On the hustings, Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Craig James drew a standing ovation with a speech witnessed by a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.
James included a fiery claim about Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and banning U.S. firearms, ultimately touching off the No. 1 PolitiFact Texas fact check of 2012.
We do mean fiery.
When a Texan gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, the Texas Truth-O-Meter kicked into gear. The resulting check of a claim about Mitt Romney proved to be our readers No. 2 favorite of the year.
A promotional spot for Lawrence O'Donnell's MSNBC program stirred our interest after O'Donnell said critics likened the original GI Bill to welfare. Our plunge into post-war history led to a fact check that ranked high among the year's reader favorites.
In a July 2012 debate, Democratic U.S. Senate aspirant Paul Sadler bemoaned the federal debt, going so far as to invoke the latest Texan to serve as president. Our check of his claim placed No. 4 among reader favorites for the year.
Hank, why do you drink? Hank, why do you roll smoke?
Oops.
We got distracted from our readers' No. 5 favorite fact check of 2012.
Ron Paul's zinger about setting the income-tax rate at zero for everyone touched off the Truth-O-Meter. Our review put him in our readers' favorite articles of 2012 for the third time.
Ron Paul's flawed claim about a poll and the gold standard landed him in our top 10 reader favorite fact-checks of 2012 for a second time.
A one-time U.S. Senate hopeful who lost his 2012 U.S. House bid before ending up in state office accounts for our readers' No. 8 favorite fact-check of 2012.
And Michael Williams aired his remark in 2011.
Beware chain emails? Seems wise.
Readers flocked to our check of a chain email about a federal agency loading up on ammunition.
The Texan who stuck around in the 2012 presidential race made the most statements viewed most often by our readers through the year. Perhaps surprisingly, no fact-checks of the Texan who left the race early made it to our readers’ top 10.
Today through New Year’s Eve, we’re rolling out the favorites.
We look again at the frequency of student testing--this time in Massachusetts and Finland.
Mitt Romney’s campaign falsehood about Jeep moving production to China is PolitiFact’s Lie of the Year. There's also a minute-by-minute recap of how the mistruth popped and stuck around.