FactCheck USA: 10 more of the best

Republican vice-presidential candidate Palin boasts of having turned down an offer of taxpayers' money to fund an expensive white elephant, the Gravina bridge, to a low-population area in her state.

Which is strange, as she had expressed support for the bridge when running as Alsaka governor. In the event, there was nothing for her to say "thanks, but no thanks" to: congress removed the part of a transportation bill that earmarked funding for the bridge.

Palin accepted the non-earmarked funding, although the bridge project has now been dropped.

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FactCheck.org: what's the full story on the bridge to nowhere?

Barack Obama does find time to go the gym almost every day, and he did cancel a troop visit at the last minute. But the two facts aren't related.

Obama cancelled a visit to the Landstuhl Regional Medical Centre when the Pentagon wouldn't allow him to bring a foreign policy adviser who is a retired serviceman. His campaign said this triggered concerns that the visit would be seen as political.

The claim makes even less sense in the light of Obama's previous off-camera visits to troops: defence department rules ban reporters from such events.

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FactCheck.org: snubbing wounded troops?

A bizarre claim: McCain is also on record as saying that the dangerous dependence on foreign oil that causes spiralling petrol prices has been thirty years in the making, and Obama has only been a senator since 2005.

Obama is among those who oppose lifting a moratorium on some drilling in America. But the Energy Information Administration reckons it could be more than 20 years before lifting the ban has a discernable effect on oil prices.

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FactCheck.org: a full tank of nonsense

Obama supported an Illinois state senate bill - which didn't make it into law - to update the sex education curriculum. It would have lowered the age at which children began "comprehensive sex education" to kindergarten pupils.

But it also said that education would be age-appropriate, and called for it to help students recognise inappropriate touching, sexual assault and rape.

Keeping an eye out for paedophiles? Yes. Explicit teaching of the facts of life? No.

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FactCheck.org - off base on sex ed

In 2007, the Illinois senator proposed legislation that would have required shareholders to hold non-binding votes on big executive pay.

But in the sloshing panic of the current financial turmoil, he span that his rival had opposed it. Obama's campaign cited remarks McCain's senior policy adviser made in April 2008, saying McCain opposes legislative or regulatory solutions to executive pay, rather than private-sector solutions.

There is, however, no evidence that McCain opposed, or even expressed an opinion on, Obama's (unvoted-on) bill. McCain has also criticised bumper pay packages in 2002, after the collapse of Enron.

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Politifact.com: McCain never talked about the bill

Slightly problematic, in the light of the Obama-Biden campaign's pledge to develop five "first of a kind" clean coal plants.

Still, at least the gaffe-prone vice-presidential candidate is allowed out to drop factual clangers to the media.

His Republican counterpart Palin has yet to hold a press conference, and has done only a handful of much-mocked TV interviews.

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Washington Post: The Fact Checker

The claim seems to have been spawned by Obama's voting against an Illinois state bill that would allow people to claim self-defence for using a gun in their own home in violation of local weapons laws.

The matter became an issue in 2003, after public support for Hale DeMar, who shot and wounded a burglar in his home. But Obama voted against the bill on the basis of respect for local legislature's right to set their own laws without being overridden by the state. He's also on record as respecting the tradition of the right to bear arms in self-defence.

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PolitiFact.com: yes, and outlaw apple pie as well

More scaremongering in the face of financial turmoil, and this time it involves a movie-poster style use of a partial quote.

The ad refers to a comment McCain made in a journal article under his name, but he was referring specifically to his proposal to allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines, rather than calling for the wholescale deregulation the ad implies.

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FactCheck.org: out of context on health care

Under mayor Palin, the small Alaskan city of Wasilla billed rape victim's health insurance companies for the $500-$1,200 cost of a post-assault forensic examination.

The policy may seem heartless, but was uncontroversial locally. It was outlawed in 2000, when the state of Alaska passed a law requiring law enforcement agencies to pick up the examination tab.

Palin approved budgets that would have contained the rape kit policy, and does not appear to have made any moves to oppose it - something bloggers contend she could have done as mayor. But there's no record of her supporting or endorsing the policy, either.

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Politifact.com: Palin rape kit controversy

Palin has spearheaded a plan to get oil company TransCanada to build a $26bn pipeline in Alaska.

But there's no guarantee the project will go ahead - the company is under no obligation to build the pipeline even if the necessary financing and approvals are obtained, something that is far from certain.

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PolitiFact.com: there is no agreement to build, and it's not $40bn

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