NATION/WORLD
Thursday, October 15, 2015
East Oregonian
Page 7A
AP FACT CHECK
In Democrat debate, when ‘free’ isn’t free
An occasional look at
political claims that take
shortcuts with the facts or
don’t tell the full story.
By JOSH BOAK
and CALVIN WOODWARD
Associated Press
WASHINGTON
—
When does “free” cost a lot
of money?
It’s when presidential
contenders Hillary Rodham
Clinton and Bernie Sanders
pitch plans for free college
tuition, playing down the cost
to taxpayers and brushing
past assorted other perils
to the education system, as
happened in the Democratic
debate.
A look at some of the
claims Tuesday night and
how they compare with the
facts:
CLINTON: “My plan
would enable anyone to go to
a public college or university
tuition-free. You would not
have to borrow money for
tuition.”
SANDERS: “Make every
public college and university
in this country tuition-free.”
THE FACTS: Free for
the students, but someone
has to pay.
Clinton and Sanders both
would shift more college
costs onto taxpayers and
away from parents and
students.
Sanders’ plan would cover
tuition and fees at public
universities — a $70 billion
AP Photo/John Locher
Hillary Rodham Clinton, right, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, speak during
the CNN Democratic presidential debate Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2015, in Las Vegas.
annual expense with the
federal government picking
up two-thirds of that tab by
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markets.
Students would still be on
the hook for room and board
costs that average $9,804,
according to the College
Board.
The Clinton plan is bound
to cost more than the $35
billion per year over 10 years
projected by her campaign.
This is because more students
would probably switch to
public universities on the
potential to graduate without
debt, raising costs for the
government and potentially
leaving many modestly
endowed private institutions
in the lurch.
The potential of a debt-
free education would also
depend on states providing
reliable money streams and
controlling costs — both
major sources of uncer-
tainty. But the Clinton and
Sanders plans would also
expose a sharp genera-
tional divide. New college
students would be helped,
but the 40 million Amer-
icans who already owe
a combined $1.2 trillion
in education debt would
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escalating its involvement
Associated Press
BEIRUT — Hundreds
of Iranian troops are being
deployed in northern and
central Syria, dramatically
escalating Tehran’s involve-
ment in the civil war as they
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in an ambitious offensive to
wrest key areas from rebels
amid Russian airstrikes.
Their arrival, a regional
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said Wednesday, highlights
the far-reaching goals of
Russia’s military involve-
ment in Syria. It suggests that,
for now, taking on Islamic
State extremists in eastern
Syria seems a secondary
priority to propping up Presi-
dent Bashar Assad.
The development is
almost certain to increase
pressure on Western-backed
rebels, who are battling
multiple foes, and push more
civilians out of the areas of
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a fresh wave of refugees.
Russia began its air
campaign Sept. 30, and
Syrian troops and allied mili-
tiamen launched a ground
offensive against rebels in
central Syria a week later.
Russia says its airstrikes
are meant to weaken the
Islamic State group and other
“terrorists” in Syria, but
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rebels say most of the strikes
have focused on central and
northern Syria, where the
extremist group does not
have a strong presence.
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deep knowledge of opera-
tional details in Syria, said
the Iranian Revolutionary
Guards
—
currently
numbering around 1,500
— began arriving about
two weeks ago, after the
Russian airstrikes began, and
have accelerated recently.
The Iranian-backed group
Hezbollah has also sent a
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Syria, he told The Associated
Press.
Iranian
and
Syrian
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edged Iran has advisers and
military experts in Syria,
but denied there were any
ground troops. Wednesday’s
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operations in Syria.
The main goal is to secure
the strategic Hama-Aleppo
highway and seize the key
rebel-held town of Jisr
al-Shughour in Idlib prov-
ince, which Assad’s forces
lost in April to insurgents that
included al-Qaida’s Nusra
Front.
The
loss
of
Jisr
al-Shughour, followed by the
Alexander Kots/Komsomolskaya Pravda via AP
In this photo taken Oct. 10, Syrian army personnel fire
a cannon in Latakia province, about 12 from the border
with Turkey in Syria.
fall of the entire province,
was a resounding defeat for
Assad, opening the way for
rebels to threaten his Alawite
heartland in the coastal
province of Latakia. The
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army’s alarmingly tenacious
position around that time is
what persuaded the Russians
to join the fray and begin
airstrikes two weeks ago.
