Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jim Barksdale, Hillary Cinton, Donald Trump, Time Kaine and that untamed creature known as social media.
They all took a recent ride on the AJC Truth-O-Meter, courtesy of PolitiFact and PolitiFact Georgia.
Want to see how they fared? Abbreviated versions of our fact checks are below.
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Full versions can be found at www.politifact.com/georgia/.
Sen. Johnny Isakson voted for a trade agreement, “with China costing Georgia 93,000 jobs:”
Jim Barksdale on Thursday, September 29th, 2016 in a campaign video
In Democratic Senate candidate Jim Barksdale’s latest ad the multi-millionaire businessman says incumbent Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson voted for a trade agreement with China that cost Georgia 93,000 jobs.
The number is cited by the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute, but most studies say the U.S. gained jobs as a result of the more open trade.
In the end, getting a straight answer on trade numbers is hard.
We rated Barkesdale’s claim Half True.
Social Media on Monday, October 17th, 2016 in social media sites:
Creflo Dollar has endorsed Republican Donald Trump for president.
Those reports are based on a satirical news site. A parody on that site was picked up as legitimate news and went viral.
Dollar has dissed the reports as categorically untrue. Which they are.
We rate the social media reports Pants on Fire.
Tim Kaine on Wednesday, July 27th, 2016 in a speech:
“We fixed a loophole in the (gun) background record check system so that we could make our commonwealth safer.”
Kaine said while he was governor of Virginia, “We fixed a loophole in the background record check system so that we could make our commonwealth safer.”
Kaine did lead the way in closing a gap in state law that allowed mentally ill people to buy guns after being ordered by courts to seek outpatient treatment. He passed an executive order in 2007 after the Virginia Tech shootings and the legislature passed a bill in 2008 doing the same.
We rated Kaine’s claim True.
Hillary Clinton on Monday, August 15th, 2016 in a campaign speech in Scranton, Pa:
Says her campaign platform includes the “biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II.”
Clinton says her campaign platform includes the “biggest investment in new, good-paying jobs since World War II.”
Clinton’s proposal, costing about $900 billion over 10 years, appears to be bigger than any other 10-year investment since World War II using rough estimates.
However, when looking at the size of public investments as a share of GDP, there have been 12 years since World War II with larger public investments.
But it’s harder to predict whether this spending will lead to “new, good-paying jobs.” The Clinton campaign argues much of the money will go to programs, which it says will lead to new jobs.
Her claim is partially correct but needs more information.
We rated Clinton’s claim Half True.
Donald Trump on Wednesday, August 31st, 2016 in a speech:
Says “Hillary Clinton has pledged amnesty in her first 100 days, and her plan will provide Obamacare, Social Security, and Medicare for illegal immigrants, breaking the federal budget.”
Clinton has promised to submit immigration legislation, not grant amnesty.
Her plan requires immigrants pay into the system to get those benefits just like everybody else, and some benefits (like Social Security) would take years to pay out.
With Obamacare, even if all 11 million undocumented immigrants were so poor they qualified for Medicaid, it would not “break” the $4 trillion federal budget.
We rated Trump’s statement Mostly False.
Hillary Clinton on Monday, October 10th, 2016 in a rally in Detroit:
“Back in the Great Recession, when millions of jobs across America hung in the balance, Donald Trump said rescuing the auto industry didn’t really matter very much. He said, and I quote again, ‘Let it go.’ “
Trump regularly said the auto industry needed saving. He said the government should stand behind the auto industry “100 percent.”
Clinton also takes the “let it go” quote out of time and context. Trump said it in 2015, not 2008, regarding a number of actions could have saved the auto industry. One of these suggestions was “let it go” into bankruptcy.
We rated Clinton’s statement Pants on Fire!
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