CNN Calls Out Sen Tommy Tuberville

 From a CNN story about incorrect information being used at this weekend's CPAC gathering:

Two-parent households

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, a former college and high school football coach, said, “Going into thousands of kids’ homes and talking to parents every year recruiting, half the kids in this country – I’m not talking about race, I’m just talking about – half the kids in this country have one or no parent. And it’s because of the attack on faith. People are losing faith because, for some reason, because the attack [on] God.”

Facts First: Tuberville’s claim that half of American children don’t have two parents is incorrect. Official figures from the Census Bureau show that, in 2021, about 70% of US children under the age of 18 lived with two parents and about 65% lived with two married parents.

About 22% of children lived with only a mother, about 5% with only a father, and about 3% with no parent. But the Census Bureau has explained that even children who are listed as living with only one parent may have a second parent; children are listed as living with only one parent if, for example, one parent is deployed overseas with the military or if their divorced parents share custody of them.

It is true that the percentage of US children living in households with two parents has been declining for decades. Still, Tuberville’s statistic significantly exaggerated the current situation. His spokesperson told CNN on Thursday that the senator was speaking “anecdotally” from his personal experience meeting with families as a football coach. 

UPDATE:

AND MORE TUBERVILLE from a story in The Independent reporting on the Alabama Senator's speech at CPAC:

Former college football coach turned Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville was interviewed on a panel called “Sacking the Woke Playbooks,” where he rejected both transgender athletes being allowed to compete and inclusive efforts to perform honest teachings on race, racism and LGBT+ people in the classroom.

He listed off a string of right-wing targets in a series of baseless statements against trans athletes and US education.

“All this woke, transgender athletes, CRT, 1619, they don’t teach reading, writing or arithmetic,” the senator said.

He said that sports must be “protected” because “sports have built this country”.