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In a speech defending his plans for the detainess at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, President Barack Obama said Americans should not be concerned about them being transferred to the United States because federal prisons are secure. "Where demanded by justice and national security, we will seek to transfer some detainees to the same type of facilities in which we hold all manner of dangerous and violent criminals within our borders — highly secure prisons that ensure the public safety," Obama said. "Bear in mind the following fact: Nobody has ever escaped from one of our federal ' supermax ' prisons." First, we should note that Obama's comment suggests there is more than one federal "supermax " facility. But there's actually just one, the Administration Maximum Facility in Florence, Colo., according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Some states have built their own maximum security prisons, but it's clear Obama was referring to federal facilities because they would be the ones to house the suspected terrorists. The security of the "Alcatraz of the Rockies," as the Florence prison is known among correctional program professionals, has been cited frequently by Democrats as lawmakers and the administration battle over where to relocate the detainees. Obama is seeking to close the Guantanamo prison by January 2010. Many Republicans believe it should remain open, and many Democrats have also grown wary. A bipartisan group of lawmakers blocked funding to close the facility until Obama comes up with a more detailed plan on what would happen to the detainees. Meanwhile, some Senate Democrats, including Assistant Majority Leader Richard Durbin and California Sen. Dianne Feinstein , have suggested that a supermax prison is the best place to house the suspected terrorists. As you might expect, living is austere at the Alcatraz of the Rockies. Prisoners are kept in small cells and have limited contact with others. Florence is already home to several widely known international and domestic terrorists, including the "shoe bomber" Richard Reid, and Zacarias Moussaoui , a man sentenced to life in prison for his involvement in the 9/11 attacks. As for Obama's statement, federal prison officials confirmed that he is correct. No prisoner has ever escaped from the only federal supermax facility since it was opened in 1994, no doubt thanks to the $10 million perimeter fence and the remote-controlled steel doors. We find his statement True.

Republicans have been complaining for several weeks that President Barack Obama's plan to close the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would force the government to bring dangerous terrorists to prisons in the United States. They've even introduced a bill that would put restrictions on the transfers called the "Keep Terrorists Out of America Act." In response to the criticism, Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, the assistant majority leader, declared on the Senate floor May 20, 2009, "The reality is, we are holding some of the most dangerous terrorists in the world right now in our federal prisons, including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the 'shoe bomber,' the 'Unabomber,' and many others." We started by doing a little digging at the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Indeed, Richard Reid — a.k.a. the "shoe bomber" — is being held at the Administration Maximum Facility in Florence, Colo., which, according to the bureau's Web site, "houses offenders requiring the tightest controls." It is the only one of its kind in the United States. The Florence facility houses several other people that Durbin mentioned and characterized as terrorists: Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the "mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing," and Ted Kaczynski, the "Unabomber" who killed three people and injured 28 others in a string of bombings over the span of 18 years. So Durbin is right about them. Others convicted of terrorist crimes are housed in the same federal prison, including Wadih El-Hage, Osama bin Laden's former secretary, and Zacarias Moussaoui, who was convicted for his role in the 9/11 attacks. All told, the federal prisons hold 347 people convicted of international or domestic terrorism, according to Durbin's office, citing Federal Bureau of Prisons statistics. The Florence location is where the most violent prisoners — and those most likely to escape — end up. Living conditions are sparse; inmates are housed in 86-square-foot cells and have limited contact with other people. Democrats such as Durbin say facilities like the one in Florence are well-suited for detainees from Guantanamo Bay. "Some of my Republican colleagues argued that Guantanamo is the only appropriate place to hold the detainees because 'we don’t have a facility that could handle this in the United States' and American corrections officers would 'have no idea what they are getting into,'" Durbin said. "They ought to take a look at some of our secured facilities in the United States and they ought to have a little more respect for the men and women who are corrections officers." As for Durbin's claim, it appears he did his homework. Given that all the terrorists he named in his statement are in fact held in the United States, we find his statement True.

Clinton is correct that about 60 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 are not enrolled in college. She also is correct that the automobile and airline industries are facing significant mechanic shortages. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that there will be 34,000 unfilled jobs for auto mechanics and 4,000 for airline technicians each year through 2014. However, she exaggerates the pay that graduates of vocational schools can expect to earn in these professions. An auto mechanic earning $50,000 to $60,000 would be in the 90th percentile of earnings for that occupation, according to government data. The average salary for an auto technician is $32,450; for an airline mechanic it's $45,290. The deterrent effect of execution on murders has long been debated, but Thompson suggests the matter has been resolved. Not so. Here is the full assertion from Thompson's broadcast on ABC radio June 27: "...study after study has shown that the death penalty deters murders. Some studies show really dramatic effects, with each execution of a murderer deterring as many as 18 or more murders. That's according to Emory University professors, who found as well that delaying execution also leads to further murders. Most studies have concluded that some number of murders between three and 18 are prevented for every application of capital punishment." A dozen research papers in the last six years support Thompson's assertion that capital punishment prevents murders, according to the Associated Press. Three studies get the most attention: a 2006 report by two economists and statistical papers in 2003 and 2006 from the Emory researchers. The Law & Order star accurately quotes the Emory study, but his generalizations about "most studies" ignore significant contrary research. A handful of studies directly challenge pro-deterrence findings by highlighting various missteps in methodology. "These studies fail to reach the demanding standards of social science to make such strong claims, standards such as replication and basic comparisons with other scenarios," said Jeffery Fagan of the Columbia Law School during testimony before a New York legislative panel. Most notable is a paper by two National Bureau of Economic Research fellows who concluded "that execution policy drives little of the year-to-year variation in homicide rates. As to whether executions rise or lower the homicide rate, we remain profoundly uncertain."

In his speeches and his TV ads, Barack Obama criticizes the influence of lobbyists. "I know that I haven't spent a lot of time learning the ways of Washington," he says in the television spot. "But I've been there long enough to know that the ways of Washington must change." The announcer says, "He's leading by example, refusing contributions from PACs and Washington lobbyists who have too much power today." But his anti-lobbyist policy includes one caveat and a few loopholes that weaken his claim to be funding his political campaign in a way that's truly different from his competitors. He almost always qualifies his statement to note that he won't take money from federal lobbyists, a distinction that allows him to accept money from well-connected state lobbyists. For example, South Florida lobbyist Russ Klenet and his wife will host a fundraising event in Broward County for Obama on August 25. Klenet represents state groups such as the Florida Association of Mortgage Brokers, but also companies such as Match.com and Election Systems & Software. And Obama still accepts tens of thousands of dollars from people who work for Washington firms that do substantial lobbying. Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle is an Obama contributor who isn't a registered lobbyist, but works as a consultant for Alston & Bird, a lobbying firm in Washington. The Center for Responsive Politics found that Obama accepted $55,019 from employees at lobbying firms, and much more from companies that are not classified as lobbying firms but have lobbying divisions. So we give Obama's statement a Half-True on the Truth-O-Meter. While Obama can accurately say that he does not accept money from federally registered lobbyists, he still accepts thousands from people in the influence industry. In the May 23 news release, Biden of Delaware criticized Pentagon delays in approving the deployment of mine-resistant vehicles in Iraq, arguing that the more heavily-armored vehicles could be sparing the lives of U.S. troops. Biden's assertions are based on information from the Department of Defense. In testimony and reports, military officials have said roadside bombs – improvised explosive devices – have caused 70 percent of U.S. casualties. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James Conway, told the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a March 2007 letter the Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle, called MRAPs, "could reduce the casualties in vehicles due to IED attack by as much as 80 percent." Those estimates are based on damages sustained mostly by Humvees, which are commonly used for quick transport but offer little protection from bombs. The trouble with the 80 percent figure is that things are changing rapidly in Iraq. In the past year, military officials have reported that Iraqi insurgents have been using bombs that can pierce the armor of the MRAPs. The stronger bombs have been used in fewer numbers, and it's uncertain how much insurgents will target the new trucks with them, said John Pike, director of globalsecurity.org.

