No shortage of tall tales in the midterm elections, from both parties.
2014 Campaign Whoppers
Whoppers of 2013
It’s that time of year again when we look back — perhaps not so fondly — on the most noteworthy nonsense from the past 12 months.
Whoppers of 2012, Final Edition
With only days to go until Election Day 2012, we look here at the most egregiously false and misleading claims from the entire presidential campaign. Some examples …
Whoppers of 2012, Early Edition
Thomas Hobbes’ oft-cited phrase from 1651, “nasty, brutish and short,” does not describe the 2012 presidential campaign — unfortunately. The contest so far has been nasty all right, and disregard for the truth has been brutish on both sides, in our judgment. But alas, it won’t be over until Nov …
The Whoppers of 2011
Despite what you may have heard in 2011: The new health care law won’t cost many jobs (and they’ll be poorly paying jobs at that). Republicans aren’t proposing to “end” Medicare (and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has signed onto a modified version …
Midterm Whoppers and Court Races
In episode 35 of our podcast, we give you a wrap-up of the biggest whoppers of the midterm campaigns. And we tell you about a few attack ads in state Supreme Court races.
For more on the stories discussed in this episode, see:
Whoppers of Campaign 2010 Oct. 26
Health Care Spin — Again Oct. 28
Court Watch: Mudfest 2010 Oct. 28
Whoppers of Campaign 2010
Midterm elections are an embarrassment of riches for fact-checkers — this year more than others. With Democrats fighting desperately to keep control of the House and Senate, and a torrent of money from corporations and other undisclosed …
Oil Spill Whoppers
The April 20 explosion that started oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico has prompted a slew of claims and counterclaims about the disaster. What caused it, how it’s being handled, the history of drilling accidents in the area – all are subjects ripe for false or misleading statements by politicians and others. …
Whoppers of 2009
Although 2009 was not an election year, it kept us exceptionally busy, and led to millions of visits to our site. In this year-end summary, we offer some of the worst examples of the falsehoods we encountered during the first year of the Obama administration. The list of howlers includes the false claim that the stimulus bill would dictate …
Year-end Whoppers
Summary
We've often said that the spin never stops in Washington. And the weeks since Nov. 4 offer further evidence of that.
Consider some of the bogus claims we've debunked just since Election Day:
It's not true that unionized auto workers at Detroit's Big Three make more than $70 an hour, as claimed by some opponents of federal aid.
And no, 3 million workers won't be tossed out of work if aid is not forthcoming,