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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

An Election-Year Virus

Debunked again and again, a false e-mail keeps circulating claiming members of Congress don’t pay Social Security taxes.

Kerry Really Could Produce 10 Million New Jobs. (So Could Bush.)

John Kerry has promised that, if elected, his economic policies will produce 10 million new jobs. Some FactCheck.org subscribers have asked us why we haven’t debunked that claim, given that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) counted only 8.4 million who were unemployed as of March.

Lies in the E-mail, Part 2

Since my first article on lying e-mails, I’ve gotten dozens of inquiries about a snarky little message blaming Democrats alone for all sorts of bad changes to Social Security. I’m calling it “Lying E-mail #2.”

What To Do When Your Friend’s E-mail Lies To You.

Let me put the matter bluntly: an awful lot of the e-mailed messages zipping around the Internet are lies — and too many are being sent on by gullible, lazy friends who ought to know better.

Is this a great job, or what?

In my 33 years of covering Washington and national politics, I’ve had some of the best jobs in American journalism — including the development of “adwatch” and “factcheck” stories for CNN. And with the launch today of FactCheck.org I hope to continue my professional lucky streak. This is going to be a fun job — and somebody has to do it.
There already have been lots of dubious factual claims and outright falsehoods tossed around in the Presidential campaign: Howard Dean falsely claiming that most middle-class taxpayers got no tax cut,