Lori Robertson, Author at FactCheck.org

FactChecking Santorum

June 6, 2011

Next up in our occasional look at past misstatements by presidential candidates: Rick Santorum. The former Pennsylvania senator announced his candidacy today. We have checked just a few claims from Santorum, who served in the Senate from 1995 to 2007.

He wrongly claimed in March that "one in three pregnancies end in abortion" in the United States when saying that abortion was to blame for funding problems for Social Security and Medicare. Santorum said on a radio talk show: "The reason Social Security is in big trouble is we don’t have enough workers to support the retirees.

FactChecking Romney

June 2, 2011

We are periodically taking a look at past claims from the 2012 presidential candidates, and today it's Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor is set to announce in New Hampshire that he'll seek the Republican nomination for the second time. Here's a recap of some of our fact-checking of Romney during the last campaign and since:

Most recently, we found Romney misrepresenting the federal health care law and the overhaul he signed into law in Massachusetts.

Palin Whoppers on Debt, Oil Imports

June 1, 2011

Sarah Palin made two wildly inaccurate claims on the debt accumulated under President Obama and oil imports. She wrongly said that the debt had grown more under Obama than "all those other presidents combined." She also was way off when she claimed that the U.S. is going to spend "$8 billion a day" on oil imports this year and next year to make up for declining oil production in the Gulf of Mexico. The actual amount is less than $20 million a day.

DNC Misquotes Pawlenty

May 23, 2011

The Democratic National Committee takes Tim Pawlenty's comments on his presidential campaign out of context. In a web video posted May 22, the DNC claimed that Pawlenty said, "I don't know," in response to a question about why he was running. But the reporter had asked when the former Minnesota governor knew that he wanted to be president — not why.

The DNC was quick to criticize Pawlenty, posting the video the same day he announced that he would run in another web video.

FactChecking Pawlenty

May 23, 2011

We are periodically taking a look at past claims from the 2012 presidential candidates. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty released a web video, announcing that he was running for president, and he'll kick off his campaign in Iowa. In recent months, we have found him straying from the facts.

In a January interview on "Fox News Sunday," Pawlenty said that he "never did sign a bill relating to cap and trade" while governor of Minnesota. But that's false.

FactChecking Paul

May 20, 2011

Up next in our look at past claims made by the 2012 presidential candidates: Rep. Ron Paul. No stranger to presidential campaigns, the Texas Republican has made his share of factual flubs. Paul declared his 2012 candidacy May 13.

He falsely claimed last December that the estate tax "especially harms small and family-owned businesses." But if the estate tax was returned to 2009 levels, less than 8 percent of estates taxed in 2011 would be family farms and businesses,

FactChecking Obama

May 19, 2011

We are periodically taking a look at past claims from the 2012 presidential candidates. Up next: President Barack Obama.
The president officially launched his 2012 campaign on April 4, but we’ve been fact-checking his statements for about four years now. Among the major misstatements:

Obama has misrepresented Republican plans for Medicare. Recently, he made the exaggerated claim that Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare proposal was "a voucher program that leaves seniors at the mercy of the insurance industry."

Romney Off Base on Health Care

May 13, 2011

Mitt Romney made misleading statements about the federal health care law in an effort to highlight how it differs from the overhaul he signed into law as governor of Massachusetts.
Romney, who has not yet declared his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, gave a major speech on health care May 12 at the University of Michigan Cardiovascular Center. He started off by describing the federal plan, as he saw it, and what happened in Massachusetts.

Gingrich No Fan of Czars

May 12, 2011

Newt Gingrich referenced an old claim spread by conservative commentator Glenn Beck about supposed White House "czars," saying he would "abolish all the White House czars" his first day in office if he were elected president.
In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, the Republican presidential candidate said he would immediately sign executive orders, and "the first executive order by the way would abolish all the White House czars."
Does that mean he would get rid of the director of national intelligence ("intelligence czar") or the director of the National Economic Council ("economics czar") or the well-known "drug czar"

FactChecking Gingrich

May 11, 2011

Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has appeared in our fact-checking stories before. We’ll be taking a close look at the claims he makes on the campaign trail, now that the former House speaker has decided he will run. So we’ll be listening to see if he repeats statements along these lines:

At a GOP event in Iowa in March, Gingrich said that he "helped balance the federal budget for four straight years." Not exactly. He was in Congress for only two of those years.