Fact Checker Newsletter

"I think there was a little premature chest- thumping in this whole thing, and I`ve ordered a preliminary review. And I will tell you, this has been a damaging leak. We shouldn`t underestimate what really happened here. When you jeopardize our foreign service liaison partners, any of them that may or may not have been involved, or you jeopardize the conclusion of wrapping up all of the people involved, that`s dangerous to our national security....

-President Obama, news conference at conclusion of G20 summit, Brisbane, Australia, Nov.

(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) By a wide margin, the most widely read fact check of November was our examination of President Obama's evolving views on whether he could take executive action on immigration, which resulted in a rare Upside-Down Pinocchio for a flip-flop. But there was also strong interest in fact checks having to do with two other Obama statements - another on immigration and on the Keystone pipeline.

"If you look at the biggest thing that are cutting our deficit over the medium and long run, it's actually the Affordable Care Act, which is, you know, by bringing down the cost of health care, that doesn't just help our economy, it helps bring our deficit down." - Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, during an interview on MSNBC's Jansing & Co., Nov.

"You can't build a little guy up by tearing the big guy down. Abraham Lincoln said it then, and he's right." -Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), interview on Fox News Sunday, Jan. 25, 2015 Somehow, Gov. John Kasich, a potential 2016 candidate for the presidency, fell for one of the oldest hoaxes around, repeating faux Abraham Lincoln quotes that keep popping up from time to time, no matter how many times they have been debunked.

"I think it showed that all the Democrats in the Congress were completely willing to give the president a blank check to borrow whatever he wanted. Most of the Republicans weren't." -Former senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), president of the Heritage Foundation, on CBS's "Face the Nation," Feb. 16, 2014 We have been critical in the past when lawmakers such as Rep.

"Many employers are not hiring people because of Obamacare, 70 percent in some of the surveys of small businesses are saying that Obamacare is already harming their ability to hire people." - Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," Feb. 9, 2014 Just yesterday we examined a Democratic-taking-point-that-won't-die. Now it's the GOP's turn, once again on that favorite subject of Obamacare.

(Melina Mara/ The Washington Post) "I'm real disappointed in the [budget] deal. The GAO says we've got $200 billion in wasteful, duplicate spending every year. And what we do is we raise fees, raise money, steal money, raise the cost of pensions for federal workers." -Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Dec. 11, 2013 In expressing his disappointment about the new budget agreement on Capitol Hill, Sen.

This is an updated version of The Fact Checker's guide to Social Security and how it is financed. The details of Social Security are often misunderstood, making it a frequent subject of political hyperbole and misinformation. This primer is intended to answer basic questions about the program. Social Security was created in response to the pervasive poverty during the Great Depression.