Here's the full quote: "Chris Dodd has been challenging the other candidates to support the Feingold-Reid-Dodd amendment to end our involvement in Iraq's civil war. It worked. Now Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have changed their positions to follow Chris Dodd." Dodd is correct that his fellow candidates backed an amendment he co-sponsored. And it's likely that they felt some pressure from liberal Democrats -- including Dodd -- who strongly favor withdrawal. But Dodd exaggerates his role. He is just one of nine co-sponsors of the amendment widely called the Feingold-Reid amendment, usually without Dodd's name attached. And both Clinton and Obama have advocated other troop withdrawl proposals before endorsing this one. There's no evidence that Dodd had any influence on Obama and Clinton. Huckabee says there are "probably plenty" of presidential candidates who do not believe in God. But the major candidates have all professed a belief in God and in fact most of them have made their faith in God an apparent element of their campaigns. John Edwards said during a CNN candidates' forum that he has "a deep and abiding love for my Lord, Jesus Christ," while Hillary Clinton said prayer helped her weather her husband's infidelity. Barack Obama is a prominent member of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Among Republicans, Mitt Romney, a Mormon, said during the Republican debate, "I believe in God, believe in the Bible, believe Jesus Christ is my savior." John McCain's campaign created a commercial where McCain speaks into the camera about his faith in God.

An e-mail making the rounds purports to cite quotations from Sen. Barack Obama's memoir, Dreams from My Father . Most of the quotes have to do with Obama's thoughts on race relations and growing up as a black man in America. Many of the quotes are real, though taken out of context and edited for maximum negative effect. The e-mail was sent to us by 20 PolitiFact readers who said they wanted to know if the claims were true. (For more on the e-mail and a link to its full text, read our article on the e-mail and Obama's book .) One quote stands out as totally false. "I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race." We read the book, and thought this line sounded out of place. To be doubly sure, we purchased an electronic edition of the book via ebooks.com, and searched for the words solace, grievance or animosity. We were not able to find the sentence, or anything close to the sentence, in Obama's book. The quote is actually lifted from an article in the American Conservative. Author Steve Sailer wrote a detailed analysis of Dreams from My Father, describing the narrator as "a humor-impaired Holden Caulfield whose preppie angst is fueled by racial regret" but also praising it as "an impressive book" with an "elegant, carefully wrought prose style." The "grievance" quote comes from the following passage: "In reality, Obama provides a disturbing test of the best-case scenario of whether America can indeed move beyond race. He inherited his father's penetrating intelligence; was raised mostly by his loving liberal white grandparents in multiracial, laid-back Hawaii, where America's normal race rules never applied; and received a superb private school education. And yet, at least through age 33 when he wrote Dreams from My Father , he found solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against his mother's race." But those are Sailer's words, not Obama's. It's an arguable point whether it's a fair characterization of the views expressed in Obama's book. The bottom line is an e-mailer somewhere took the sentence, rewrote it, and passed it off as Obama's words. For this reason, we rate this statement Pants on Fire!

A chain e-mail going around takes statements out of context from Sen. Barack Obama's books Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope . The e-mail was sent to us by 20 PolitiFact readers who said they wanted to know if the claims were true. (For more on the e-mail and a link to its full text, read our article on Obama's book .) The e-mails states, "From The Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.' " The quote comes from page 261 of the paperback edition of The Audacity of Hope. In the full passage, Obama talks about speaking in front of audiences of immigrants, and how he often tells them that they embody the American dream. But he wrote that when he speaks to audiences of Pakistani and Arab-Americans, their message to him has a more urgent quality. "(T)he stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their sense of security and belonging. They have been reminded that the history of immigration in this country has a dark underbelly; they need specific assurances that their citizenship really means something, that America has learned the right lessons from the Japanese internments during World War II, and that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." Obama doesn't mention Muslims here at all; he's clearly talking about U.S. citizens of Arab and Pakistani descent. Also, the e-mail says Obama would "stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction," implying he made a statement to that effect. But it's clear in reading the text that the words actually represent a question Obama is being asked by his audiences: "they need specific assurances ... that I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction." Though Obama doesn't say so explicitly, he gives the impression his answer is yes. The e-mail distorts Obama's quote and misrepresents who he was talking about, lumping together an entire religion when he was talking to two groups of people in the context of discrimination. It's a significant alteration to the meaning of what Obama said, and we find it to be False.

While discussing college costs, Sen. Hillary Clinton joined a growing chorus of political leaders calling for reform of the financial aid application process. Quoting from a Brookings Institution proposal called "College Grants on a Postcard," the former first lady said something must be done given how long Americans spend filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid each year. It's 100-million hours, Clinton said, the equivalent of 55,500 full-time jobs. Her math is slightly off, and it relies on a disputed number. The Brookings Institution paper says 100-million hours is "the equivalent of about 50,000 full-time jobs." And our calculator figures it's 48,077 jobs of 40 hours a week. Also, that figure of 100-million hours is at odds with the government's best estimate. The Department of Education estimates on its Web site that first-time users will need less than an hour to complete FAFSA on the Web. That time frame "largely assumes that the applicants and their parents come to the Web prepared," spokeswoman Stephanie Babyak told PolitiFact.com. Approximately 10-million forms are filed each year. By the department's estimate, it would be 10-million hours of form filling. "Implausible," counters Harvard University associate professor Susan Dynarski, who wrote the Brookings Institution paper. "The IRS estimates 8 to 10 hours to complete the 1040EZ or 1040A, which are both far shorter than the FAFSA," Dynarski wrote in an e-mail to PolitiFact.com. "The estimate for the 1040 is 16 hours, and 1040 is about the length of the FAFSA. Other researchers have estimated an average of 27 hours for IRS compliance. Ten hours is therefore an informed estimate based on this range of values and our detailed examination of the FAFSA questions." Given such disparities, we turned to other experts, who largely sided with the Department of Education's version. "That form is fairly simple," said Vivian Fiallo, a guidance counselor at Freedom High in Tampa. Several of the questions are biographical — nothing tough there — and many require only a yes or no. The interactive Web site even tells you where to look for each answer, Fiallo added. Indeed, a spokeswoman for the New Hampshire-based Center for College Planning said in an e-mail that the denseness of the form has become less of an issue since it went online, though some families still describe the process of applying as overwhelming. "With assistance, it can take an average of 30 to 45 minutes to fill out the FAFSA," the center's Erin Hathaway wrote to PolitiFact.com. "If there are complicated asset situations or private business owners, joint families etc., then it can take longer, usually one to two hours." No research has been done on the topic, said Meihua Zhai, director of research at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, making all information on how long it takes anecdotal. Given the disputed number and the lack of research, we find Clinton's statement to be Half True.

