The following is a fact-check from the July 25, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:
MARC MORIAL (Urban League President) | Latino unemployment is higher than white unemployment and African American unemployment is higher than Latino unemployment – TRUE
MR. MORIAL: I don’t agree that Latinos and Asians have not suffered discrimination in this country or that Native Americans have not suffered discrimination in this country . I think the question is, how do you target and tailor policies that are going to help all economically and socially disadvantaged people. And it’s a fair debate to have, but it also needs to be positive with facts . Look at the Latino unemployment rate . It’s higher than the white rate. The black rate is higher than the Latino rate. So to suggest that there are not disparities that affect the Latino community , that affect the Native American community , most in depth, the African- American community , we’ve got to have the discussion that Jim Webb wants to have. We have facts , real facts , that give a picture of how life is in this nation.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistic’s employment summary for June of 2010, Caucasians’ unemployment rate sits at 8.6% and Hispanics at 12.4%. African-Americans have the highest rate of unemployment at 15.4%.
Mr. Morial mentions that he believes that Latinos, Asians and Native-Americans have suffered from discrimination, then correctly states where the unemployment rates for Hispanics, Caucasians and African-Americans stand in-relation to each other. PolitiFact also did this check (same primary source/result – they have a few other sources as well) and we agree with their decision to additionally point out that the Asian community has the lowest rate of unemployment, at 7.7%. We then looked but were unable to find the current Native American unemployment rate.
Because Mr. Morial correctly stated where the unemployment rates of Caucasians, Hispanics and African-Americans stand in relation to each other, we rate his statement TRUE.
Special thanks to crowd-sourcer Shelley for assisting with this fact-check.
This fact-check took a combined 1 hour.
The following is a fact-check from the July 25, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:
MARC MORIAL (Urban League President) | There have been more filibusters in the last two years than in the previous century – FALSE
MR. MORIAL: One of the things this distracts from is the news of the week that the Senate cut out $1 billion for summer jobs, but is prepared to spend $60 billion on a troop surge if — in Afghanistan. One of the things this distracts from has been the repeated use of the filibuster to block legislation and block measures that would help the economy in urban communities, and that, to me…
MR. MORIAL: …that, to me, and the persistent use of the filibuster, it being used more times in the last two years than in the previous century…
Even in the early days, representatives and senators used the filibuster to stall debate indefinitely. In 1917, US senators adopted a rule that allowed the debate to end by a 2/3 majority vote, which is known as cloture. Then, in 1975, senators reduced the number of votes required for cloture from 2/3 to 3/5 or 60 of the 100 senators.
According to the Senate historian’s office, which provides a list of the cloture votes since 1919, there were 553 cloture votes between 1919 and 2000. Currently, the 111th Congress (2008-2010) has had 65 cloture votes. Since the records of cloture votes held by the Senate historian’s office only goes back to 1919, we could not tally up the total amount of cloture votes for the previous century (100 years), but we are still able to do this check because from 1919 to 2000 there were 553 cloture votes and in the last 2 years, there has only been 65 cloture votes.
It is worth noting, however, that over the last 30 years the filibuster’s use has been increasing. The 110th Congress (2006 to 2008) tallied up a total of 112 cloture votes – the most ever recorded for a Congress. In the previous century, it took 81 years to have 553 cloture votes and in the last decade, there have been 341.
Regardless, because there were a total of 551 cloture votes between the years 1919 and 2000 and only 65 cloture votes in the last 2 years, we rate Mr. Morial’s statement FALSE.
The following fact-check took a combined 2.5 hours.
Here are the statements to fact-check from the July 25, 2010 Meet the Press:
VIDEO/TRANSCRIPT
If you can help us research them please either email us or (preferably) post your work in the comments below. (Anonymity is fine) Also let us know how long you spent researching each fact, we will be tracking it. While we will always fact-check as much as we can on our own, the success and depth of Meet the Facts is definitively improved by the crowd-sourcing of people like you – please help if you can!
Statements are listed in chronological order
TIMOTHY GEITHNER | The US has seen six months of private sector job growth.