The Syrian government
and Iran had been asking
Russia to intervene for
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speaking on condition of
anonymity because he was
not authorized to discuss
military affairs. He said the
Russian “tsunami wave” has
given allies such as Iran the
cover to operate more freely
in Syria.
His account of Iranian
troops arriving ties in with
reports from Syrian opposi-
tion activists, who reported a
troop buildup in the northern
provinces of Idlib and
Aleppo. The Syrian Obser-
vatory for Human Rights
also reported Wednesday that
Iranian troops were arriving
and being transported to a
military base in the coastal
town of Latakia, in the town
of Jableh outside the provin-
cial capital.
At least two senior Iranian
commanders were killed
in Syria in recent days,
including Gen. Hossein
Hamedani, a senior Revolu-
tionary Guard commander,
who died Oct. 8 near Aleppo.
“Syria will witness big
victories in coming days,”
said Gen. Mohammad Ali
Jafari, chief of Iran’s Revo-
lutionary Guard, speaking
Monday at Hamedani’s
funeral.
“Sending more troops
from Hezbollah and Iran only
increases the shelf life of the
Syrian regime, which is
destined to end,” Maj. Jamil
Saleh, the leader of Tajammu
Alezzah, a CIA-backed Free
Syrian Army faction, told the
AP. “It will only add more
destruction and displace-
ment.”
He said their presence in
Syria is not new, but has been
kept quiet.
“Now they are taking
cover behind Russia since
it is a super power and
strengthens their position,”
Alezzah said.
The Syrian army began
its offensive a week ago
against rebels on three major
fronts in areas between Idlib
and Hama. To the north, the
Islamic State group capital-
ized on the strikes against
rebels in northwestern and
central Syria to capture a
string of villages and a main
military base from insurgents
that brought them closer to
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
“They took advantage of
the vacuum,” said Lt. Colonel
Ahmed Saoud, commander
of 13th Division, a rebel
group that is part of the Free
Syrian Army. The group is
a staunch IS opponent and
operates in Aleppo.
J.M. Berger, a nonresident
fellow at the Brookings
Project on U.S. Relations
with the Islamic World, said
the moderate rebels “are in
a pretty bad spot, unless the
West is prepared to sponsor
them over the long term in a
full-on proxy war against the
Russians.”
Such support would be “a
complicated proposition,” he
added, given that a lot of the
materiel the U.S. has sent to
moderate rebels has ended up
in the hands of jihadists.
Mathew Henman, head
of IHS Jane’s Terrorism and
Insurgency Centre, said the
Russian airstrikes against
more moderate, nationalist
elements of the opposition
has facilitated IS territorial
gains in these areas, ulti-
mately “leaving the govern-
ment and its allies principally
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fundamentalist actors.”
A week into the multi-
pronged offensive, insurgents
say they are overstretched,
exhausted and their ammuni-
tion is depleted.
receive little aid other than
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Neither candidate told
TV viewers about the costs
to the treasury of what they
propose.
CLINTON on her email
practices: “I have been as
transparent as I know to be.
... I said I have answered all
the questions.”
THE FACTS: Clinton has
yet to explain how the server
was set up and serviced,
whether she informed the
State Department about her
decision to use the private
system and, most important,
how it was protected from
Attacks continue,
Israeli army begin
deploying troops
JERUSALEM (AP)
— Hundreds of soldiers
fanned out in cities across
Israel on Wednesday
and authorities erected
concrete barriers outside
some Arab neighborhoods
of east Jerusalem in a
stepped up effort to counter
a monthlong wave of
Palestinian violence that has
seen near daily attacks.
Despite the escalated
security, two assaults were
reported Wednesday — the
stabbing of a 70-year-old
Israeli woman outside a
crowded Jerusalem bus
station and the attempted
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outside the Old City.
The enhanced measures
came as Israel struggles
to contain the spiraling
violence and Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu faces heavy
pressure from hard-liners
in his governing coalition
to stamp out the attacks.
The Palestinians called the
new measures “collective
punishment” that would
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The military’s
deployment of six
companies to back up
thousands of police marks
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steps approved by Israel’s
security Cabinet early
Wednesday, which also
include stripping attackers
of their Jerusalem residency
rights and demolishing
assailants’ homes. The
Cabinet also authorized
police to impose closures
on centers of friction and
incitement in Jerusalem.
Israel has been unable
to stop the attacks, carried
out mostly by young
Palestinians apparently
acting spontaneously with
hacking attempts.