After John Edwards charged that Barack Obama would be too willing to compromise with special interests, Obama jabbed back during an interview with the Washington Post on Nov. 8, 2007. "John wasn't this raging populist four years ago when he ran" for the previous Democratic nomination, Obama said. "He certainly wasn't when he ran for the U.S. Senate." Edwards has run for major office three times: He ran for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina in 1998, and he's run for president in 2004 and 2008. News reports from his 1998 race show Edwards was described as a populist early on, running as "the people's senator" and saying he would help fight powerful interests like the insurance lobby, just as he did in his career as a successful trial lawyer. Ferrel Guillory, a longtime Edwards watcher and director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, analyzed Edwards as a "suburban populist" back in 1998. In a 2007 interview with PolitiFact.com, Guillory recalled that first race. "The way Edwards framed himself was very much in tune with the modern suburban Southern middle class, who have anxieties about their medical care, about the quality of their children's education, and about their future," he said. If Obama didn't think of Edwards as a populist in 2004, a lot of other people seemed to. The Los Angeles Times wrote of Edwards, "The North Carolina senator lays his populist cards on the table in New Hampshire," while David Brooks wrote a column about Edwards titled, "The Happy Populist." Brooks, a conservative columnist, criticized Edwards' ideas as "false" and "too facile," but he painted a striking picture of classic populist rhetoric: "The emotional climax of his speech comes when he describes how he used to represent 'people like you' against teams of highly paid, distinguished corporate lawyers. 'And you know what happened? I beat them, and I beat them, and I beat them again!' The crowds go crazy..." Guillory said Edwards has struck populist themes his entire political life, but that's not to say Edwards hasn't sharpened his rhetoric and branched out to other populist issues over the years. During the course of the two presidential campaigns, Edwards has increased his support of unions, a crucial Democratic constituency, and spoken out more about international trade policy. "Edwards is in a different place than he was in 1998," Guillory said. "But it's not like he couldn't go back and give his speeches from 1998. He's just running for a different office in a different context." We give Obama a False ruling on his remark that Edwards came to populism recently. His Senate record may not be the most substantial, but Edwards has consistently raised issues of economic inequality his entire political career.

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois tried to make the point that enforcement against people who hire undocumented workers has to improve. But statistics show the feds at least outpace lightning strikes. Given current data, indictments out of employer investigations happen 4.6 times more often than people get hit by lightning, figured Deborah Rumsey, author of Probability for Dummies and Statistics for Dummies , among other books. Rumsey, a statistics education specialist at Ohio State University, helped PolitiFact.com review the stats. "Neither one of these is a common occurrence, but compared to each other, there's a big difference," Rumsey said. Asked to support his statement, the Obama campaign cited a Washington Post report that showed only three businesses were fined — a more narrow look than prosecutions — for employing illegal immigrants in 2004. Being fined is indeed rarer than lightning hitting someone. But based on figures from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Weather Service, we find that the change Obama demanded in Thursday's debate already has happened, at least in meteorological terms. For starters, lightning hits an average of 1,000 to 1,100 people a year, according to the National Weather Service. That would make strikes on people a 1.1-in-303,000 probability, using current U.S. Census population estimates. Now consider indictments in investigations of employers, which numbered 441 in 2006, according to an annual report of the Office of Immigration Statistics at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Based only on indictments, there was a 5.1-in-303,000 chance an employer would be prosecuted to the point of indictment. That's based on a U.S. Census count of nearly 26.3-million businesses from 2004, the most recent year full data is available. It should be noted that the number of employers is tough to determine; officials with the IRS and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said they had no data. The Census count is its largest available, with other surveys showing smaller numbers — and even higher chances of indictments against employers. Given these findings, we rule Obama's statement False. Richardson accurately quoted the September Government Accountability Office report that concluded the Iraqi government had met only three of 18 goals set by Congress to assess President Bush's war strategy. How many benchmarks the Iraqi government has actually met depends on whom you ask. The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, determined three targets had been met and four were partially met. An analysis released by the White House shortly after the GAO report concluded nine of 18 goals had been met. We'll skip the debate over how much progress has been made in Iraq. Richardson cites his source and gets it right; the GAO says three of 18 benchmarks have been met.

During the Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Nov. 15, 2007, CNN host Wolf Blitzer tried to probe the limits of Rep. Dennis Kucinich's longstanding support of union positions. Blitzer said: "I take it that ... there's nothing — there's no issues, no major issues you disagree with America's unions." Kucinich, a House member from Ohio, responded with this statement, which we find to be True. In 2001, Teamsters officials lobbied Capitol Hill in favor of oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "It's time for America to have what it has lacked for too long: a responsible, realistic energy plan that meets our needs and protects our future," Jerry Hood, a Teamsters leader from Alaska, said at a news conference on July 31, 2001. One day later, Kucinich voted against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge when he voted "yes" for an amendment that would have removed proexploration provisions from an energy bill. He cites threats to the environment and human rights in his opposition to exploration. Kucinich calls himself "the candidate of workers ... the one candidate in the race who comes right from the working class and can address those needs directly because I remember where I came from." On this issue, he's correct in saying he wasn't with the unions.

With high-profile support from President Barack Obama, Congress is preparing a major overhaul of the nation's health care system. The details have yet to be revealed, but that hasn't stopped critics in Congress from going on the attack. Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri said Democrats haven't come up with a way to pay for their ambitious health plan. "We agree that reform is needed, but Democrats have failed to answer the most basic question of how they want to pay for the more than $1 trillion of health care spending they’re advocating," Blunt said. It's not clear how much the health care plan will cost. During the presidential campaign, Obama estimated his plan could cost $50 billion to $65 billion a year. That could come to $1 trillion over about 15 to 20 years. But independent sources that favor a health care overhaul put the expense much higher, at about $150 billion a year. That comes to $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Blunt says that "Democrats have failed to answer the most basic question" of how they want to pay for health care. But Obama has put forward some relatively concrete proposals. His current budget includes a $635 billion fund for health care that includes savings from greater efficiencies and changing the tax code so the wealthy don't get as much in deductions. It's not clear if Congress will go along with the tax changes, though, and analysts have questioned whether the savings will be as great as Obama says. Democrats in Congress are still debating how they want to pay for health care. Sen. Max Baucus of Montana of held a hearing on May 12, 2009, to discuss ways of financing health care, and senators during the hearing expressed a great deal of skepticism about new taxation strategies. After Blunt made his comments, Baucus put forward a policy paper that included several ways to potentially pay for health care, including modifying tax exemptions on employer-provided insurance and taxing alcohol and soda. Len Berman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, who testified during the hearing, said later Congress seems unsure how it will pay for health care. He wrote in a blog post that they seemed to be in the grip of "magical thinking." "If there was the easy answer they'd have figured it out already," Berman told PolitiFact. "The idea of a new federal tax terrifies legislators. ... If they're serious, and it's not going to be smoke and mirrors, then they're going to have to make decisions that they haven't been willing to make so far." So Blunt is largely correct that that Democrats "have failed to answer" how to pay for health care. But they are putting forward ideas, and the Obama administration has identified $635 billion — perhaps optimistically — to get a plan started. So we rate Blunt's statement Mostly True.

Under pressure of a lawsuit, the Obama administration recently released memos on the interrogation of terror suspects during the Bush administration. The memos detailed techniques that included waterboarding, a simulated drowning maneuver widely considered to be torture. Some torture opponents have called for the prosecution of Bush administration officials. Republicans, meanwhile, are firing back at Democrats in Congress, saying that they implicitly condoned the actions. Democrats "had control since January of 2007," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said in a television interview. "They haven't passed a law making waterboarding illegal. They haven't gone into any of these things and changed law." There is a grain of truth in his claim, but he conveniently ignores the actions of the Democratic Congress. Democrats did pass legislation in 2008 that would have had the effect of outlawing waterboarding by restricting U.S. agents to interrogation methods outlined in the Army Field Manual. The manual specifically forbids waterboarding. But President George W. Bush vetoed the bill and Democrats were not able to muster the two-thirds majority necessary to override the veto. This was a big issue during the 2008 presidential campaign, because Sen. John McCain opposed the bill, even though he had said waterboarding is torture. At the time, McCain said he wasn't comfortable restricting intelligence personnel to the Army Field Manual. It's worth noting that some elected officials do not believe that Congress needed to pass a law saying that waterboarding was illegal.  McCain, for example, said in 2007 that waterboarding already was illegal. "It's in violation of the Geneva Conventions. It's in violation of existing law," he said at a debate in St. Petersburg. After the Bush administration memos were released, McCain said the legal reasoning behind them was "deeply flawed," though he did not call for prosecutions. So Democrats did try to change laws to end waterboarding after gaining control of Congress and initially passed the law. But they were stopped by a presidential veto. So Gingrich's statement that they " haven't passed a law making waterboarding illegal. They haven't gone into any of these things and changed law," is only true because of the veto. The Democrats certainly tried to pass a law that would have had the effect of outlawing waterboarding. 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 False.

