The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL  | The recently passed student loan bill will result in the loss of 31,000 private sector jobs – FALSE

SEN. McCONNELL: They nationalized the student loan business, which will kill 31,000 private sector jobs.

Fact-check.org handled this back in March, we’ve look at their research and agree with their analysis. Sen. McConnell’s statement is FALSE.

From crowd-sourcer James’ summary of what FactCheck.org found:

First, that 35,000 number came from an report sponsored by National Council of Higher Education Loan Programs, the Consumer Bankers Association, the Education Finance Council and the Student Loan Servicing Alliance – they have as yet refused to make the data available. In fact, the total number of jobs, including jobs in India and elsewhere abroad, is 35,000. According to the FactCheck analysis, the legislation would result in anywhere between a net gain of 300 jobs to a net loss of 4,750 jobs, a far cry from 35,000.

Special thanks to crowd-sourcer James for assisting with this fact-check.

This fact-check took a combined 35 minutes.

The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY)  | Elena Kagan’s solicitor office argued it would be OK to ban books, then she argued herself that it would be OK to ban pamphlets – MOSTLY TRUE (but highly misleading)

SEN. McCONNELL: Solicitor Kagan’s office in the initial hearing argued that it’d be OK to ban books. And then when there was a rehearing Solicitor Kagan herself, in her first Supreme Court argument, suggested that it might be OK to ban pamphlets.

After reading through the argument transcripts and analysis by our crowd-sourcer Andy and by FactCheck.org, we have come to conclusion that Senator McConnell’s statement is MOSTLY TRUE but highly misleading. Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart originally argued it would be OK to prohibit the publication of a book that was paid for with corporate funds and advocated for a political candidate. Does this fit the literal meaning of “banning books”? Yes. However, Stewart also had this exchange with Justice Alito:

(Supreme Court Argument Transcript [08-205] pg.27)

JUSTICE ALITO: That’s pretty incredible. You think that if — if a book was published, a campaign biography that was the functional equivalent of express advocacy, that could be banned?

MR. STEWART: I’m not saying it could be banned. I’m saying that Congress could prohibit the use of corporate treasury funds and could require a corporation to publish it using its PAC.

So in this case he is saying that the issue is not about banning books as much as it is about prohibiting the use of corporate treasury funds for books which express advocacy, that those books must instead be paid for using a PAC. This is hardly the typical meaning of the term “banning books.”

Later on Kagan reargued their position, and focused not on the books but the pamphlets.

Supreme Court Argument Transcript [ 08-205 Reargued ] pg.48:

GENERAL KAGAN: …when corporations use other people’s money to electioneer, that is a harm not just to the shareholders themselves but a sort of a broader harm to the public that comes from distortion of the electioneering that is done by corporations.

Supreme Court Argument Transcript [ 08-205 Reargued ] pg.66:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: But we don’t put our — we don’t put our First Amendment rights in the hands of FEC bureaucrats; and if you say that you are not going to apply it to a book, what about a pamphlet?

GENERAL KAGAN: I think a — a pamphlet would be different. A pamphlet is pretty classic electioneering, so there is no attempt to say that 441 b only applies to video and not to print. It does —

and then later:

Supreme Court Argument Transcript [ 08-205 Reargued ] pg.67:

GENERAL KAGAN: [W]hat we’re saying is that there has never been an enforcement action for books. Nobody has ever suggested — nobody in Congress, nobody in the administrative apparatus has ever suggested that books pose any kind of corruption problem.

So Kagan did argue that pamphlets could be prohibited but it was under the same very specific context outlined by Mr. Stewart, and both also argued moments later that in fact the materials could not be banned. We are not legal experts regarding the nuance of these kinds of arguments, but it seems like a stretch that to argue in any broad sense that either Stewart or Kagan were “OK with the banning of books”.  Regardless however, they did make arguments consistent with Sen. McConnell’s statement, so we have concluded it was MOSTLY TRUE (but highly misleading).

Disagree with our assessment? This was a tricky one, so let’s hear your analysis in the comments…

Special thanks to crowd-sourcer Andy for assisting with this fact-check

This fact check took a combined 4.5 hours.

The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY) | The Obama admin. will have doubled the national debt in the next 5 years, triple it in 10 – TRUE

SEN. McCONNELL: They’ve doubled the national debt in the last–will double the national debt in the next five years, triple it in 10.

Politifact checked the same statement made by Judd Gregg and here is what they had to say:

To check the claim, we relied on an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, released on March 20. The CBO, a nonpartisan arm of Congress, projects that the national debt will go from $5.8 trillion in 2008 to $11.8 trillion by the end of 2013; and to $17.3 trillion in 2019. By that count, Gregg’s claim of doubling the debt in five years, tripling it in 10 years, is correct.

