PolitiFact: The Roundup

How does PolitiFact Georgia’s Truth-O-Meter work?

Our goal is to help you find the truth in American politics. Reporters from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution fact-check statements by local, state and national political leaders, including lobbyists and interest groups. We then rate them on the AJC Truth-O-Meter.

To fact-check a claim, reporters first contact the speaker to verify the statement. Next, the research begins. Reporters consult a variety of sources, including industry and academic experts. This research can take hours or a few days or even longer, depending on the claim. Reporters then compile the research into story form and include a recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling.

The fact check then moves on to a panel of veteran editors who debate the statement and the reporter’s recommended Truth-O-Meter ruling. The panel votes on a final ruling; majority prevails.

Politicians and pundits were busy last week pontificating on topics from the incandescent light bulb to public education.

The Truth-O-Meter took a look at Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal for a fact check on the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. Jindal said he was in good company in supporting the employer mandate and opposing the individual mandate.

And security at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, remained a hot topic for discussion and a fact check. Did the U.S. ambassador to Libya ask for more security prior to the deadly attack?

Abbreviated versions of these fact checks are below. Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.

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Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal: Says Hillary Clinton opposed an individual mandate and favored an employer mandate in 1993.

Jindal, a Republican, still thinks the Affordable Care Act is unworkable and believes a 1993 quote from Hillary Clinton helps make his case.

In an op-ed for Politico, Jindal rehashed his opposition to the individual mandate that requires most Americans to buy health insurance, a key tenet of President Barack Obama’s health care law. And he noted that Clinton was once against it, too, when her husband, President Bill Clinton, appointed her to lead a task force on health care.

“It is a well-known fact that Clinton came to strenuously support an individual health insurance mandate in her 2008 primary campaign against Barack Obama,” Jindal wrote. “Less well-remembered, however, is that Clinton considered an employer mandate — not an individual mandate — the best way to achieve ‘universal coverage.’”

Our research, including testimony Hillary Clinton gave before a number of congressional committees, showed that Jindal is right: Clinton opposed delivering universal coverage entirely through an individual mandate and supported an employer mandate instead.

We rated Jindal’s statement as Mostly True.

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U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.: “The State Department not only failed to honor repeated requests for additional security, but instead actually reduced security in Libya.”

Johnson, in a recent op-ed in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, singled out the State Department leadership in Washington in saying that “the greatest outrages occurred before the attack.”

Johnson referenced requests made by Ambassador Chris Stevens and other U.S. officials in

Libya to the State Department leadership in Washington. The State Department’s own Accountability Review Board concluded that the number of diplomatic security staff in Benghazi in the months leading up to the attacks was inadequate “despite repeated requests” from the Benghazi mission and the embassy in Tripoli for additional staffing.

As to the second part of Johnson’s claim, a Senate committee found that, despite the deteriorating conditions around Benghazi, the State Department decided not to request an extension of service by the Defense Department’s Site Security Team, which was scheduled to redeploy in August 2012, about one month before the attacks.

The Senate committee also pointed out that less than a month before the

attacks, Stevens “declined two specific offers” from the general heading Defense

Department operations in Africa to extend the stay of the Site Security Team.

We rated Johnson’s statement True.

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George Will: The incandescent light bulb “has no effect whatever on the planet.”

PunditFact, an affiliate of PolitiFact, wondered about Will’s claim on May 11 on “Fox News Sunday” that the incandescent light bulb “has no effect whatever on the planet.” We reached out

to Will and did not hear back.

Neal Elliott, associate director for research at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, called Will’s claim “demonstrably untrue.” Elliott’s group includes representatives from utilities, manufacturers and academia.

The U.S. Energy Department says: “Switching to energy-saving bulbs will reduce the growth of U.S. energy demand and avoid carbon emissions.”

The government estimates that if every household got rid of incandescent bulbs, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions equal to getting rid of 800,000 cars.

There is broad consensus that incandescent bulbs are less efficient than

alternatives such as compact fluorescent bulbs. And because they are less

efficient, they require more energy —- and generate more greenhouse gas

emissions. Hence, they clearly have an effect on the planet.

Alternative bulbs may not be a panacea, but Will went way too far in saying

incandescent light bulbs play no role in how we consume energy resources.

We rated Will’s claim False.

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Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: U.S. teenagers have now fallen behind their counterparts in Ireland, Poland and even Vietnam in math and science.”

Bush said recently in a speech at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, that U.S. teenagers have now fallen behind their counterparts in Ireland, Poland and even Vietnam in math and science.

Bush cited the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, which includes every member country of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — a group of advanced industrialized nations — as well as some nonmember countries.

Nine percent of U.S. teenagers achieved the PISA math proficiency level 5 or higher, while in Poland it was 17 percent, Vietnam 13 percent and Ireland 11 percent.