Gov. Bill Richardson took a humorous jab at his fellow candidates who serve in Congress during the Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Nov. 15, 2007, saying their approval ratings are lower than Dick Cheney's and HMOs'. First of all, Congress' approval rating is not as low as 11 percent. Polls in October 2007 have hovered between 19 and 28 percent. Vice President Cheney's approval rating is not polled as often as Congress, but his most recent approval rating, in October 2007, was 23 percent. Polls on health maintenance organizations (HMOs) are even less frequent. But the Gallup Poll annually queries the public on opinions about the honesty and integrity of specific professions. The most recent poll in December 2006 rated HMO managers with approval ratings of about 12 percent, just above advertising practitioners and car salesmen. In fact, in that poll, both senators and congressman rated higher than HMO managers. Senators were at 15 percent and congressman were at 14 percent. So Richardson is wrong on all counts. Congress and Cheney are arguably neck-and-neck for approval ratings, while HMO managers lag behind. We rate his claim False. In fending off attacks on her as someone who equivocates, Hillary Clinton singled out John Edwards for changing his mind on health care. "When Sen. Edwards ran in 2004, he wasn't for universal health care. I'm glad he is now," she said. Clinton is correct. In 2004, when he was running for president, Edwards favored universal coverage for children but stopped short of proposing universal coverage for adults. At the time, he was concerned that true universal coverage would be too costly. "What we ought to be doing is something that No. 1 is achievable and No. 2 is responsible," he said at a debate in Manchester, N.H., on July 28, 2003. Edwards released a health care plan in February 2007 that mandates universal coverage. At a debate a few months later, moderator Tim Russert charged Edwards with changing his position. "That's true and so has America," Edwards responded. "I proposed universal health care for children at that point, and what is clear from this presidential campaign is I was the first presidential candidate — others have followed me now, and that's a good thing, good thing for America — but I was the first presidential candidate to lay out a specific, truly universal health care plan. And the one thing I can tell you ... anybody who knows me knows I will never give up." Edwards did release his plan before Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but Dennis Kucinich released a proposal for universal health care before Edwards.

Yes, this one is a no-brainer. But we can't resist using our Flip-O-Meter to record such a complete reversal of position. Arlen Specter, the senior senator from Pennsylvania, was a moderate Republican, and one of only three Republican senators to vote for the economic stimulus bill that passed in February 2009. But many moderates in Pennsylvania have jumped ship. In the 2008 election, about 200,000 Pennsylvania Republicans became Democrats, many so they could vote in the hotly contested Democratic primary between Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton. This meant that as Specter looked to re-election next year, his prospects for beating a more conservative challenger — Pat Toomey, a former congressman who headed the free-market, antitax Club for Growth — were looking pretty bad. Yet Specter had ruled out switching parties, until ... Well, let's look at the evidence. Specter, in an interview with The Hill on March 17, 2009: "I'm staying a Republican because I think I have a more important role to play there," he said. "I think each of the 41 Republican senators, in a sense — and I don’t want to overstate this — is a national asset," he said, "because if one was gone, you'd only have 40, the Democrats would have 60, and they would control all of the mechanisms of government." Specter, in a news conference on April 28, 2009: "In the course of the last several months since the stimulus vote, I have traveled the state and surveyed the sentiments of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania and public opinion polls, observed other public opinion polls, and have found that the prospects for winning the Republican primary are bleak. I am not prepared to have my 29-year record in the United States Senate decided by the Pennsylvania Republican primary electorate ... . But I'm prepared today take on all comers — all comers — in a general election. And therefore, I have decided to be a candidate for re-election in 2010 in the Democratic primary." Some of our rulings require a lot of time spent gathering evidence and a finely calibrated review of tricky points. Not this one, though. Like judges in an Olympic diving competition, we know a perfect move when we see it: Full Flop!

Michele Bachmann, a Republican member of Congress from Minnesota, is known for her controversial remarks. During the fall of 2008, she nearly lost her re-election campaign because she said Barack Obama "may have anti-American views." In a 2009 radio interview, she said incorrectly that six Muslim clerics who were removed from a US Airways flight in 2006 were attending a "victory celebration" for Keith Ellison, a Muslim who was elected to Congress. So we weren't exactly surprised when we heard her suggest a link between Democratic presidents and the swine flu. Here's her comment, from an interview with Pajamas Media:  "I find it interesting that it was back in the 1970s that the swine flu broke out then under another Democrat president, Jimmy Carter. And I'm not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it's an interesting coincidence." Well, at least she's right about the decade. Yes, the last big swine flu scare occurred in the 1970s. But other than that, her statement is utterly false. The scare began in February 1976 when recruits at Fort Dix, N.J., came down with flu symptoms, and one died. This led to fears of a pandemic. The president in 1976 was Gerald Ford — a Republican. Ford, following the advice of public health officials, called for a nationwide vaccination program. In just 10 days, 40 million Americans were vaccinated. But three senior citizens died shortly after receiving their swine flu shots. A public outcry blamed the deaths on the immunizations even though there was no evidence. As a recent article in Salon notes, "The government had long feared mass panic about swine flu — now they feared mass panic about the swine flu vaccinations." Political analyst Craig Crawford wrote this week that "Gerald Ford's decision to inoculate every person in the country (including himself) resulted in a political debacle that contributed to a reputation for incompetence that scuttled his 1976 election bid." Swine flu also surfaced briefly in 1988, killing a woman in Wisconsin who had visited a swine exhibit at a county fair. The president at the time was Ronald Reagan — a Republican. So Bachmann is wrong about a Democrat being in charge during the 1976 outbreak and she fails to note the swine flu death in 1988. Hmmm. Two swine flu incidents during Republican administrations. By Bachmann's logic, we should find that "interesting." But we don't. It's ridiculous for her to suggest a partisan link with a deadly disease. That's not just a mistake, that's absurdly false. So we'll get out the lighter (after we wash our hands!) and set the Truth-O-Meter ablaze. This one's a Pants on Fire.

After losing the Texas and Ohio primaries March 4, 2008, Sen. Barack Obama tried to downplay the losses by emphasizing that he leads Sen. Hillary Clinton in delegates and the popular vote. "The bottom line is, we've won twice as many states. We've won a greater share of the popular vote," he said. The first part is easy to assess. At the point when he made this comment, Obama had won primaries or caucuses in 25 states (including the District of Columbia), while Clinton had won 14 states (not counting Florida and Michigan). Obama's math is off, but he's in the ballpark. Still, he would have been more accurate if he said he had won nearly twice as many states. The second part is a little trickier because some states that held caucuses — Iowa, Nevada, Washington and Maine — have not released popular vote totals. They've only released the percentage of the vote and the number of delegates won. Also, the election results from Florida and Michigan are in limbo because the Democratic National Committee has not recognized the results from those states because they defied the DNC schedule. It's further complicated by the fact that Obama was not on the ballot in Michigan. Adding up vote totals from the other contests, PolitiFact finds Obama to be ahead (as of March 7, 2008) by 13,002,527 to 12,413,052 if Michigan and Florida are not counted. He's also ahead by 13,578,741 to 13,284,038 if Florida is included but Michigan is not. The only scenario in which Clinton is ahead is if Michigan is also included. She has 13,612,347 to Obama's 13,578,741. We have to give thanks to RealClearPolitics.com, which tracks popular vote totals and provides links to results on state Web sites. We went to those individual sites and tallied the numbers on a spreadsheet. Keep in mind, some states are still adding up votes and these numbers will change. Also, we completed these calculations before the March 8, 2008, Wyoming caucus, so those results are not included. Back to Obama's claim: We find he has it mostly right. On the first part, he'd be better off hedging his claim on winning twice as many states as Clinton. But on the matter of popular vote, Obama is accurate. Though, to be fail-safe, he should have specified that he was excluding Michigan. Overall, we find his claim to be Mostly True.

