Lauren Boebert's fishy story about why she carries a gun Because Bruce Wayne's parents were killed, Batman was born. And so, many politicians have an origin story, a tale that vividly explains the life experiences that led them to public service. We take a special interest in these tales at The Fact Checker. Some of them just seem too neat, too convenient, too scripted to suit the moment. It's one thing to twist facts about a policy being debated — and another thing to alter one's own history and reasons for core beliefs. Enter Rep. Lauren Boebert, a freshman Republican from Colorado who dabbled in QAnon before distancing herself from the extremist movement of conspiracy theorists. She is the kind of pro-gun lawmaker who shows up to Zoom meetings with firearms bedecking the shelves in the background. "When I became a business owner, I needed to protect myself," Boebert said in a House floor speech this week. "There was an altercation outside of my restaurant where a man was physically beat to death. There were no weapons involved. He was beat to death by another man's hands." Police considered this incident a possible homicide at first but quickly concluded the man died of "methamphetamine intoxication," according to the autopsy report, or a drug overdose. The man merely ran past the back of Boebert's business before collapsing, after having fought someone who was three blocks away, police said. (He was the beater, not the beaten.) Turn off the Bat Signal. Boebert earned Three Pinocchios. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Biden flubs in coronavirus speech President Biden's address to the nation on the anniversary of the covid-19 pandemic was heavy on emotion and hope, but light on facts. But there were a couple of moments where the president stretched the truth. Here's one: Biden said accurately that 527,726 Americans had been recorded as dying from the coronavirus. "That's more deaths than in World War I, World War II, Vietnam War and 9/11 combined," the president said. But, as we have noted before, about 580,000 people died in the three wars he mentioned. The nearly 3,000 people who died during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks push the total past 583,000. In the past, the White House has said that Biden misspoke and meant to refer to combat deaths. (After that clarification, however, Biden kept doing it.) Using only battlefield deaths, a much different number for the three wars emerges — about 392,000. That's because more than half the deaths in World War I were not on the battlefield, in part because the 1918 flu pandemic at the time also claimed many lives in the military. We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP, @rizzoTK, @mmkelly22) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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