Former U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop claims that the United Kingdom’s health care system would consider seniors “too old” to qualify for the artificial joints, heart pacemakers and coronary stent that he’s received in the U.S. U.K. guidelines make clear …
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Obama’s State of the Union Address
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 …
Bay State Battle
In the Massachusetts special election campaign for the Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, the conservative American Future Fund and Democratic state Attorney General Martha Coakley’s campaign are on the air with misleading attack ads. AFF’s ad uses a Coakley quote, “We need to get taxes up,” to portray her as a tax-hiker. But …
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 …
Palin vs. Gore Climate Showdown
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. …
‘Climategate’
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 …
Obama’s Economic Speech
We’re always alert for signs that the president (any president) is overselling his programs. Here’s what we heard in President Obama’s speech on Tuesday announcing new efforts to create jobs: He highlighted a Congressional Budget Office estimate that “up to” 1.6 million jobs …
Truth on the Cutting Room Floor
A widely viewed video seems to show President Obama stating that he is a Muslim. It is false, and the product of dishonest editing. Although it is titled “Obama Admits He Is A Muslim,” the president in fact has admitted no such thing. The video edits and twists his actual words, sometimes turning what were denials into …
Health Care and the Economy
Would the House-passed health care bill make a tough economy worse and wipe out more jobs, as claimed in a TV ad from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce? Or would it help small business and encourage economic growth, as claimed in an ad sponsored by a big labor union …
Court Watch: Pennsylvania Slime
In another installment of our occasional Court Watch series, we look at mudslinging in the final days of the contest to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in Pennsylvania. In one ad, the state GOP alleges that Democratic candidate Jack Panella, a Superior Court judge, “turned his back” on the wrongful imprisonment of hundreds …