Gravel said at a debate that 5-million windmills could produce enough energy, electrical and otherwise, to serve the whole country. In theory, he's right. The energy experts we interviewed did not dispute that 5-million 2.5-megawatt windmills, operating under normal conditions, would produce energy equal to and surpassing total U.S. energy consumption of about 9-billion megawatt hours per year. So, it's true, but not at all realistic. "Technically it could be that big, but it wouldn't be economically feasible," said Ryan Wiser, a staff scientist with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Wind is described as an intermittent energy source because the wind doesn't always blow. So power production from windmills varies. It's not cost-efficient or practical to store the quantities of wind power you would need to power the entire country consistently, Wiser said. Researchers are debating the potential of supplying 20 percent of U.S. electrical consumption via wind turbines, the term for electricity-producing windmills. Hitting 20 percent is considered controversial and ambitious. Wiser said scientific studies are still in draft form, but they look promising. Currently, the United States gets between 0.8 and 1 percent of its electricity from wind power. President Bush has spoken approvingly of wind energy, because of its minimal impact on the environment. The Wall Street Journal reported in July 2007 that the U.S. wind industry, which has lagged behind its counterpart in Europe, is now ramping up. Demand is strong for the high-tech parts used to build wind turbines, so much so that shortages are preventing new projects from starting. 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 False. Yes, it's true. Fred Thompson combined his folksy charm (the truck) with a set of conservative principles (less government, lower taxes, more free markets) to win election to the U.S. Senate in 1994. And, indeed, in February of that year Thompson trailed Democrat Jim Cooper by 19 points — 36 to 17 percent — according to polling at the time by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research. Thompson went on to win the race, which was a special election to complete the term of Al Gore who became vice president, with 60 percent of the vote to Cooper's 39 percent (a 21 percentage-point spread). Thompson won re-election to a full term two years later, defeating Democrat Houston Gordon, 61 to 37 percent. The truck played a role for the lobbyist and actor. He leased it to campaign in the state, building his down-home bona fides among voters. In the same speech Thompson also pointed out, correctly, that President Bill Clinton won Tennessee twice. But it's worth noting that Thompson's first victory, 1994, came in a tidal wave year for Republicans, who took control of Congress. "That was kind of a watershed year in Tennessee," said Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon.

Obama opposed the war as a little-known state senator, and spoke out notably at a Chicago anti-war rally in 2002. In 2003, when he began campaigning for the U.S. Senate seat for Illinois, he reiterated his opposition in several debates and meetings. In other words, Obama's sweeping claim to have long opposed Iraq is true. Opponents have attacked Obama's record of opposition on two grounds. They argue that Obama should answer definitively how he would have voted if were in the Senate at the time of the vote. Obama said in 2004 he can't answer that question fully because he doesn't know what intelligence the senators had access to. Opponents also have taken comments of his out of context to suggest he supported the war, particularly his 2004 statement that "There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage." But that quote is pulled from a story in which Obama expresses a sentiment that now that the war has started, the U.S. should do the best job it can to steer Iraq toward stability. Obama joined the U.S. Senate in 2005. He has voted several times to continue funding for the war, saying that troops in Iraq should be funded even if he disagreed with the overall war. (The measure passed 97 to zero.) In recent months, like other Democratic candidates, he has voted in favor of troop withdrawals and other measures to bring the war to a conclusion. At the Democratic debate at Dartmouth College on Sept. 26, 2007, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson boasted about his state's economic growth. "New Mexico (has) the sixth-fastest growing economy," he said. He did not elaborate, so it's unclear whether he was referring to job growth or the state's gross domestic product. In his speeches and TV ads, Richardson has often mentioned job growth as an indicator of a strong economy while he's been governor. In his TV ads, he's boasted that for job growth, the state ranked as high as sixth in the nation. However, the latest employment report from the New Mexico Department of Workforce Solutions, which tracks job data, said the state ranked 14th for job growth in August 2007. The state hasn't ranked sixth since August 2006. If economic strength is measured by the increase in state's gross domestic product, New Mexico actually ranks higher than sixth. Measured by the change from 2005 to 2006 (the most recent data available), the state ranks fifth, according to U.S. Commerce Department data. So if Richardson was using this measurement of the economy, he slightly understated his state's growth. Either way, Richardson is generally correct that the state's economy has done well in his term (largely because of gains in the oil and gas industry). We find his claim Mostly True.

In answering a debate question about the future of the Social Security system, U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich accurately described the lifespan of the popular program. "You know, of course we ought to be raising the cap in order to protect Social Security, which is solid through about 2040 without any changes whatsoever," he said. U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton also referred to that date. Indeed, the most recent report by Social Security actuaries concludes that 2041 is the year when the system would run out of money. To be sure, while the system is "solid" until then, that doesn't mean it doesn't need attention. If no changes are made, as Kucinich says, the annual cost of paying out benefits will exceed the payroll tax money flowing in by 2017, according to the 2007 report from Social Security actuaries. From that point forward, benefit payments would come out of the Social Security trust fund. The year 2041 is when all those assets would be exhausted. The cap Kucinich mentions is a limit on the amount of salary that is taxed for Social Security. Right now, that cap is at $97,500, but Kucinich said he supports raising it to tax more income. In 2007, the program had 50-million beneficiaries and 163-million covered workers and their families. Biden said he wouldn't consider changing the drinking age from 21 to 18 because of the negative effects of alcohol. As evidence, he said 300,000 babies suffer birth defects each year because their mothers are alcoholics. Problem is, that number is way off. The National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome states that about 40,000 children are born each year suffering from Fetal Alchol Spectrum Disorders, which includes birth defects, but also conditions such as learning disabilities or poor motor skills. The group says that number is more than Spina Bifida, Down Syndrome and Muscular Dystrophy combined, but it's still quite a way from 300,000. As for birth defects alone, the Surgeon General says that alcohol-related birth defects affect between .5 and 2 infants per 1,000 births. That comes to between about 2,100 and 8,300 cases a year, given current birth rates.

