Author Archives: Lori Robertson

Stretching the Truth in Nebraska

Club for Growth Action is out with another attack ad on Republican Senate candidate Jon Bruning, this time stretching to paint him as a “big taxer.” Earlier this month, the group exaggerated Nebraska Attorney General Bruning’s spending record. The latest ad says Bruning “once called for higher gas taxes and …
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Misleading on Premiums

Both the Republican National Committee and the Obama administration are making misleading claims about health insurance premium costs. An RNC ad falsely implies that the federal health care law is responsible for all of the $1,300 average increase in family coverage premiums last year. But at the same time, the …
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Obama ‘Road’ Film Takes Some Detours

An Obama campaign film, narrated by actor Tom Hanks, casts the president, not surprisingly, in the best light. But the 17-minute video lacks context and take liberties with some facts on health care and the auto bailout: The film says …
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Health Care Costs Didn’t Double

Several readers asked us about Republican comments and news reports saying that a new Congressional Budget Office report had found that the federal health care law would cost double the original estimate. But that’s not what CBO’s report said. Instead, the report shows that the gross yearly costs of the …
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Santorum’s Science

Rick Santorum calls global warming a “hoax.” If he were a scientist, he would be in a small minority. “The dangers of carbon dioxide? Tell that to a plant, how dangerous carbon dioxide is,” Santorum said at the Gulf Coast Energy Summit in Biloxi, Miss., on March 12. He made …
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College Kills Faith?

Rick Santorum is off base when he criticizes college as a place where young people lose their “faith commitment.” In fact, the percentage of those with weakened religious affiliations is higher for those who don’t go to college. Santorum also twists Obama’s words when he accuses him of snobbery for …
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PAC Strains ‘Abortion’ Facts

An anti-abortion group is making the shocking claim that Mitt Romney “enforced a law which required Catholic hospitals to provide abortions.” To call this a stretch is putting it mildly. What Romney enforced — after first vetoing the legislation — was a requirement that hospitals provide rape victims with the …
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GOP’s ‘Job-Killing’ Whopper, Again

The exaggerated Republican claim that the new health care law “kills jobs” was high on our list of the “Whoppers of 2011.” But the facts haven’t stopped Republicans and their allies from making the “job-killing” claim a major theme of their campaign 2012 TV ads: Five ads by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce …
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Gingrich Spanish Radio Ad Pulled

Before we got a chance to write about it, Newt Gingrich yanked a Spanish-language radio ad off the airwaves in Florida. The reason: No, it wasn’t a stellar fact-checking by journalists. Rather, it was Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s complaint that the ad’s criticism of Mitt Romney was “inaccurate, inflammatory, and …
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Refereeing the Republican Response

We concentrated our fact-checking efforts on the main attraction last night — the president’s State of the Union address — but we also found factual fouls in the Republican response from Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. Daniels took a swipe at President Obama for dictating which light bulbs Americans should use …
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