Russia-based
hackers
WULHG DW OHDVW ¿YH WLPHV
to trick her into infecting
her computer system with
malware in 2011, The Asso-
ciated Press learned, and her
server was hit by attempted
cyber intrusions in 2014
from China, South Korea and
Germany.
Her server also was
connected to the Internet
in ways that made it more
vulnerable to hackers. But
her campaign has repeatedly
declined to address these
details.
SANDERS: “Almost all
the new income and wealth
is going to the top 1 percent.”
THE FACTS: Sanders
appears to be relying on
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recovery, from 2009 through
2014, the richest 1 percent
of Americans captured 58
percent of income growth,
according to Emmanuel
Saez, a University of Cali-
fornia economist whose
research Sanders uses. While
certainly a large gain, that is a
lot less than “almost all.”
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years of the recovery, from
2009 through 2012, the
richest 1 percent did capture
91 percent of the growth
in income. But part of that
outsized gain came because
the wealthiest pulled income
forward to 2012 in advance
of tax increases that took
effect in 2013.
But part of that occurred
because of impending tax
increases on the wealthiest
Americans that took effect in
2013.
Many companies paid out
greater bonuses to their high-
est-paid employees in 2012
before the higher tax rates
took effect. Those bonuses
then fell back in 2013. And in
2014, the bottom 99 percent
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3.3 percent, the biggest gain
in 15 years.
CLINTON
on
the
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“I did say, I hoped it would
be the gold standard”’ of
trade agreements.
THE FACTS: Clinton
did not say anything about
mere hope in her speeches
around the world in support
of the trade deal. She roundly
endorsed the deal taking
shape.
In a November 2012
speech in Australia, she
GHFODUHG WKH 7UDQV3DFL¿F
deal “sets the gold standard
in trade agreements,” a senti-
ment she echoed in many
venues.
Clinton said in the debate
that when she looked at the
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didn’t meet my standards.”
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however, dropped or changed
some provisions that liberal
activist groups — the wing of
the party she is assiduously
courting at this stage of the
campaign — had strongly
criticized.
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from organized militant
groups. That, coupled with
the frequency of the attacks,
which have killed eight
Israelis this month, including
three on Tuesday, has
unnerved Israelis.
Big 3 airlines
ask government:
Shield us from
competition
WASHINGTON (AP)
U.S. airlines have ramped
up an aggressive lobbying
campaign that seeks nothing
less than converting the
government from industry
regulator to business ally.
The big three legacy
carriers Delta, American
and United want the Obama
administration to protect
them from competition from
foreign airlines, arguing
those rivals can undercut
ticket prices thanks to
government subsidies or
cheaper labor.
At the same time,
the U.S. airlines want
Congress to roll back or
forestall rules aimed at
protecting consumers. One
is a requirement that airlines
show ticket buyers the full
cost of fares, including taxes
and fees, instead of burying
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The lobbying already has
been effective.
At the urging of the big
three and the Air Line Pilots
Association, 262 House
members and 22 senators
wrote the administration
asking for a freeze in the
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U.S. now allowed for
three Persian Gulf airlines
Emirates, Etihad and Qatar
and discussions with the
United Arab Emirates and
Qatar about whether those
airlines are violating aviation
treaties with the U.S.
Police: Brothers
were beaten in
church to make
them confess
NEW HARTFORD,
N.Y. (AP) — Two teenage
brothers were brutally
beaten in church — one
fatally — in an effort by
their parents, sister and
other members to get
them to confess their sins,
police said Wednesday in
a case involving an insular
congregation that had
sparked gossip and suspicion
among neighbors.
Police said spiritual
“counseling” at the Word of
Life church in upstate New
York turned into an hours-
long attack Sunday night in
which Lucas Leonard, 19,
and his 17-year-old brother,
Christopher, were pummeled
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suffered injuries to the
abdomen, genitals, back and
thighs.
Eventually, Lucas
stopped breathing and
relatives took him early
Monday to a hospital,
where he died, police
said. Authorities went to
the church and found his
younger brother, who was
hospitalized in serious
condition.
“Both brothers were
subjected to physical
punishment over the course
of several hours, in hopes
that each would confess
to prior sins and ask for
forgiveness,” Police Chief
Michael Inserra said.
The brothers’ parents,
Bruce and Deborah
Leonard, were charged with
manslaughter in Lucas’
death. Four other adults
were charged with assault
in the younger brother’s
beating, including Sarah
Ferguson, 33, the victims’
sister.
Pepsi Primetime @ the Museum
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