Romney is referring to a policy in New York and many other cities that directs municipal workers not to tell federal authorities about someone who might be an illegal immigrant unless the person is suspected of a crime or the federal government specifically requires such a report. The policy, which began in 1989 under Mayor Ed Koch and was continued by Giuliani, is still in effect. It is based on the belief that undocumented immigrants are reluctant to report crimes, fires and seek medical care for fear of being deported. The idea is that they will be more likely to do so if they are reassured that city workers won't report them to the feds. Immigration enforcement is primarily a federal obligation and local police haven't played much of a role, unless they have found that a suspected criminal is an illegal immigrant. And the local rules have no effect on federal authorities, who can still arrest and deport illegal immigrants. But opponents of illegal immigration have dubbed municipalities with these policies as "sanctuary cities," a term that conveys broader protection than the policies actually give. This is where Romney and Giuliani's attacks on each other are misleading. Now Romney is correct that Giuliani was welcoming to immigrants and accurately quotes Giuliani's remarks from 1994. The comments come from a New York Times article that said Giuliani gave a "spirited defense of illegal immigrants, virtually urging them to settle in New York City." The article said he "criticized the growing hostility toward illegal immigrants across the country as simplistic and unsophisticated." But Romney's claim that Giuliani "made New York City what's known as a 'sanctuary city,' where illegal aliens were allowed to come" suggests that the Big Apple was a unique safe haven where they would be free from deportation. That's not true. Federal authorities could always enforce the law in New York. And Romney's claim that Giuliani "instructed the leaders of the city not to enforce the law, not to enforce immigration law" is also misleading. City workers had no role in enforcing federal law. That's the feds' job. So we rate Romney's attack on Giuliani as Half True because it exaggerates the real effect of New York City's policies and makes it seem like more of a "sanctuary" than it really was.

Rudy Giuliani has been a world traveler since he ended his term as New York City mayor to become a security consultant. He says he's made 91 trips to 35 countries in the past five years. On a whirlwind tour of the United Kingdom recently, he met with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and schmoozed Ronald Reagan's old friend Margaret Thatcher. In 2002, Queen Elizabeth II gave him an honorary knighthood for his leadership after the Sept. 11 attacks. He must have been feeling particularly well-loved when he bragged to reporters in London that he was one of the "four or five" most famous Americans in the world. Reporters were quick to ask: Who else is on the list? "Bill Clinton … Hillary," Rudy began, before aides (wisely?) pulled him away. He might want to add those two guys from his own party: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. We know Giuliani is from New York, and if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But still … top five? In the world? We turned to the world of scientific polling. Polling the globe is a daunting proposition. But representatives of both the Gallup World Poll and the Pew Global Attitudes Project said they have never queried the world on who among us Americans is best known. We asked Giuliani's campaign staff, but they didn't offer anything to back up the claim. Opinionmakers across the Web guffawed at the notion that Giuliani ranks so high and were willing to offer other ideas. The New York Daily News suggested Brangelina, Madonna and Oprah Winfrey, among others. Wonkette, a political gossip blog, offered suggestions from George Washington to Michael Jackson. Chris Reed, a San Diego Union-Tribune blogger, said Colin Powell, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise and slew of other celebs are more famous. (Fair warning: Reed calls his blog "America's Finest Blog.") We here at PolitiFact finally turned to an unscientific — but world-famous — measure of celebrity: Google hits. Here's what we found: "George W. Bush": 36.4-million hits "Oprah": 21.9-million hits "Tom Cruise": 10.1-million hits "Angelina Jolie": 9.9-million hits "Brad Pitt": 7.2-million hits "Hillary Clinton": 5.8-million hits "Bill Clinton": 5.8-million hits "Dick Cheney": 2.5-million hits "Arnold Schwarzenegger": 2.3-million hits "Rudy Giuliani": 2.1-million hits. That puts Giuliani at No. 10. And we didn't even include Madonna, because we couldn't figure out how to weed out the religious and artwork references. For all of the above reasons, we rate this claim "pants on fire."

Bill Richardson claims for himself a place among the top tier candidates (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards) as he seeks to distinguish himself from the field on Iraq, saying he is alone among this group to want to withdraw all the troops. The distinction is real. The others candidate want to leave residual forces in Iraq to be on hand for peacekeeping purposes or in case terrorists mount an offensive. Richardson says a small force will be ineffective, and all troops should come home. But we feel compelled to point out that Richardson's poll numbers have never put him in league with Clinton, Obama or Edwards. A Sept. 16 Gallup Poll showed him with 5 percent support, a good six points shy of Edwards' 11 percent, and well behind Clinton and Obama. That leaves Richardson in the single digits, along with Sen. Joe Biden and Rep. Dennis Kucinich. Of those two rivals, Richardson's position is not significantly different from Kucinich on questions of withdrawal and timetables. Kucinich advocates a prompt withdrawal of U.S. troops to be replaced with international peace keepers. Biden, on the other hand, has proposed an elaborate plan for partitioning Iraq into self-governing regions with U.S. troops helping maintain order. We won't take any points off for Richardson's claim to be among the "major" candidates here, but we will lower his Truth-O-Meter rating because the other candidates have not said they want troops in Iraq indefinitely, as Richardson suggests. Instead, they have said they need the information a commander-in-chief gets to make a final decision on force levels in Iraq. It may be a fine distinction, but it's not the same thing as supporting an indefinite deployment. This claim depends on your definition of a tax increase. As governor of Massachusetts, elected in 2002, Romney inherited a $3-billion state budget shortfall. And it's true that the budget problem was fixed without raising state income taxes. But Romney closed loopholes in the corporate income tax, which effectively increased taxes for some companies. And he and the legislature did increase a myriad of fees, on such things as boat registrations and court filings, which some might consider tax increases. Also, state payments to cities and towns for schools and police were reduced, which caused those local governments to increase property taxes. The Club for Growth, a conservative political action committee that pushes for spending cuts and tax cuts, evaluated Romney's fiscal record: "Overall, Romney's record on tax policy is mixed. His record is marred by questionable statements and positions and his fee hikes and 'loophole' closures are troubling." We will note that the Club for Growth applauded Romney for supporting broad-based tax cuts. We find his claim that he "cut spending instead of raising taxes" to be only half of the story about how he dealt with the state's financial crisis.

At a presidential forum in Washington, D.C., U.S. Sen. Barack Obama tried to put the massive cost of the Iraq war into context as he rallied to bring troops home. "We've got to have an energy plan that stops sending $800-million a day to some of the most hostile nations on Earth and melts the polar ice caps in the process. And it's going to be difficult for us to do this as long as we're spending $275-million a day on a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged, a war that you and I were opposed to from the start." Obama made that statement at the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees convention on June 19, 2007. The two leading nonpartisan government agencies give different figures, but Obama's assertion is not far from the mark. The Congressional Budget Office, which serves as the fiscal research arm for Congress, reports the estimated cost for the Iraq war since 2001 is $413-billion, or $249.2-million a day. The Congressional Research Service, which analyzes public policy for Congress, calculates the total spending to date at $450.4-billion, or $271.8-million a day. The disparity in the numbers is a matter of how the groups tabulate dollars that don't always have a specific designation. Here's how confusing it can be. When we asked Obama's campaign to explain how he arrived at his $275 million figure, campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki provided yet another number. $305-million per day. This figure is different from the others because it includes projected costs through the end of the 2008 budget year. Here's how the Obama campaign's math works: They take the entire cost of the Iraq conflict to date, ($450.4-billion, according to the Congressional Research Service) add the Bush administration request in 2008 ($166-billion) and divide by the number of days from the start of the conflict, March 19, 2003, to the end of the next budget year, Oct. 1, 2008 (2023 days). The number Obama used at the forum, Psaki concluded, "is actually a more conservative estimate of the average spent per day."

In a campaign ad, an announcer says Obama "won health care for 150,000 people." The statement is based on a 2003 law Obama sponsored when he was an Illinois state senator. His bill expanded income eligibility for KidsCare and FamilyCare, the state health insurance programs low-income families. Both programs saw sizable increases in enrollment after the law was passed. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation looked at the Illinois program and found that the children's enrollment increased by 55,421 between 2003 and 2005, the year Illinois abolished an income requirement. Adult enrollment increased by 100,458 between 2003 and 2006. That comes to a total of 155,879. Of course, it bears noting that expansion of health insurance was a big goal of the Democratic governor who signed the bill, and Obama's legislation had a co-sponsor, a Republican, in the Illinois House. But the simplicity of his claim is hard to dispute, and being able to work with others to achieve goals is a theme of the ad in which he makes the claim. It all ads up to true.

