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Checking the Facts, in Advance
By PAUL KRUGMAN

"It's not hard to predict what President Bush, who sounds increasingly desperate, will say tomorrow. Here are eight lies or distortions you'll hear, and the truth about each:...

Mr. Bush's statements, on the other hand, are fundamentally dishonest. He is insisting that black is white, and that failure is success. Journalists who play it safe by spending equal time exposing his lies and parsing Mr. Kerry's choice of words are betraying their readers. "

Andrea's Birthday

Yesterday, I took the day off work and drove up to Fargo for a friend's birthday party. The party was at a house where she grew up in. It was the first time in a long number of years that I'd been in the house.

I left Mpls later than I'd planned, but got to Fargo shortly after 3:00. I went to my sister's. She was trying to cook the apples from the tree in their back yard. Before I left, she made me take a bag of apples. She went with me for a while to the open house.

Pictures.

Pro-Bush Puffery on Economy, Medicare

"New ad claims Bush inherited an economy "already in recession" and that 41 million seniors "now have access to lower cost prescriptions." Wrong on both counts.

Summary

The ad by the pro-Bush group Progress for America Voter Fund claims the economy was already in a recession when Bush took office, but the National Bureau of Economic Research (which dates business cycles) says the recession actually began in March 2001, after Bush took office in January.

The facts also get stretched when the ad claims "41 million seniors now have access to lower cost prescriptions (emphasis added)." Bush's new prescription drug benefit will cover seniors on Medicare for an extra premium of about $35 a month, but not until 2006. Even the currently available drug discount cards have been used much less than expected. Current enrollment is less than 5 million.

Click the link below for the full article:


http://www.factcheck.org/article278m.html

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