Lord was on our side.' "'I am not at all concerned about that,' replied Mr. Lincoln, 'for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.'" In fairness, Lincoln's words do seem to express a greater degree of anxiety about being on God's side than Palin's. Lincoln is also rebuking a clergyman's inflated sense of moral piety, while Palin appears to be expressing solidarity with fellow believers. But Gibson's truncation of her comments — omitting the crucial words "pray for" — change the meaning of her comments from a wish to a certainty. Palin's and Lincoln's words are similar in that they both express a hope that a plan meets with God's favor. Granted, some people find any mention of God's will and warfare to be disturbing. But we find similarities between the two sets of comments. We find Palin's statement Mostly True.

"He admits he still doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an e-mail. The latest ad from Barack Obama's campaign, called Still , sets the clock back to John McCain's first year as a congressman. The ad begins with 1982 on the screen, a disco ball in the background. "1982," the announcer says. "John McCain goes to Washington." The screen flashes a picture of the freshman legislator in large, dated glasses. "Things have changed in the last 26 years. But McCain hasn't." Images flash of a record player and a Rubik's Cube. "He admits he still doesn't know how to use a computer, can't send an e-mail. Still doesn't understand the economy, and favors $200-billion in new tax cuts for corporations, but almost nothing for the middle class." The suggestion is clear: McCain is out of touch. We looked at a claim about whether McCain has said he doesn't understand the economy, when then-Republican primary opponent Mitt Romney brought it up. See our ruling here . We've also looked at whether McCain would offer any tax relief to middle class people . Here, we will look at the claims about McCain's computer acumen. In an interview for Yahoo News in January, Mike Allen, chief political correspondent for Politico , a Washington-based newspaper, asked several Republican candidates at the time whether they prefer a Mac or a PC. "Neither," McCain replied. "I am an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance that I can get." In a July 11 interview with the New York Times, McCain hardly sounded like he has since gone techie. Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 In answer to a question about what Web sites he looks at regularly, McCain said aides "show me" the Drudge Report, Politico.com and sometimes Real Clear Politics. He also noted that he reads the blog written by his daughter, Meagan. "But do you go online for yourself?" McCain was asked. "They go on for me," McCain said. "I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don't expect to be a great communicator, I don't expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need — including going to my daughter's blog first, before anything else." "Do you use a blackberry or e-mail?" "No," McCain said, but then explained. "I use the Blackberry, but I don't e-mail, I've never felt the particular need to e-mail. I read e-mails all the time, but the communications that I have with my friends and staff are oral and done with my cell phone. I have the luxury of being in contact with them literally all the time. We now have a phone on the plane that is usable on the plane, so I just never really felt a need to do it. But I do — could I just say, really — I understand the impact of blogs on American politics today and political campaigns. I understand that. And I understand that something appears on one blog, can ricochet all around and get into the evening news, the front page of the New York Times. So, I do pay attention to the blogs. And I am not in any way unappreciative of the impact that they have on entire campaigns and world opinion." Although McCain has never blamed injuries suffered as a Vietnam POW for his lack of computer skills, articles in the Boston Globe and Forbes in 2000 noted that those injuries make it difficult for him to use a keyboard. According to Forbes: "McCain is an inveterate devotee of email. His nightly ritual is to read his email together with his wife, Cindy. The injuries he incurred as a Vietnam POW make it painful for McCain to type. Instead, he dictates responses that his wife types on a laptop. 'She's a whiz on the keyboard, and I'm so laborious,' McCain admits." Still, McCain admits that he just isn't much of a technology user. Two years ago, McCain told CNN, "I read my e-mails, but I don't write any. I'm a Neanderthal--I don't even type. I do have rudimentary capabilities to call up some websites, like the New York Times online, that sort of stuff. No laptop. No PalmPilot. I prefer my schedule on notecards, which I keep in my jacket pocket." The Obama campaign ad says McCain "can't send an e-mail." That seems to paint McCain as a bit more out of touch than he is. He does own a Blackberry and he says he regularly gets and reads e-mails. McCain admits he doesn't send them, but never said he can't. And it sounds like McCain is at least starting to dabble on the Web. But as of July, not without help. Unless McCain has boned up in the past couple months, if he is reading this post, we assume someone else navigated to the page and showed it to him. One can argue how relevant this is to McCain's ability to lead the country, but even according to McCain, he is not very computer savvy. We rule the claim in the ad Mostly True. Update: On Sept. 15, 2008, we updated this story with information about how injuries sustained by McCain as a POW make it difficult for him to use a keyboard. However, given McCain's acknowledgment that he is learning to get online, this additional information did not change our ruling.

Obama's one education accomplishment was "legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners. (Published Sept. 11, 2008) John McCain released an ad this week making the accusation that Barack Obama supports sex education for five-year-olds. Here's what the ad says: " Education Week says Obama 'hasn't made a significant mark on education,' that he's 'elusive' on accountability, a 'staunch defender of the existing public school monopoly.' "Obama's one accomplishment? Legislation to teach 'comprehensive sex education' to kindergartners. "Learning about sex before learning to read? Barack Obama. Wrong on education. Wrong for your family." Here, we'll check the claim that Obama wants five-year-olds to learn about sex. We've checked what Education Week said in a separate item and found it Barely True . Featured Fact-check Facebook posts stated on October 14, 2022 in an Instagram post Video footage showing Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi hiding on Jan. 6, 2021, shows the U.S. Capitol attack “was a setup.” By Madison Czopek • October 17, 2022 The origins of this claim go back to Obama's days as a state senator in the Illinois General Assembly. In 2003, the Assembly considered a bill to expand sex education directives from grades 6 through 12 to grades K through 12. The legislation required the curriculum to be medically accurate and include information on the prevention of HIV and contraceptives. It also said abstinence must be taught and that students "shall be encouraged to base their actions on reasoning, self-discipline, sense of responsibility, self-control, and ethical considerations, such as respect for oneself and others." Most pertinent to the kindergarten allegation, the legislation states that "course material and instruction shall be age and developmentally appropriate." Carol Ronen, the now-retired state senator who sponsored the bill, said its main intent was to make sure that teenagers got information that was "medically accurate," a requirement that wasn't then part of the school code. A secondary effect was to expand age-appropriate sex education down to lower grades, to allow things like teaching school children to avoid sex predators, Ronen said. "Barack never had anything to do with it," she said. "This is a lot of hoopla." Obama voted for the legislation in committee on a party-line vote. He was not a sponsor nor a co-sponsor, and the legislation never made it to a full Senate vote. So calling it one of his accomplishments is wrong, since it never became law and it wasn't his bill anyway. This isn't the first time Obama has faced the "sex ed for kindergartners" charge. When Obama ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004, his opponent Alan Keyes used it. "Nobody's suggesting that kindergartners are going to be getting information about sex in the way that we think about it," Obama said at a campaign event in 2004. "If they ask a teacher 'where do babies come from,' that providing information that the fact is that it's not a stork is probably not an unhealthy thing. Although again, that's going to be determined on a case-by-case basis by local communities and local school boards." Obama said that he did not support telling youngsters about explicit information about sex. The bill specifically mentions that instructional material must be age appropriate. It specifically mentions teaching children how to "say no to unwanted sexual advances" and "nonconsensual physical sexual contact." The legislation was not sponsored by Obama and it didn't pass, so calling it one of his "accomplishments" is absurd. We rate this claim Pants on Fire