Factcheck

Chicago’s former top cop, now a challenger to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s re-election, says murders and shootings cost city taxpayers more than is spent on all other programs combined. The claim is a wild exaggeration based on a misreading of research.

Democrat JB Pritzker is quick to blame rival Gov. Bruce Rauner for new health problems at the state facility for retired veterans. But the stomach virus is very different and harder to prevent than Legionnaires’ disease, which has killed 13 residents since 2015.

There are lots of different ways to measure Illinois’ fiscal crisis, and politicians usually seize on the yardstick that best fits their partisan agendas.

In a speech to supporters on primary night, Rauner claimed that “newspapers” were now likening his political rivals to the mafia. In reality, one newspaper columnist was quoting Rauner.

Pritzker, Kennedy and Rauner all lay claim to superlative records of job creation in the business world. Proving it up? Not so much.

Rauner’s campaign ad said: “Who’s really behind Jeanne Ives’ campaign for governor? Mike Madigan’s corrupt insider machine. They’ve bankrolled her campaign with thousands in shady labor union cash, turning Ives into another Madigan lackey.”

Kennedy falsely claimed that test results show no high school students in an economically distressed Southern Illinois town are prepared for college.

Highland Park, Chicago and a few other Illinois towns have banned assault weapons, but state law blocks most other communities from following suit. How come?

The day after Gov. Rauner unveiled a new budget blueprint for the coming fiscal year, his campaign released an ad highlighting a vague $1 billion tax cut plan.

The bill Gov. Bruce Rauner signed changed nothing about the legality of state-funded late abortions: The state has paid for certain cases for decades, while others remain illegal.