Hillary Clinton gave an odd - and inaccurate - account of how the controversy over her emails as secretary of state mushroomed into a public spectacle.
"If I had not asked for my emails all to be made public, none of this would have been in the public arena," she said during an Aug. 17 radio interview. That's pure spin. Clinton asked the State Department on March 5 to release her emails, but by then key events had already taken place months before. The issue burst into public view on March 2 when House Republicans discovered on Aug. 11, 2014, that Clinton had used a private email account for official business. Clinton on Dec. 5, 2014, gave the State Department just over 30,000 printed copies of work-related emails. The New York Times reported on March 2 that Clinton exclusively used her personal server and email account to conduct official business.
Fiorina on immunizations
Carly Fiorina recently said some unnamed vaccine-preventable diseases are "not communicable" and "not contagious," and some immunizations are not "necessary" for school-age children.
The fact is that every immunization recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention covers a highly communicable disease. Fiorina has on two occasions suggested the vaccine for human papillomavirus, or HPV, should not be mandatory for children. However, the HPV virus is highly communicable through many forms of sexual contact, and the vaccine has been proven to prevent its transmission and thus help prevent cervical cancer as well.
Trump on immigration
Republican Donald Trump's immigration plan includes several statements that stray from the facts.
He said "birthright citizenship" is the "biggest magnet for illegal immigration." But research indicates the biggest draw is economic opportunity.
He claimed taxpayers have paid "hundreds of billions" in health care, education, welfare and more for illegal immigration from Mexico. But the Congressional Budget Office found the net financial impact of illegal immigration on state and local budgets was "most likely modest" and a net positive impact on the federal budget.
Trump says the "incarcerated alien population" was responsible for "3 million arrests." The 2011 report he cites says there were 1.7 million arrests, including some that didn't result in convictions or even prosecutions. He said border crossing cards and NAFTA visas are "major" sources of visa overstays, but FactCheck could find no data to support this.
Sanders on health spending
Sen. Bernie Sanders said that the U.S. spends "almost twice as much per capita on health care as do the people of any other country."
He's wrong about that. The U.S. spends more than twice as much per capita as the average amount spent by other developed nations, but it doesn't spend twice as much as every one of them. The U.S. spent $8,713 per capita in 2013, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That's more than double the OECD average of $3,453 per capita. But the U.S. didn't spend twice as much per capita compared with Switzerland ($6,325), Norway ($5,862), Netherlands ($5,131), Sweden ($4,904), or Germany ($4,819).
Chip Tuthill is a longtime Mancos resident. Website used: www.factcheck.org