FACT CHECKERS SHOW THAT GOP CANDIDATES AREN’T TELLING THE WHOLE TRUTH

….The last Debate before New Hampshire Primary

 

Why do political Fact Checkers have to spend most of their efforts on statements by GOP candidates?

 

My readers know that I am a stickler for making sure whenever possible that what I write is correct and truthful information.  In a major election year, that is even more important to me.

 

After this last GOP debate before the New Hampshire Primary Election, the Fact Checker (FC) operation at the Washington Post took on the job of checking the statements by the Republican candidates in the last debate for truthfulness.  As usual, many comments by the candidates are far from being “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”.

 

As was expected, the untruths started immediately by “The Donald”.  In fact, the Fact Checkers stated the following: “Saturday’s GOP debate opened with a super awkward introduction that left us wondering just what the rest of the two-plus hours had in store. Donald Trump had just returned to the debate stage — and, within the first few minutes, he brought back an oldie-but-goodie ‘Four Pinocchio’ claim about his alleged outspoken opposition to the Iraq War ahead of the invasion in 2003.” 

 

FC:  The only comments made against the Iraq war by Donald Trump were from an interview of Mr. Trump many months after the invasion of Iraq.  There is nothing publicly available from him about being against the war before the actual invasion.

 

Here are more fact checking examples from the debate:

 

Donald Trump: “They [China] have total, absolute control, practically, of North Korea.”

 

FC: Not true.  China has leverage over this client state of theirs, given that much of Pyongyang’s international trade is with Beijing.  But how much leverage is subject to debate.  Every American administration has dreamed that China would push North Korea to halt its nuclear ambitions. But China always disappoints.  The limits of China’s leverage are best illustrated by the fact that North Korea has repeatedly tested a nuclear device despite Beijing’s vehement objections.  Beijing just talks, never reacts.

 

 
 

Ted Cruz: “As you know, in the first Persian Gulf War, it was 1,100 air attacks a day. Obama is launching between 15 and 30 a day. “

 

Donald Trump: “We actually have a case where we don’t want to bomb the Iraq oil.”

 

FC: The Defense Department says that as of Feb. 3, the United States has conducted 7,753 air strikes since the campaign began on Aug. 2014. All told, the US and its allies have conducted 10,113 strikes, at a cost of about $11 million a day.  In addition, the DOD also says that 1,170 “oil infrastructure” targets that have been damaged or destroyed.

 

 

 

Dr. Ben Carson: “You know, we wouldn’t be a free country if it wasn’t for them, and we have 22 veterans per day committing suicide.”

 

 

FC: Actually, we really don’t know how many vets commit such a serious act every day.  The VA’s 2012 Suicide Data Report, was a report when the researchers only analyzed the death certificates of veterans from 21 US states, from 1999 to 2011.  They took that percentage of veteran deaths identified as suicides in those 21 states and they then applied that percentage to all 50 states, but they didn’t include veteran populist states such as Arizona, California, Texas and North Carolina.  Therefore, the number could be larger or smaller, but in any case, veteran suicide is a serious problem.

 

The researchers have not yet updated the suicide report, and they hope to do so this year. There is a broader effort to accurately quantify the suicide problem among veterans.  This is through a joint project of the Department of Veterans Affairs, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Defense Department.

 

 

Donald Trump: “The insurance companies are getting rich on Obamacare.”

 

FC: Trump must not be reading the financial section of newspapers these days. For many insurance companies, the Affordable Care Act has been a money-loser.  For instance, United Healthcare Group, one of the biggest insurance companies, announced in January that it had lost $720 million in the new exchanges in 2015 after enrolling 500,000 people. United Healthcare had aimed to be a major player in the Obamacare marketplace but it announced it might pull out completely in 2017 after a review in the coming months. The company has already halted advertising for new plans.

 

 

 

Donald Trump: “Right now, we’re the highest-taxed country in the world.”

 

FC: The statistics don’t lie—the United States isn’t anywhere near the “highest-taxed” among the industrialized nations.  Out of 34 countries, the United States is in the bottom third—and well below the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) average of 34.4%.  Denmark topped the list with revenue at 50.9% of GDP.

 

 

 

Ted Cruz: “In eight years, Bill Clinton deported 12 million people. In eight years, George W. Bush deported 10 million people.”

 

FC: Cruz is using slippery phrasing to come up with really big numbers under the term of “deportation.” Under Department of Homeland Security definitions, there is a simple form of voluntary deportation known as “return”.  Cruz is mixing apples and oranges.  The formal type of deportation has increased under Obama, but “total deportations” have actually declined.

 

 

Ted Cruz: “We’re seeing the launch from a nuclear North Korea which is the direct result of the failures of the first Clinton administration. The Clinton administration led the world in relaxing sanctions against North Korea. Billions of dollars flowed into North Korea in exchange for promises not to build nuclear weapons. They took those billions and built nuclear weapons.”