Politifact used the CBO’s estimate of the President’s budget, and according to the estimate, the national debt will double in 5 years and triple in 10. Therefore, we find Sen. Mitch McConnell’s statement TRUE.

Special thanks to crowd-sourcer James for assisting with this fact-check.

This fact-check took a combined  1 hour.

The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY) | The US receives 30% of it’s oil from the Gulf of Mexico

If McConnell meant 30% of US crude oil consumption – FALSE
If McConnell meant 30% of US domestic crude oil production – TRUE

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY) | W/o GOM crude oil, gas would be $14 (a gallon) – UNCONFIRMABLE

SEN. McCONNELL: As horrible as this is, it’s important to remember that we get 30 percent of our oil from the Gulf and, if you shut that down, you’d have $14 gasoline.

So we are going to try something new with this fact-check. Because Sen. McConnell’s statement is vague enough to be misleading, we have fact-checked both possible meanings of it, which hinge on what the definition of “our” is. If Sen. McConnell means that 30% of the crude oil that the US consumes comes from the Gulf of Mexico, then his statement is FALSE. If Sen McConnell means that 30% of the crude oil that the US produces comes from the Gulf of Mexico, then his statement is TRUE.

According to the US Energy Information Administration:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oog/special/gulf/gulf_fact_sheet.html

The entire US domestic production of crude oil accounted for 28% of US liquid fuel consumption in 2009.
Gulf of Mexico crude oil production accounted for 8% of US liquid fuel consumption in 2009.
Gulf of Mexico crude oil production accounted for 30% of overall US crude oil production in 2009 (and makes up  19% of US reserves).

Another interesting fact from crowd-sourcer kcars1:

In addition, US has only 2.2% of the world oil reserves and GOM accounts for 19%, so GOM accounts for 0.42% of world reserves. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-wo…

Regarding the $14 a gallon gasoline, we were unable to find data to back up or refute that. That also means we were unable to find the data Sen. McConnell would be able to use to cite that number. Additionally, if GOM crude oil production equals only 8% of total US liquid fuel consumption, it seems unlikely that the loss of that 8% would result in a 466% increase in gasoline prices. (Gas currently averages around $3/gal) Regardless, until more information can be found or made available, Sen. McConnell’s statement cannot be confirmed at this time.

Special thanks to crowd-sourcers kcars1 and Joshua for assisting with this fact-check.

This fact-check took a combined 2.5 hours.

The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER | The stimulus, which was unpopular at first, is now getting more popular – FALSE

SEN. SCHUMER: The stimulus, which was unpopular at first, now, if you look at the polls, is getting more popular.

Looking at the polling we have found, Schumer is wrong on both of these assertions. All of the polling data in our research suggests that A) the stimulus package had a national approval rate over 50% when it was passed and B) it is not (nor is it getting) more popular now. Now there is a caveat that perhaps Sen. Schumer was referring to some poll he had seen that we have not been able to find – but if that is the case that poll is not supported by any others we have seen.

Here are a variety of numbers from stimulus polling over the past year: (sorry we are not more web design savvy to present them as a graph or table)

2/11/2009: Gallup poll indicates 59% approve of the stimulus bill
2/10/2009: CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll indicates 54% approve of the stimulus bill

7/24-28/2009: CBS/NY Times poll indicates 25% think stimulus has made the economy better, 13% worse, 57% no impact
8/6-9/2009: USA Today/Gallup poll indicates 41% think stimulus has made the economy better, 24% worse, 33% no effect

12/4-8/2009: CBS/NY Times poll indicates 32% think stimulus has made the economy better, 15% worse, 46% no impact

1/10-14/2010: NBC/WSJ Poll indicates 49% approve of the stimulus, 43% disapprove
1/25/2010: CNN poll indicates 56% oppose the stimulus bill
2/5-10/2010: CBS/NY Times poll indicates 6% think stimulus has created jobs, 41% expect it to, 48% don’t expect it to
2/17/2010: Rasmussen poll indicates 35% agree stimulus has helped economy, 33% think it has hurt, 26% think it has had no impact

4/5-12/2010: CBS/NY Times poll indicates 32% think stimulus has made the economy better, 18% worse, 44% no impact
4/21-26/2010: Pew Research Center poll indicates 32% think the stimulus has helped the job situation, 62% think is has not
5/6-10/2010: NBC/WSJ poll indicates 18% think stimulus has already helped improve the economy, 20% think it will help, 42% think it will not help, and 18% have no opinion either way

Sen. Schumer gets a FALSE on this statement.

