We fact-checked President Obama’s State of the Union address, but what about the Republican response speeches? We found two new claims that we haven’t covered before: In the official response …
Stories by D'Angelo Gore
Staff Writer, FactCheck.org
Obama’s Social Security Stumble
President Barack Obama rewrote the history of the Social Security system during a Dec. 7 press conference, claiming that only widows and orphans originally benefited from the program. Obama was defending a deal the administration reached recently with congressional Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for all Americans for another two years:
Obama, Dec. 7: And that means because it’s a big, diverse country and people have a lot of complicated positions, it means that in order to get stuff done,
Blame Jane Falsehoods
Q: Is President Obama honoring Jane Fonda as one of the women of the century?
A: No. That was done 11 years ago by Barbara Walters of ABC News.
NRSC Eliminates the Positive
Making an endorsement seem like a condemnation isn’t an easy deception to pull off — but the National Republican Senatorial Committee has done it.
In an ad attacking Democratic Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, the NRSC uses a series of highly selective quotes from a Denver Post piece: Bennet is “fighting for Obama … Obama and the Democrats overreached … helping to stick future generations with trillions in debt … lavishing billions on corporate bailouts and takeovers.”
Sales Tax Spin
Democrats are running misleading ads in several House and Senate races accusing Republicans of supporting a “23 percent national sales tax.” The ads fail to mention that the proposed tax — while controversial — is designed to replace all federal income …
Sunday Replay
All of the misstatements that crept into the Sunday shows this weekend (at least, all the ones we found) had to do with the economy, the topic that is most on voters’ minds as the midterm elections approach.
Beware the Third Rail
White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod made an incorrect claim — and another slightly exaggerated one — during his appearance on NBC’s "Meet the Press."
While defending the Obama administration’s economic policies to host David Gregory,
Questions About the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’
Q: What are the facts about the proposed cultural center and mosque near New York’s former World Trade Center?
A: We answer questions we’ve been asked most often by readers about the controversial project.
No Pentagon Mosque
Q: Is there a mosque inside the Pentagon?
A: The Pentagon has a non-denominational chapel that holds services for employees who follow various religions.
Nevada Blame Game
Republican Sharron Angle’s latest attack ad gets the facts about Nevada’s miserable economy right, but invites a questionable conclusion.
The ad is called "Please Stop," and it mocks Democratic Sen. Harry Reid’s campaign slogan of "no one can do more" for Nevada. In the ad, Angle concedes that Reid "has done more for Nevada," but she doesn’t mean it in a good way. The ad, which began airing July 21, gets the basic facts right:
Angle says in her ad,
Jerry Brown: ‘A Legacy of Failure?’
Republican Meg Whitman is making false claims about Democrat Jerry Brown’s “lifetime in politics” in an attack ad, her first TV spot of the general election campaign. The two are battling to become the next governor of California. The ad claims that “crime soared” while Brown was mayor of Oakland. That’s false. …