‘Your Republican Uncle’ put to the test

This is not the DNC’s image of “Your Republican Uncle.” We added the words to a public domain image.

Announcing a fact check series on the DNC’s “Your Republican Uncle.”

Sometimes fact checks just fall into our lap. Other times we have to hunt for interesting statements to check. We give thanks to the Democratic National Committee for sponsoring a set of talking points meant to answer conservative family members during the holidays. The site, under the title “Your Republican Uncle” offers four five sets of points intended to dispel Republican myths.

The series helps a great deal with choosing fact check stories since the DNC doubtless chose subjects of interest to voters.

We’ll update this post each time we complete a category.

Gender Equity

• Myth: Women don’t really make less money than men in the workplace, they just make different choices.

• Myth: Raising the minimum wage is for flunkies and teenagers.

• Myth: Covering contraception under Obamacare will give college students free reign to be promiscuous.

• Myth: Obamacare makes men buy coverage for pregnancy, pap smears, mammograms, and other services that are for women.

Economy

• Myth: President Obama has increased the deficit.

• Myth: Where are all the jobs that President Obama promised?*

• Myth: Democrats like President Obama have raised my taxes.

• Myth: All of President Obama’s taxes make life impossible for small businesses.

Health Care

• Myth: Obamacare isn’t working.

• Myth: The website doesn’t work so people can’t sign up for health care even if they wanted to.

• Myth: Obamacare hurts businesses.

• Myth: Obamacare is a government takeover of the health care system.

• Myth: Obamacare should be unconstitutional.

• Myth: Obamacare requires American taxpayers to fund abortion.

• Myth: Obamacare only adds to the deficit, and it’s going to bankrupt this country.

Climate

• Myth: Climate change is just a liberal scare tactic.

• Myth: Humans can’t do anything to combat rising CO2 levels.

• Myth: The United States can’t say economically competitive if we address climate change.

Immigration

• Myth: Immigration reform will allow illegal immigrants to take away jobs from hard-working Americans.

• Myth: A path to citizenship will hurt our economy.

• Myth: Immigration reform will bankrupt this country.

• Myth: The DREAM Act lets illegal immigrants go to college for free at the expense of Americans.

• Myth: Immigration reform just gives amnesty to all the people who came here illegally, and that just means more people will come here illegally.

*We corrected the order of the words from the way it originally appears at the DNC’s website.

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Update Jan. 9, 2014

Updated links to fact checks of the DNC’s statements on the economy, inserted the DNC’s new “Gender Equity” section before the other sections, parallel to the DNC’s presentation. Gave a strikethrough to the total number of categories, updating that number to five.

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Update May 10, 2014

Added two new “myths” to the section on the DNC’s statements about healthcare, and added links to the corresponding fact checks.