Nerditorial: I Call Bravo Sierra On Justice Antonin Scalia

The Whoppers of 2011

The year's worst political deceptions, from both sides.

Posted on December 20, 2011

Summary

Despite what you may have heard in 2011:

• The new health care law won’t cost many jobs (and they’ll be poorly paying jobs at that).
• Republicans aren’t proposing to “end” Medicare (and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden has signed onto a modified version of the GOP plan).
• Most of the “millionaires” who would pay higher tax rates under a Democratic proposal aren’t job-creating small-business owners.
• President Obama’s mother didn’t really fight to get health insurance coverage as she was dying.

And there was plenty more spin and deception in 2011. Obama claimed he pays a lower tax rate than a teacher. Michele Bachmann endorsed a claim that HPV vaccine causes mental retardation. Joe Biden claimed rapes quadrupled in Flint, Mich., after police layoffs. And that’s just some of the nonsense we debunked.

Factcheck: GOP New Hampshire Debate What Seven Candidates Got Wrong -- and Right -- in a Nationally Televised Debate.

Summary

In the first New Hampshire debate among 2012 presidential hopefuls, we found a number of incorrect, misleading or shaky factual claims: