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pomt-05086 | Before Act 10, the total cost of public sector employees’ employment was 29 percent higher than that in the private sector. After the act, it’s still 22 percent higher. | mostly false | /wisconsin/statements/2012/jul/02/ron-johnson/us-sen-ron-johnson-says-public-private-pay-gap-aft/ | On the morning after Gov. Scott Walker rolled to victory in the recall election, U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) made it clear the battle over public employee pay and benefits is far from over. Appearing on Charlie Sykes’ talk show on WTMJ-AM (620), Johnson cited Walker’s move to curb collective bargaining and make public employees pay more for pensions and health care. He said the measure, known as Act 10, only had a slight impact on the disparities between public and private sector workers in Wisconsin. And Johnson cited a new study to prove his point. Johnson said that even after the changes, "the pension benefits for public sector employees is still four and a half times richer than the private sector, and the health benefits are two times richer than the private sector." He continued: "Before Act 10, the total cost of public sector employees’ employment was 29 percent higher than that in the private sector. After the act, it’s still 22 percent higher." Johnson added this footnote: "I do want to point out … about those statistics that I just spouted in case people want to punch holes in them. That was just a study by Heritage and AEI working together and that does factor in equal educational experience and equal types of job classifications. So this isn’t just because public sector employees are higher educated or have more important jobs. This equalizes that and it’s still 22 percent higher cost." That comparison caught our attention, since no one had highlighted it during the recall itself. We started with the report, since Johnson cited it directly as his source. The report was completed by Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute and Jason Richwine of the Heritage Foundation. The researchers at the conservative think tanks have done numerous studies on public-private pay -- both at the state and federal level -- that show public employees come out ahead in compensation. The paper focused on Wisconsin was issued May 30, 2012, less than a week before the June 5, 2012 recall election. When we asked several experts on public employment compensation for their take on the paper, we ran into a familiar debate between competing political agendas. Indeed, the foes know each other so well, it’s a little like the "Spy vs Spy" comic in Mad magazine. Each time either side issues a report, researchers from the other side try to punch holes in it. Here’s how the debate plays out on this one. The report used a bad comparison: Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, noted the report compares state workers’ compensation to pay and benefits at private sector firms with far fewer workers. He said a state is more properly compared to the state’s largest firms. Such companies, he noted, generally pay better. The comparison is fine: Biggs, one of the authors of the paper, said the size of the companies didn’t skew the results. "We could choose the largest establishment size" -- firms with more than 500 workers "and, so long as you value the pensions right, public employees would still have a large advantage." The report used a bad assumption: Brainard and Jeffrey Keefe, a professor at the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, argue private sector benefits are understated in the report. Specifically, they say the report uses today’s low interest rates to calculate the value of private sector workers’ 401(k), which magnifies the public-private gap. They argue that the rate of return, 3.67 percent, is based on low-risk U.S. Treasury securities and is less than half of what such funds have historically earned over the long-term through investments in stocks, bonds and so forth. Said Brainard: "The net result is to produce a substantial difference between the current private sector annuity values." The report’s assumptions are valid: Biggs and Richwine said they are trying to treat public and private pensions equally. Using something other than Treasury securities would produce a retirement benefit with far greater risk than found in the public employee retirement system. Said Biggs: "Our approach is consistent with economic theory, with how liabilities are priced in private financial markets, and with the findings of non-partisan government agencies like the Confirmation Budget Office, the Federal Reserve, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (which constructs the National Income and Product Accounts, which are the official 'books' of the US economy)." Keefe said it was impossible to replicate the research using the formula contained in the Biggs-Richwine report. Keefe did his own earlier analysis of Wisconsin public-private pay using data from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That report, issued in February 2011 as Act 10 was unveiled, found Wisconsin public employees earn 4.8 percent less in total compensation per hour than comparable full-time employees in Wisconsin’s private sector. That’s compared to the Biggs-Richwine study