 

FC: Ted Cruz significantly overstates the monetary benefits of the Clinton deal to North Korea.  The Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization (KEDO) was formed to deal with North Korea. KEDO’s final annual report shows that 30 or so countries funding the project spent about $2.5 billion before it was shut down after the Bush administration accused North Korea of cheating on the Agreed Framework. (Most of the funds, about $2 billion, were contributed by South Korea and Japan alone.)  But this money did not go to North Korea. It went to the companies that were building the non-weapons reactors.  Between 1995 and 2003, the United States did spend about $500 million supplying the fuel oil that was required under the deal. But North Korea did not get those funds; it just got the oil.

 

 

Marco Rubio:  “We should be putting people into Guantanamo, not emptying it out, and we shouldn’t be releasing these killers who are rejoining the battlefield against the United States.”

 

FC: Rubio likes this talking point about recidivist terrorists, but he overstates the facts.  Rubio is referring to ex-Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) detainees released under President Obama. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence releases semiannual reports of the rate of recidivism among released Guantanamo detainees.  The latest report on detainees transferred as of July 15, 2015, shows 117 of 653 (17.9%) were “confirmed” as reengaging and 79 of 653 (12.1%) were “suspected” of reengaging.  The report also divides the numbers between the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. The breakdown shows most of the former detainees were released under the Bush administration. Further, virtually all (94%) of the ex-detainees confirmed or suspected of reengaging were released under the Bush administration.

 

 

Marco Rubio: “She [Hillary Clinton] put classified information on her computer because she thinks she’s above the law.”

 

FC: Rubio’s phrasing suggests that Clinton purposely put classified information on her emails. There has been no evidence to show that is the case.

 

Clinton did set up a private email server rather than rely on the State Department’s own unclassified system, and in doing so she skirted State Department practices. (Not until later was a law passed that would have prohibited such a set-up.)  In reviewing her emails for public release, the State Department and other intelligence agencies have determined that some emails are too sensitive to be released, with at least 22 actually reaching the level of “top secret.”  But this was a decision made after-the-fact.  Recently it was revealed that the State Department Inspector General concluded that classified information also had been transmitted over the personal email accounts of Republican Sec. of State’s Colin Powell and the accounts of aides to Condoleezza Rice.

 

 

 

Marco Rubio: “Under Chris Christie’s governorship of New Jersey, they’ve [New Jersey’s] been downgraded nine times in their credit rating.”

FC: Actually, since Christie took office, New Jersey’s bond rating was downgraded 3 times by 3 major ratings agencies: Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch.

 

Christie did set a new record in New Jersey for the highest number of downgrades under one governor.

 

 

Jeb Bush: “But what Donald Trump did was use eminent domain to try to take the property of an elderly woman on the strip in Atlantic City. That is not public purpose, that is down right wrong. And here’s the problem with that. The problem was, it was to tear down the house.”

 

Donald Trump: “Jeb wants to be a tough guy tonight. I didn’t take the property.”

 

Bush: “But the net result was — you tried.”

 

Trump: “I didn’t take the property.”

 

Bush: “And you lost in the court.”

 

Trump: “The woman ultimately didn’t want to do that. I walked away.”

 

Bush: But you tried.

 

FC: Here’s the short version: Bush nailed it.  Eminent domain refers to the government’s right to acquire private property for public use.

 

In 1994, Trump and the New Jersey Casino Reinvestment Development Authority unsuccessfully tried to seize the home of Vera Coking, an elderly widow in her 70s who had lived in the home for 37 years. The house was located near the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. Trump and the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority wanted to take properties to build a new parking lot and public park at the plaza.

 

 

 

Moderator David Muir to Senator Ted Cruz: “You have said, ‘Torture is wrong, unambiguously, period. Civilized nations do not engage in torture.’ Some of the other candidates say they don’t think waterboarding is torture. Mr. Trump has said, I would bring it back. Senator Cruz, is waterboarding torture?”

 

Ted Cruz: “Well, under the definition of torture, no, it’s not. Under the law, torture is excruciating pain that is equivalent to losing organs and systems, so under the definition of torture, it is not. It is enhanced interrogation, it is vigorous interrogation, but it does not meet the generally recognized definition of torture.”

 

FC: Under the 1984 United Nations Convention Against Torture the definition of torture is “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person.”

 

According to the United States code, torture is defined as “an act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering upon another person within his custody or physical control.”  In 2006, CIA Director Michael Hayden said, he officially prohibited CIA operatives from using waterboarding after a Supreme Court decision forcing the administration to respect a Geneva Conventions article barring “outrages upon personal dignity” and “humiliating and degrading treatment” of U.S. detainees. He said he doubts the practice of water-boarding would be considered legal today.  President Obama has rejected the technique, and called it torture. In 2014, the International Red Cross declared that waterboarding is torture.

 

 

So, there you have it from the Fact Checkers of the Washington Post as to the statements from the last GOP debate. 

 

For a column to be this long to show the miss-information from just one debate does not bode well for their stating of the truth.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016