SEC’Y GEITHNER: They’re — I think businesses across the country , you know, again, faced with the prospect of an economy falling off the cliff, are still cautious, still very cautious. So they’ve been trying to get as much productivity out of their employees as possible. They’re in a very strong financial conditions, though, and I think that’s very promising, because there’s a lot of pent-up demand and there’s a lot of capacity still for them to step up and start to invest and hire again. But you’re seeing it start. You know, we’ve had six months of private sector job growth . Not as fast as we like, not as fast as we need, but I think you’re going to see it, again, gradually start to get better.
TIMOTHY GEITHNER | In the recently passed financial markets reform bill, Congress did not grant the power to get back the bonuses that were paid to bank executives during the financial crisis.
MR. GREGORY: Let me talk about the achievement of financial reform legislation that you’ve worked so hard on. The, the pay czar, Ken Feinberg , has been working on compensation, just issued a new report saying that, at the height of the crisis , you had some of the biggest banks paying bonuses that were not warranted. Do you have any way to get any of that money back?
SEC’Y GEITHNER: You know, he spoke to that earlier. Congress did not give him the authority to do that. But they did give him authority he used very effectively to change how Wall Street was paying its executives, and he did an enormously important job in trying to make sure that we have in place ways to make sure these guys don’t go back in the future — don’t go in the future back to paying executives to take risks that could imperil the stability of the economy . He did a great job, limited authority, but he used that authority very well.
MARC MORIAL (Urban League President) | Andrew Breitbart doctored the video of Shirley Sherrod before posting it on his website.
MR. MORIAL: He threw a firecracker in a crowded room. He yelled “fire” in a crowded theater and doctored a video, which caused an innocent, hard-working, responsible woman, whose story was of racial reconciliation , to be cast in a negative light. And then it began from there.
MARC MORIAL (Urban League President) | There have been more filibusters in the last two years than in the previous century.
MR. MORIAL: One of the things this distracts from is the news of the week that the Senate cut out $1 billion for summer jobs, but is prepared to spend $60 billion on a troop surge if — in Afghanistan. One of the things this distracts from has been the repeated use of the filibuster to block legislation and block measures that would help the economy in urban communities, and that, to me…
MR. MORIAL: …that, to me, and the persistent use of the filibuster, it being used more times in the last two years than in the previous century…
MARC MORIAL (Urban League President)
1) Latino unemployment is lower than white unemployment.
2) African American unemployment is lower than Latino unemployment.
MR. MORIAL: I don’t agree that Latinos and Asians have not suffered discrimination in this country or that Native Americans have not suffered discrimination in this country . I think the question is, how do you target and tailor policies that are going to help all economically and socially disadvantaged people. And it’s a fair debate to have, but it also needs to be positive with facts . Look at the Latino unemployment rate . It’s higher than the white rate. The black rate is higher than the Latino rate. So to suggest that there are not disparities that affect the Latino community , that affect the Native American community , most in depth, the African- American community , we’ve got to have the discussion that Jim Webb wants to have. We have facts , real facts , that give a picture of how life is in this nation.
RICK SANTELLI (CNBC)
1) 41 cents of every dollar the US government spends in fiscal year 2010 will go to pay debt.
2) The 2010 budget is $3.5 trillion.
MR. SANTELLI: Forty-one cents of every dollar this government spends in fiscal 2010 goes to pay debt. It’s borrowed money. Forty-one cents of every dollar. Marcus , we have a $3 1/2 trillion 2010 budget . Let’s look at that $34 billion for extension. These people need help, but to think that this administration — and in Timothy Geithner ‘s interview, he talks about getting their fiscal house in order. In a $3 1/2 trillion budget , they can’t come up with a way to offset $34 billion in spending. It isn’t that the conservatives want to be mean-spirited. It’s that at the end- game, if the country is broke, everybody loses.
DAVID BROOKS (NY Times)
1) In the past year the Obama administration’s approval rating has dropped about 20%.
2) A poll last week indicated that faith in the US Congress was 11%, the lowest the nations history.
MR. BROOKS: Right. There’s been a, there’s been a massive recall in the past year. The Obama administration has dropped about 20 percent among independent voters, in part because of the debt and other issues. But faith in government has plummeted back to its historic lows. Faith in Congress this week hit an 11 percent, an historic low forever. So how do you persuade people that you can do things when you have that kind of distrust, and that hasn’t been solved? The stimulus obviously created some jobs. But the fact is, it’s taken forever to get out; and the underlying reality is, the more the debt goes up, the more people are scared, and the more they’re scared, especially small business , they’re just not investing.
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