Editor's Note: PolitiFact.com is a project of the St. Petersburg Times that aims to help you find the truth in politics. Every day, reporters and researchers from the Times examine statements by members of Congress, the president, etc. They research their statements and then rate the accuracy on their Truth-O-Meter.
Levin claims that other Western countries have lifted their bans
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/10/13/levin.carl.gi.art.jpg caption="Sen. Levin says other Western countries have ended their "don't ask, don't tell" policies."]
President Barack Obama has repeatedly said that he plans to repeal the military's "don't ask, don't tell" rule, which prevents openly gay and lesbian people from serving in the military.
But so far, no go.
"Meet the Press" host David Gregory asked Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, who chairs the Senate's Armed Services Committee, whether Obama would follow through on his promise.
"I think he, he will and he can," Levin said on the Oct. 11, 2009, episode. "I think it has to be done in the, in the right way, which is to get a buy-in from the military, which I think is now possible. Other militaries in the West, the British and other Western armies, have ended this discriminatory policy. We can do it successfully."
The Truth-O-Meter says: TRUE
Read more: Levin's done his research
Rockefeller says health insurance premiums have doubled since 2001
[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/10/13/rockeffeller.jay.gi.art.jpg caption="Sen. Rockefeller says health care premiums for consumers have doubled since 2001."]
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., recently wrote an opinion piece for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call in which he said, "Insurance companies have seen their profits soar by more than 400 percent since 2001, while premiums for consumers have doubled." We address the first part of this statement in another item; we'll take up the second half here.
The 2009 Employer Health Benefits Survey, published by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, is considered the definitive source for health benefits cost information, and its data stretch from 1999 to 2009. (Even though Rockefeller didn't explicitly say it, we'll assume he was talking about the period since 2001 when he made this assertion.)
The Truth-O-Meter says: TRUE
Read more: He's right, individuals and families are paying twice as much
Michael Moore claims in his movie, 'Capitalism,' that during the Reagan era, millions were thrown out of work
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/09/28/moore.michael.gi.art.jpg caption="Moore claims that during the Reagan era, millions were thrown out of work."]
In his latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, Michael Moore singled out the Ronald Reagan administration for the loss of millions of jobs.
During the Reagan administration, he said, American government was run more like a business. The fallout of Reagan's "trickle-down" economic policy, he said, is that major corporations laid off American workers at the same time they were raking in enormous profits.
And, he said, "Millions of people were thrown out of work."
In backup material for that claim on his Web site, Moore points to a line from a May 28, 1991, article in the Washington Post: "Since 1980, 2 million workers have been cut from the U.S. manufacturing payroll. Millions more have accepted — or been forced to accept — reductions in earnings."
The Truth-O-Meter says: BARELY TRUE