Special thanks to crowd-sourcer Joshua for assisting with this fact-check.

This fact-check took a combined 3.5 hours.

The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY) | Elena Kagan took the position that military recruiters should not be allowed at HLS and the Supreme Court decided 8-0 against that position – TRUE

SEN. McCONNELL: Secondly is the issue of the military recruitment at Harvard.  She took the position that Harvard should not allow military recruiters at the law school, later supported that position in a decision in the–in a, in a case in the court system that ended up with the Supreme Court ruling 8-to-nothing against the position that she took.

So Politifact looked at this one last week when analyzing a statement made by John Barrasso on Fox News. Their research and conclusion (TRUE on both) are sound. Key quote:

The Supreme Court, however, disagreed in an 8-0 ruling on March 6, 2006. The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, ruled against FAIR and, in doing so, rejected the claims of Kagan and the other law professors that the school had the right to enforce non-discrimination policies against the military. “Under the statute, military recruiters must be given the same access as recruiters who comply with the policy,” the opinion said.

Senator McConnell is correct on both, his statements are TRUE.

UPDATE: Here is some interesting additional analysis from commenter wesmorgan1

Special thanks to crowd-sourcer SLBinVA for assisiting with this fact-check.

This fact-check took a combined 15 minutes.

The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

MIKE MURPHY | Violent crime in Arizona as a result of unauthorized immigration has increased during the Obama administration – FALSE

MIKE MURPHY | Obama administration has done nothing – FALSE

MR. MURPHY: It’s a lawless frontier because of the failure of the Obama administration to protect the American border…

MR. GREGORY: Right. This goes back before Obama, though, to be fair.

MR. MURPHY: It–but it’s gotten, it’s gotten worse and worse…People are getting killed and murdered. It has become really bad in Arizona. It’s a crisis the Obama people have failed to address. They’ve had a year to do something, they’ve done nothing.

While Mr. Murphy does not cite any numbers to back his statement, whatever information he has based it on does not even remotely compare to the FBI’s national crime statistics. First off from 2005-2008, violent crime in Arizona decreased by 1,419 instances. The violent crime rate per population of 100,000 decreased from 513.2 to 447.0. Property crime, as another indicator, also decreased by 8,425 instances, or a rate per 100,000 of 4838.0 to 4291.0.

The preliminary results for the first six months of 2009, which is all the data that is available right now from the FBI, shows this trend continuing. In the first six months of 2008, a total of 10,182 violent crimes and 71,762 property crimes occurred in Arizona. In the first six months of 2009, a total of 9,062 violent crimes and 58,886 property crimes occurred. That is a drop of 1,120 violent crimes (-10.9%) and 12,867 property crimes (-17.9%). Unless there has been a remarkable and unlikely reversal of those trends since June 2009 (and there is no data we could find for that period to indicate so one way or the other) then Mr. Murphy’s statement can be labeled nothing but FALSE.

FBI 2005 Crime Statistics
FBI 2008 Crime Statistics
FBI Preliminary 2009 Crime Statisics
Crime stats test rationale behind Arizona immigration law (CNN)
FactCheck.org analysis of similar statement

With regards to the Obama administration doing “nothing” in their first year with regarding what we assume Mr. Murphy means to be Arizona border security. This more or less came up on the 5/2 Meet the Press in statements made by Rep. Mike Pence. Politifact tackled his statement that Obama/Democratic Congress “have been systematically cutting funding to border security since the Democrats took control.” and labeled it FALSE. From their analysis, which we agree with:

In 2007, discretionary spending on border security was $6.3 billion. As Pence noted, that was the last year of full Republican control. After that, while George W. Bush remained in the presidency, Congress was controlled by Democrats. But discretionary spending on border security continued to rise year after year. It went to $7.9 billion in 2008; to $9.8 billion in 2009; and to $10.1 billion in fiscal year 2010.

And:

So Pence is correct that border fence budgets have been trimmed since 2007. But Pence repeatedly said that funding for border security has been steadily cut by Democrats since 2007. And as we noted earlier, spending on border security has actually risen steadily. That’s because Obama has focused more funding in other border security areas, such as increasing the number of border patrol officers.

The 2011 proposed budget, for example, includes $94 million to expand the number of Customs and Border Patrol officers — putting the country on target to reach Bush’s goal of 20,000 officers. Between 2007 and 2011, the Border Patrol budget increased from $2.3 billion to $3.6 billion. The budget for inspections at ports of entry increased from $1.8 billion in 2007 to $2.9 billion in 2011. In addition, Obama’s proposed 2011 budget calls for $1.6 billion for customs enforcement programs to identify and remove illegal aliens who commit crimes; and $137 million to expand immigration-related verification programs.

