Republican Newt Gingrich mistakenly claimed on "Meet the Press" that a U.S. helicopter involved in the Osama bin Laden raid "was shot down." There’s no evidence of that. U.S. officials say it crash landed and was destroyed by Navy SEALs. Gingrich also was wrong to say Pakistan’s intelligence chief did not apologize for "failing to find" bin Laden. He may not have apologized to Gingrich or the U.S. public, but he did apologize to the Pakistani Parliament.
FactCheck Posts
Romney Off Base on Health Care
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
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"
Deceitful Attacks from the League of Women Voters
New ads accuse two senators of endangering children's lives by voting to allow asthma-causing "emissions" to be released from smokestacks and tailpipes. But in reality, all that the senators voted to curb was the government's attempt to regulate carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse" gasses, which have no direct connection to asthma, and an indirect connection that is a matter of debate in the medical community.
The League of Women Voters said April 29 that it would put at least $1 million behind its "ad blitz"
FactChecking Gingrich
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.
FactCheck Wins Sigma Delta Chi Award
We are happy to announce that the staff of FactCheck.org has won a 2010 Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Sen. Barrasso’s Medicare Mistake
Sen. John Barrasso mistakenly claimed that "57 percent of doctors don’t want new Medicare patients," which isn’t true. His own spokeswoman admits he got it wrong.
National surveys have put the number who don’t take new Medicare patients as low as 14 percent, and a big American Medical Association survey last year showed only 17 percent of all physicians said they were "restricting" Medicare patients (either taking none, or just some).
The Wyoming senator — who is also a physician —
We Won a Webby
We are proud to announce that FactCheck.org has won the 2011 Webby Award in the Politics category.
Rubio Inconsistent on Medicare
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida offered a wildly inconsistent view of what constitutes a "cut" from Medicare. Rubio claimed that Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget plan "doesn’t cut Medicare" but that the federal health care law does.
Actually, Ryan’s plan leaves in place many of the Medicare "cuts" in the health care law. And over the long-term, Ryan’s plan would "cut" or "save" (we’ll leave the word choice to our readers) even more by requiring future beneficiaries to pay a higher percentage of health care costs.
Trump 100 Percent Wrong on Egyptian ‘Vote’
Donald Trump falsely claimed that 99 percent of Egyptians voted to end the peace treaty with Israel. There was no such vote, although a recent poll found that 54 percent do support ending the treaty.