Blog Profile / Fact Checker
| URL : | http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Politics / US Politics | |
| Posts on Regator: | 632 | |
| Posts / Week: | 5.8 | |
| Archived Since: | April 20, 2011 | |
Blog Post Archive
Bachmann’s absurd claim of a vast IRS health database of ‘sensitive, intimate’ information
“So now we find out these people are making decisions based on our politics and beliefs, and they’re going to be in charge of our health care. There’s a huge national database that’s being created right now. Your health care, my health...Show More Summary
GOP lawmaker questions how Harry Reid ‘obtained’ false claims about Mitt Romney’s taxes
REP. PAUL GOSAR: “Are you aware that in July 2012 Senator Harry Reid claimed Mitt Romney hadn’t paid taxes for the last 10 years and claimed to have the information supporting that? Are you aware of that? I’m sure you are.” Read full article >>
Has anyone been ‘fired’ because of the Benghazi attacks?
“Why does Benghazi go on? No one was ever fired? So, people made tragic errors. No one’s accepting responsibility and no one was fired.” — Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), on CNN’s “State of the Union,” May 19, 2013 Read full article >>
The White House claim of ‘doctored e-mails... to smear the president’
“That’s a very serious offense that happened where Republicans on the Hill, we voluntarily provided these e-mails to, took one of them, doctored it and gave it to ABC News in an attempt to smear the president.” Read full article >>
A bushel of Pinocchios for IRS’s Lois Lerner
In the days since the Internal Revenue Service first disclosed that it had targeted conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status, new information has emerged from both the Treasury Inspector General’s report and congressional testimony Friday that calls into question key statements made by Lois G. Show More Summary
Holder’s incorrect claim on the ‘Fast and Furious’ criminal citation decision
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.): “In the AP [Associated Press] case you have appointed Ronald Machen, and I’m sure he is a fine U.S. Attorney, but can he be considered to be independent when in fact when this Congress held you in contempt...Show More Summary
Barbara Boxer’s claim that GOP budgets hampered Benghazi security
“I believe if we want to know what happened in Benghazi, it starts with the fact that there was not enough security. There was not enough security because the budget was cut.” — Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), speech on the Senate floor, May 14, 2013 Read full article >>
How many pages of regulations for ‘Obamacare’?
“Obamacare is fully implemented January 1st, even though the regulations haven’t been written yet. And Brian, we’ve got 33,000 pages of regulations that they’ve already written. If we stacked it up here, it would be seven feet tall.” Read full article >>
Obama’s claim he called Benghazi an ‘act of terrorism’
“The day after it happened, I acknowledged that this was an act of terrorism.” — President Obama, remarks at a news conference, May 13, 2013 Read full article >>
The claim that Senate Democrats have produced a ‘balanced budget’
“I first want to thank the chair of our committee, the budget committee, for doing such a terrific job in bringing us all together. My colleagues on the committee, as we all know, we worked very, very hard together in order to be able...Show More Summary
An alternative explanation for the Benghazi talking points: Bureaucratic knife fight
From time to time, the Fact Checker writes an analytic look at news events, based on his three decades of experience covering diplomacy and politics, rather than a traditional fact check. This is one of those columns. Read full article >>
Coburn’s claim that violence in national parks has declined ‘85 percent’ because of guns
“Remember, in 2010, everybody said you can’t dare let guns go into the national parks. And of course the rapes, murders, robberies and assaults are down about 85 percent since we did that.” — Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” May 9, 2013 Read full article >>
The Benghazi hearings: what’s new and what’s not
“I was stunned. My jaw dropped. And I was embarrassed” — Gregory Hicks, former U.S. deputy chief of mission to Libya, testifying on his reaction to U.N. Ambassador Susan E. Rice’s remarks on the terror attack in Benghazi, May 8, 2013 Read full article >>
Cherry-picking one survey to discredit a survey of scientists on climate change
“There is also uncertainty regarding to what degree man is to blame for global warming. However, the claim that 98 percent of scientists agree that humans are the singular driver of climate change has been repeatedly discounted. This...Show More Summary
The Benghazi talking points: What’s known and unknown
“I wasn’t involved in the talking points process….As I understand it, as I’ve been told, it was a typical interagency process where staff, including from the State Department, all participated, to try to come up with whatever was going to be made publicly available, and it was an intelligence product.” Read full article >>
Is Long Beach really limiting the hours of 1,600 workers because of ‘Obamacare’?
“Even the city of Long Beach, California came out and said that for their part-time workers -- there’s 1,600 of them -- they’re going to get all of them lower than 30 hours per week so that then the city doesn’t have to provide expensive health insurance.” Read full article >>
Is the FBI unable to ‘talk about jihad’?
“We see with the new FBI terminology and the new intelligence terminology, they can’t talk about the enemy. They can’t talk about jihad. They can’t talk about Muslim. They can’t talk about Islam.” — Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-Tex.), speech on the House floor, April 26, 2013 Read full article >>
Obama group misleadingly cites a vote on a climate change bill
“Number of House members who voted in 2011 that climate change was a ‘hoax’: 240” — text of a new video by Obama political arm, Organizing for Action Read full article >>
Obama’s claim that 90 percent of Americans ‘don’t have to worry’ about ‘Obamacare’
“For the average American out there, for the 85 and 90 percent of Americans who already have health insurance, this thing’s already happened. And their only impact is that their insurance is stronger, better and more secure than it was before. Full stop. That’s it. They don’t have to worry about anything else.” Read full article >>
Bachmann’s claim that she voted against the ‘sequester’ bill because of cuts to the poor
“There were numerous Republicans that voted against the sequestration because we knew all of these calamities were in the future. And so it reminds me of the Shakespeare line: ‘Thou protestest too much.’ Didn’t you know this was going to happen? We knew it. That’s why we voted against this bill.” Read full article >>