It’s worth reading their analysis in full.

So looking at spending, which seems to be the best way to gauge the level of action by the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress, Mr. Murphy is FALSE when asserting that they have done “nothing” with regards to Arizona border security.

Special thanks to crowd-sourcer Kelly for assisting with this fact-check.

This fact-check took a combined 3 hours.

The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY) | Justices Marshall, Frankfurter, Jackson, and Rehnquist had limited/no judicial experience – HALF TRUE (but it’s complicated)

This was a tricky one. Because there are more than one Justices with the last names Marshall and Jackson, which one Sen. Schumer intended changes the conclusion.

First off, it is correct that for the most part Justices Frankfurter and Rehnquist had no judicial experience prior to serving on the Supreme Court.

From crowd-sourcer Joshua:

Where Justice Frankfurter is concerned, it is true that he had no prior State or Federal civilian judicial experience (see http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/rob…). He did server in the Judge Advocate General’s corp in WWI, and appears to have served as the Judge Advocate General himself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Frankfurter). However, I’ve been able to find nothing to suggest that he ever served as a judge in a military tribunal, as opposed to either overseeing the military courts administratively or serving as a defense or prosecution advocate.

Justice Rehnquist had no experience as a judge before his term on the Supreme Court (see http://www.supremecourthistory.org/history/supr…, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rehnquist, http://www.oyez.org/justices/william_h_rehnquist).

Now regarding Justices “Marshall” and “Jackson” – judicial experience depends on which person you are talking about. More from crowd-sourcer Joshua:

Justice Robert Jackson, who served on the Supreme Court from 1941 to 1954, had no prior judicial experience, though Justice Howell Jackson, serving on the Supreme Court from 1893 to 1895, had previously served as a federal circuit judge. Justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom Elena Kagan clerked, had served as a judge on the Second Circuit from 1961 to 1965, prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court. However, Justice John Marshall, who served as Chief Justice from 1801 to 1835, had no judicial experience prior to his appointment.

We will include some more research and analysis from Joshua at the bottom of this post, which is also worth reading. But the bottom line is, without Sen. Schumer being specific it is impossible to give him better than a HALF TRUE on this statement. The lack of specificity is misleading. And even if he intended Justices Robert Jackson and John Marshall we’d probably only give the statement a MOSTLY TRUE.

The fact-checking of this statement took a combined 90 minutes.

Continue reading…

The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY) | Pres. Obama, VP Biden, Sen. Harry Reid, & Sen. Patrick Leahy filibustered the S.C. nomination of Sam Alito – TRUE

SEN. McCONNELL: the way Sam Alito was, who was filibustered by the president, the vice president, the Democratic leader and the chairman of the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. I’ve never filibustered a Supreme Court nomination.

From crowd-sourcer James:

In 2006, Senator John Kerry along with Obama, Biden, Reid and Leahy (at the time the ranking member of the Judiciary) did mount a brief but unsucessful filibuster of Alito’s nomination. Here is the link to the cloture vote:
U.S. Senate: Legislation & Records Home > Votes > Roll Call Vote

Page 2 of this pdf by the Congressional Research Service has detailed information and history on cloture attempts on nominations. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32878.pdf

James’ research and conclusion is sound. Senator McConnell’s statement gets a TRUE.

This fact-check took a combined 20 minutes.

The following is a fact-check of the May 16, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

SEN. MITCH McCONNELL (R-KY) | “I’ve never filibustered a Supreme Court nomination” – TRUE

SEN. McCONNELL: I’ve never filibustered a Supreme Court nomination.

From crowd-sourcer James:

It’s true that McConnell has never filibustered a Supreme Court nomination. There have only been four: Abe Fortas in 1968, Rehquist twice, in 1971 and 1986, and Samuel Alito in 2006. All were unsuccessful. McConnell was elected to the Senate in 1984, so he has only had two chances to join a filibuster of a Supreme Court nomination, Rehnquist for Chief Justice, and Samuel Alito. Those two filibusters — though it is disputed whether the Rehnquist debate was actually a filibuster — were mounted by the Democrats, and it is true, McConnell did not join them.

Page 2 of this pdf by the Congressional Research Service has detailed information and history on cloture attempts on nominations. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32878.pdf

James’ research and conclusion is sound. Senator McConnell’s statement gets a TRUE.

This fact-check took a combined 25 minutes.