Chain e-mails, generally characterized by exclamation points, typos and a strained relationship with the truth, were perhaps the most effective distribution method for falsehoods in the 2008 presidential campaign. They spread like viruses, infecting the ill-informed and anyone unfortunate enough to be in their address book. But they live on. This one targets Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat and speaker of the House of Representatives, accusing her of trying to take money from retirees and give it to illegal immigrants. A version of this e-mail popped up as early as October 2006, just before the Democrats won control of the House. "'Only the rich benefit from these record highs,'" it alleged Pelosi said about the stock market. "'There is no question these windfall profits and income created by the Bush administration need to be taxed at 100 percent rate and those dollars redistributed to the poor and working class.'" Pelosi never said anything of the kind. (If she had, it's reasonable to conclude it would have hampered her fundraising, which netted $151,000 from the securities and investment sector in the past two years.) A more recent version, forwarded numerous times to PolitiFact from readers imploring us to check it out, shares the same thrust, though it is in a class by itself when it comes to misplaced capital letters. "Nancy Pelosi wants a Windfall Tax on Retirement Income," it says. "Madam speaker [where's that shift key when you need it?] Nancy Pelosi wants to put a Windfall Tax on all stock market profits, including Retirement fund, 401K and Mutual Funds! Alas, it is true — all to help the 12 Million Illegal Immigrants and other unemployed Minorities!" "Send it on to your friends," the e-mail concludes. "I just did!! This lady is out of her mind." Pelosi's office is well-practiced at responding to inquiries about this hoax, and did so with a prepared letter from the speaker: "Internet and e-mail rumors indicating that I support a windfall profits tax on earnings from the stock market are completely and utterly fabricated," Pelosi's letter says. "In addition, my record on promoting retirement security and strengthening 401(k)'s and other savings incentives in the tax code contradict these rumors." The Democratic presidential candidates kicked around the idea of a windfall tax on oil companies, and Democrats support the idea of raising the capital gains tax rate somewhat. But there simply is not a shred of proof in the public record that Pelosi has ever advocated anything even remotely like the windfall tax described in these e-mails. In her letter she provided links to two other fact-checkers who have debunked these e-mails, Snopes.com and Truthorfiction.com. She might consider adding FactCheck.org — they took on this hoax on Jan. 14, 2009. And by all means, feel free to add us to the list. This chain e-mail, distinguished by its longevity and implausibility, is Pants on Fire wrong.

In a speech on the House floor on Feb. 3, 2009, Republican Rep. Mike Pence sounded off about what's in the stimulus bill before Congress. "In legislation before the Senate this week, $20 million for the removal of small to medium-sized fish passage barriers or $25 million to rehabilitate off-roading trails for ATVs is not going to put this economy back on track," Pence said. "And, it was exactly that kind of wasteful government spending that resulted in unanimous Republican opposition last week." We wanted to check to see if the bill includes the money Pence mentioned. Some of our previous reports have shown that opponents of the bill have not been completely truthful about what's in the bill. In this case, Pence is right. The Senate report on the bill, as of this writing, includes $20 million "for the removal of small- to medium-sized fish passage barriers," which means clearing barriers in rivers and streams to allow fish migration. It's part of an overall $190 million for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for habitat restoration projects that "accomplish ecological goals and provide employment opportunities in the local communities." The report also says the projects can be modified to "achieve the goals of maximum job creation and most effective use of resources." Similarly, the $25 million for recreation maintenance, "especially for rehabilitation of off-road vehicle routes," is part of an overall $135 million for the Bureau of Land Management, which includes funding for trail maintenance, remediation for environmental and public safety hazards on public lands, and habitat restoration. This passage also allows for modification for "the goals of maximum job creation and most effective use of resources." A Democratic spokesman defended the funding when we asked about Pence's criticism. "Preserving our national parks and preserving our wildlife don't seem to be unreasonable goals," said Rob Blumenthal, a Democratic spokesman for the Senate Committee on Appropriations. "These are ready-to-go jobs that will employ American workers." The Fish and Wildlife Service said the work to remove fish barriers is "shovel ready" and includes projects like building bypasses around large dams and demolishing obsolete mill runs that date back to colonial times. "There's going to be a lot of work for local contractors," said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Chris Tollefson. "We're talking about restoring native fish runs all over the country." We'll let others decide if the projects are worthy or not. We should point out that almost any job the government pays someone to do is technically stimulating the economy by creating income and reducing unemployment, if only by the smallest amount. Also, the two projects combined account for not even 1 percent of the bill — more like .005 percent. Nevertheless, $45 million for most people is serious money. When he made his remarks, Pence had his facts straight on what was in the legislation — $20 million for fish-barrier removal and $25 million for off-road trails. We rule his statement True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/07a56563-3240-4087-a1bf-60b7abb63097

In a CBS Face the Nation interview on Feb. 1, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , R-Ky, sought to put the proposed economic stimulus bill into some sobering perspective. "You know, this is huge money," McConnell said. "This is — someone said the other day that, if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.” The bill isn't that expensive yet — the House version is estimated at $819 billion — but the Senate is expected to add new programs and additional tax cuts that could increase the cost significantly. Both chambers are expected to keep the total pricetag under $1 trillion. We'll save you from counting zeros on your online calculator and give you our quick and dirty assessment of whether his analogy is right. First, a starting point. Biblical scholars may quibble about the actual birth date of Jesus Christ, but we're going to go with the fairly commonly accepted theory that it was around 4 B.C. That's right, it would mean Christ was actually born "Before Christ." Add that to Anno Domini time, and you come to 2012 years since the birth of Christ. So here goes our math: 2,012 times 365 (yes, we are aware there are leap years ... don't be like that) times $1,000,000. A: $734 billion (give or take a few hundred million). The stimulus package is actually short of $1 trillion too, $819 billion. But that's still more than a million bucks a day since the day Jesus was born. We find McConnell's staggering stat to be True.

A veteran of many frosty winters in the Windy City, President Obama was incredulous to find out that classes at his daughters' new schools in Washington, D.C., had been canceled due to icy road conditions. "Can I make a comment that is unrelated to the economy very quickly?" Obama told reporters in a light moment at a gathering with business leaders on Jan. 28. "And it has to do with Washington. My children's school was canceled today. Because of, what? Some ice?" "As my children pointed out, in Chicago, school is never canceled," Obama said. "In fact, my 7-year-old pointed out that (during a winter storm) you'd go outside for recess. You wouldn't even stay indoors. So, I don't know. We're going to have to try to apply some flinty Chicago toughness." According to an AP report, Obama was asked if he meant the people of the national's capital are wimps, to which Obama responded: "I'm saying, when it comes to the weather, folks in Washington don't seem to be able to handle things." Chicago gets an average of about 3 feet of snow a year. Is it possible they don't need snow days? Turns out it's been 10 years. "The last time we had a snow day was on Jan. 4 and 5 of 1999," said Malon Edwards, spokesman for the Chicago Public Schools. That's when the Windy City got socked with 22 inches of snow, at the time the second-largest snowstorm in Chicago history. "We very rarely cancel for snow days." In mid January of this year, when temperatures dipped into negative numbers (sans wind chill), the school district told parents if they felt it was unsafe to send their kids to school that day, it'd be okay to keep them at home. But school stayed open. We should note that D.C. public schools weren't actually closed on Jan. 28. They opened two hours late. But Obama's daughters, Malia and Sasha, attend the private Sidwell Friends School, which canceled classes. Most school districts in the Washington suburbs also closed. Obama is right that snow days are amazingly rare in Chicago — there haven't been any in the last decade — but we'll cruelly ding him for saying "never." Mostly True.

