Author Archives: Jess Henig

Bush at Ft. Hood

Posted on February 11, 2010

Q: Did President George W. Bush drop everything to visit Ft. Hood victims? Was he ordered away by the Obama administration? A: Bush did visit the wounded at Ft. Hood, but a Bush spokesman says that his visit was coordinated with base officials and that he was not asked to leave by …
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Fake News, Real Fact-Checking

Posted on February 10, 2010

"Daily Show" anchor Jon Stewart has an uneven record of fact-checking political figures. In September 2008, we called him out for getting his gun facts wrong — he called Joe Biden "crazy reckless" and wrong when he referred to his Beretta shotgun, claiming that Beretta "is a handgun." In fact, …
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Not A Fake, But A Stretch

Posted on February 3, 2010

Debunking e-mail rumors today seems to require that one be an image analysis expert. We regularly get requests to say whether pictures are real or a result of Photoshop. While some of the photos are obviously fabricated, like the one of the president and first lady in stereotypical "pimp and …
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Obama’s State of the Union Address

Posted on January 28, 2010 , Updated on January 29, 2010; February 5, 2010 , Corrected on February 3, 2010

President Obama peppered his State of the Union address to Congress and the nation with facts, which were mostly right but sometimes cherry-picked, strained or otherwise misleading. He said “there are about 2 million Americans working right now” because of last year’s stimulus bill. But his own economic advisers say …
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Mirror Image

Posted on January 11, 2010

The rumor that President Barack Obama refuses, or doesn’t know how, to say the pledge of allegiance just won’t die. Since early in his presidential candidacy, we’ve been getting e-mails with photos that purport to show Obama failing to properly salute the flag during the pledge of allegiance or the …
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Whoppers of 2009

Posted on December 24, 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 …
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Palin vs. Gore Climate Showdown

Posted on December 18, 2009

On Dec. 9, an op-ed by Sarah Palin on climate change ran in the Washington Post. Al Gore responded to Palin’s piece and made some fresh claims of his own later that day in an interview with MSNBC. We find that both engaged in some distortions and have been rightly called out by experts in the field. …
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Extras: iPhone Death Panels, Newton, UFOs

Posted on December 14, 2009

This week’s political tidbits range from a new iPhone app to 17th century scientists’ correspondence. There’s an App for That OMG! We thought we’d seen it all. But an iPhone app designed to test your knowledge about the overhaul of the health care system? Seriously? To play "Death Panel," the …
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“Climategate”

Posted on December 10, 2009 , Corrected on Dec. 22, 2009

In late November 2009, more than 1,000 e-mails between scientists at the Climate Research Unit of the U.K.’s University of East Anglia were stolen and made public by an as-yet-unnamed hacker. Climate skeptics are claiming that they show scientific misconduct that amounts to the complete fabrication of …
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Recovery Stats Get Rougher

Posted on November 19, 2009

We reported yesterday that the federal government’s Recovery.gov Web site, which purports to track jobs created or saved with stimulus money, was citing new jobs in nonexistent congressional districts. Today a new report from the Government Accountability Office brings news that phantom districts aren’t the only problem. GAO found almost …
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