Michele Bachmann’s Fact-Checking Pays Off

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Last week, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s campaign manager, Ed Rollins, caused a bit of a stir when he promised that everything his candidate says on the trail will be “100-percent fact-checked.” This seemed like a pretty daunting challenge; we noted at the time that the non-partisan fact-checking site PolitiFact had never fact-checked a Bachmann statement and found it to be anything but “false” or “very false”—the only major political figure for which that was the case.

No longer. Via PolitiFact:

Michele Bachmann said she would not support increasing the debt ceiling if it didn’t include major reductions in government spending. 

“I’ve already voted no on raising the debt ceiling in the past. And unless there are serious cuts, I can’t,” she said at debate June 13, 2011, in New Hampshire…

Bachmann said Obama refused to approve an increase in the debt limit when he was a senator, and that he blamed President Bush for failed leadership, as well as Bush’s supporters in Congress. She’s right on both counts, and we rate her statement True. 

Clearly, Rollins’ political savvy is paying off.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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