We know the public debt has grown dramatically during the past eight years. Rahm Emanuel, Barack Obama's White House chief of staff, pegged the increase at $4 trillion recently. Emanuel appeared on Meet the Press the Sunday before Obama took office and was asked about Obama's spending plans and whether he was concerned about adding even more to the national debt. Emanuel began by pointing out that the national debt increased significantly during the Bush administration, then he defended the need for a stimulus bill to help the economy. "Actually, there was a surplus at one time, and now we've added, in the last eight years, $4 trillion of debt to the nation's obligations," Emanuel said. Emanuel was actually using two different ways of talking about the budget. We'll explain. The federal government creates a budget every year. When it spends more money than it takes in, it runs a deficit. When tax revenues run higher than expenses, that's a budget surplus. At the end of the Clinton administration, there were several years of budget surpluses. But those surpluses were not enough to compensate for the previous deficit years. So the government still carried what's called the national debt. (For more detail on these concepts, check out this "Frequently Asked Questions about the Public Debt" Web page put together by the Treasury Department.) Here, we wanted to look at Emanuel's claim that during the past eight years we've added $4 trillion to the national debt. Is it that much? Turns out, it's even more than that. Emanuel didn't mention the Bush administration specifically, but that's what most people think of when they think of the last eight years. So we decided to check the national debt from when Bush took office to when he left. When Bush took office, the national debt was $5.73 trillion. When he left, it was $10.7 trillion. That's a difference of $4.97 trillion, almost $1 trillion more than what Emanuel said. But the debt has shot up significantly during the past few months, mostly due to the economic meltdown of 2008 and the government's efforts to shore up the federal banking system. As recently as Sept. 18, 2008, Emanuel would have been correct with the $4 trillion number. You can check out all these numbers for yourself via the Treasury Department's debt history search application . So what does the Truth-O-Meter say when someone is off by $1 trillion? As we've said with our policy on statistical claims , "to assess the truth for a numbers claim, the biggest factor is the underlying message." So even though he is off by about 20 percent, the fact that the number has been surging lately supports his point that the debt increased greatly under Bush. So we rate his statement Mostly True.

Rep. John Murtha, a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee who chairs its defense subcommittee, is one of the Democrats concerned about President Barack Obama's plan to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.   On Hardball With Chris Matthew s on Dec. 2, 2009, Murtha said he was worried about the cost and complexity of Obama's strategy.   "This is a very complicated thing and very costly operation," said Murtha, D-Pa. "So you know, we got a lot of problems facing us, 104,000 contractors already in Afghanistan, in addition to the 68,000 troops. We're going to have more troops, Chris, than the Russians had in Afghanistan."   Murtha said "Russians," but it was clear that he was referring to the Soviet Union, which was still intact when its troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Murtha's comments got us wondering whether the United States would have more troops stationed in the country than the Soviet Union did after it invaded. First, Murtha's claim deserves a little background on Afghanistan's stormy relationship with the Soviet Union. It all started in April 1978, when Afghanistan's communist People's Democratic Party staged a coup and renamed the country the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. In the following months, the U.S.S.R. sent troops to Afghanistan to help fend off Islamic insurgents there. What started out as an aid operation turned into a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979. The Soviet-Afghan war lasted nine years.   Estimates of the Soviet troops vary. In 1989, when the last Soviet soldiers left Afghanistan, the New York Times reported that there had been 115,000 troops at the height of the war. Other estimates peg the number at 118,000 and 120,000.   Currently, the United States has approximately 68,000 troops in Afghanistan, and is planning to send 30,000 more, bringing the total number to about 100,000.   So, Murtha is off by at least 15,000 troops. The Soviets had more.   We asked Murtha's office about his statement, and his spokesman, Matt Mazonkey, said the congressman is right if NATO allies are included. Indeed, including foreign troops would bring the number up to 140,000. Murtha did not make this clear on Hardball; we believe most viewers would interpret his "we" to mean the United States. But since the United States is directing the effort, it's conceivable that some might include the total force with NATO allies, in which case Murtha would be correct. So 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 False.

The Obama administration has promoted its Web site Recovery.gov as a bold new step in government transparency and a convenient way for voters to see that the economic stimulus program is working. Some Republicans say the site is filled with unreliable propaganda. Florida Republican Rep. Jeff Miller ridiculed the site in a newsletter Nov. 19, writing about how he looked on Recovery.gov and found jobs created in Florida's 34th, 53rd, 86th, and "00th" districts. "The problem is, these congressional districts do not exist," Miller wrote. "Florida only has TWENTY-FIVE congressional districts. "We know that the Administration is pulling a 'jobs created or saved' number out of thin air despite the fact that the unemployment rate remains high," Miller wrote. "The people of Florida know. We know that although Democrats represent only 10 of Florida’s 25 districts, their districts received 60% of the stimulus funds. These numbers reek of partisanship and potential corruption." Miller was right that Recovery.gov did have incorrect information on it. Officials blamed it on errors entering the data and have since replaced the erroneous districts with the notation "unassigned congressional district." ABC News broke the story on Nov. 16 and the corrections were made about two days later. The error caught our attention here at PolitiFact, and we archived the Florida page that confirms Miller's observations on bad district data. We also looked into whether Democratic districts received more money than Republican districts , and rated that statement Barely True. Here, we're verifying Miller's statement that Recovery.gov listed congressional districts that do not exist. That was indeed the case until news reports brought attention to the wrong data. Officials removed the data the evening before Miller posted his newsletter, so that now the jobs and money are attributed to "unassigned congressional district." So we rate Miller's statement Mostly True.

We got a chain e-mail recently that purports to list 90 accomplishments from President Barack Obama's first six months in office. Unlike most chain e-mails we get, this one was signed by its author, Robert Watson, a professor of American Studies at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla. Watson said he spoke last spring at Democratic political clubs and was asked by some members to compile the list as talking points to balance some of the claims about the Obama administration coming from Republicans. The list has since gone viral, and now Watson fields several calls and e-mails every day challenging him on some of the entries. We decided to look into a handful of items on the list to see if they check out. Here, we look at No. 46, that Obama "closed offshore tax safe havens." On May 4, 2009, the White House issued a detailed, six-page plan to curb overseas tax havens and remove tax incentives for companies to shift jobs overseas. The plan to "get tough" on overseas tax havens included eliminating loopholes for certain offshore subsidiaries; cracking down on the abuse of tax havens by individuals; and putting more resources into IRS enforcement to help close the international tax gap. And in late October, the House and Senate introduced the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act of 2009, which seeks to crack down on Americans hiding their assets in overseas tax havens. The president promptly issued a statement in support of the legislation. "Shortly after taking office, I laid out a set of proposals to crack down on illegal overseas tax evasion," Obama stated. "The legislation introduced today would fulfill that promise, putting a stop to billions of dollars worth of abuses. I look forward to working with Congress to turn these proposals into law so that honest Americans no longer shoulder the burden of the few individuals and businesses that put profit before responsibility." Although the legislation enjoys the support of the White House, it is likely to face strong opposition from corporations that do considerable business overseas. According to a story in the New York Times , "about 200 companies and trade associations, including Microsoft Corp., General Electric Co. and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, signed a letter stating that the proposed changes to the tax code would put them at a disadvantage with their rivals." In other words, it's premature to put this one in the "Obama Accomplishments" column. Watson acknowledged as much when we spoke to him on Nov. 19. "The president started it, and Congress is now looking at it, but it's not a done deal," he said. And so we rate this one Half True.