We’ll wager that, unless you happen to be a practicing bioethicist, you’d never heard of Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel six weeks ago. But now Emanuel, the director of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, finds himself labeled a "deadly doctor" by Betsy McCaughey in an opinion piece in the New York Post. And controversial conservative pundit Ann Coulter recently proclaimed that "Zeke Emanuel is on my death list." We debunked McCaughey’s charges... Click to read more
You might have noticed that things look a little different around here. We’ve given the site a bit of a makeover. Some of the effects are pretty obvious, like the rotating picture gallery on our homepage. That’s where we’ll feature our newest and most-talked-about content. You can click the picture or the article title to go to the full story. And don’t worry if you didn’t click fast enough. The content will cycle back around. Or if you’re impatient, you can use... Click to read more
You might have noticed that things look a little different around here. You’ve probably already noticed some of the cosmetic changes, like the rotating picture gallery on our homepage, where we’ll feature our newest and most-talked about content. But we’re just as excited about some of the things that you might not have noticed on first glance: All our content under one roof. No more having to leave the main site to find all our content on The FactCheck Wire. Now you’ll be... Click to read more
Summary Speaker Pelosi said in February that she was "never" told that the CIA was using waterboarding in interrogations. Then in May she changed her story to say she was told, but still claimed it was not quite as early as the CIA said. On that point she’s contradicted, however, both by a CIA memo and by a Republican former congressman who got the same briefing she did. The current CIA director, a Democrat, says his agency’s story, though not infallible, is "the most thorough... Click to read more
On April 20, President Barack Obama caused a bit of a splash when he gathered members of his Cabinet and directed them to cut (collectively) $100 million in expenses within the next 90 days. Now that sounds like a lot of money. And we’re not ones to complain about cutting costs when the Congressional Budget Office estimated the deficit to be $1.2 trillion in 2009 alone — and that was before accounting for the cost of the stimulus bill. That said, it’s important to keep Obama’s... Click to read more
Q: Did Obama delay the rescue of Captain Phillips? A: No. Military officials say that the claims being made in a widely circulated chain e-mail are false. Click to read more Read More →
We’ve been getting lots — you might even say a vast number — of queries about a new chain e-mail making the rounds. It’s about everyone’s new favorite topic: pirates. And the e-mail simultaneously praises the Navy SEALs who dramatically rescued Capt. Richard Phillips from three Somali pirates April 12 while blaming President Obama for failing to act more quickly. You may have seen the e-mail, even if you’re not one of the 46 people (so far) who have forwarded... Click to read more
Summary President Obama sometimes strayed from the facts or made dubious claims during his hour-long evening news conference March 24. He said his budget projections are based on economic assumptions that “are perfectly consistent with what Blue Chip forecasters out there are saying.” Not true. The average projection by leading private economists is now for substantially less economic growth than the administration’s forecast assumes. He said he is reducing “nondefense... Click to read more
Summary Last year, the president touted U.S. gains in education, saying that our "fourth- and eighth-graders achieved the highest math scores on record." He bragged that "African-American and Hispanic students posted all-time highs." Last week, the president said those eighth-graders weren’t so great at math after all. He claimed they had "fallen to ninth place" in the world, and he bemoaned a high school dropout rate that had "tripled" over three decades. What... Click to read more
The ads are popping up everywhere. We’ve seen them on the sidebar at Facebook and on the front page of The New York Times‘ online edition. Yes, it's a scam in the New York Times. Is nothing sacred?The ads are enticing, promising to tell you how you can get your hands on a share of free government money. The pitch is a scam, promising free information for a small "shipping and handling" fee. What the ads aren’t telling you (at least not outside the fine print) is that unless... Click to read more