which put the pre-Act 10 gap at 29 percent. Why did Johnson chose to highlight the study he did? In an emailed statement, Johnson said the study "is a product of two highly respected institutions. That said, I don’t endorse the findings of any specific study, or validate their findings." He added: "No one wants to underpay government workers, but with mounting deficits and debt, we can’t afford to overpay them either. We need to make sure that government sector salaries are benchmarked against those of the private sector. I welcome studies like this one, which help us understand how to set those benchmarks." Our rating Johnson argued the changes included in Act 10 were modest -- public employees still receive 22 percent higher wages and benefits than private sector workers. Johnson cited the work of two researchers for conservative think tanks, but later told us he "doesn’t endorse" the findings of that study, or "any specific study." That underlines what we found: There are different ways to measure the same thing. Indeed, an academic came up with a far different pre-Act 10 starting point when he did his own study in 2011. There certainly appears to be an element of truth in the study, but it’s not as definitive as Johnson presented it on the radio. And credible independent researchers have raised valid questions about the conclusion. We rate Johnson’s statement Mostly False. | null | Ron Johnson | null | null | null | 2012-07-02T09:00:00 | 2012-06-06 | ['None'] |
chct-00144 | FACT CHECK: Did The French Intend For The Statue Of Liberty To Symbolize Immigration? | verdict: false | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/04/27/fact-check-french-statue-of-liberty-immigration/ | null | null | null | Emily Larsen | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 9:41 AM 04/27/2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11660 | Democratic lawmakers who voted in favor of short-term spending bills "just voted to deport Dreamers." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jan/09/credo-action/did-democrats-vote-deport-dreamers/ | A progressive advocacy group claims Democratic lawmakers have voted to deport so-called "Dreamers," young immigrants in the country illegally. "Democrats who just voted to deport Dreamers. Share to shame Democrats who are enabling Trump’s racism," said an image tweeted Dec. 21 by Credo Mobile, listing the names of 14 Democratic representatives, 17 Democratic senators and independent Sen. Angus King of Maine. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com The accusation is jarring after years of congressional Democrats pushing for legislation granting certain immigrants a chance to stay in the United States legally and have a pathway to U.S. citizenship. Contrary to their rhetoric, did dozens actually vote to kick them out of the country? Credo’s tweet came after members of the U.S. House and Senate, including Democrats, voted to continue funding the government short-term, until Jan. 19. The final bill that President Donald Trump signed into public law contained no reference to deportations or Dreamers. But immigrant advocates had urged Democrats to vote against the spending bills if they did not include a legislative solution for Dreamers who are at risk of deportation. Credo’s rationale is voting for a bill that doesn’t benefit Dreamers amounts to voting to deport them. That’s a mischaracterization of the actual content of the bill. DACA program and Congress’ December vote The Trump administration in September rescinded Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program created during the Obama administration to prevent the deportation of immigrants in the country illegally who came to the United States as children. This group is often referred to as Dreamers. The government has granted DACA to about 800,000 people, and around 690,000 are currently protected. Despite rescinding DACA, Trump’s administration allowed DACA beneficiaries with permits expiring by March 5, 2018, (about 154,000 people) to apply for renewal in the fall. The vast majority of the 154,000 recipients were granted renewals or have an application pending, but about 21,000 don’t have a renewal pending, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Immigrants who chose not to submit renewal applications may be at risk of deportation based on that decision. (DHS acting spokesman Tyler Q. Houlton tweeted that not all DACA recipients choose to renew, so it does not necessarily mean that immigration officials denied the requests.) DACA recipients with permits expiring after March 5 are set to lose their deportation relief if Congress does not pass a bill to help them out. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., as well as other Democratic senators seeking re-election in 2018, support Dreamers but were not ready to shut down the government in December over the issue. "I will exercise every bit of leverage I can for the Dream Act, but if there is a vote that would lead to a shutdown, that’s where I draw the line," Kaine told the Washington Post. On Dec. 21, lawmakers in the House and Senate approved short-term spending bills in order to prevent a government shutdown. The bill Trump signed into law did not have any provisions related to Dreamers, either to protect or deport them. Since Democrats didn’t force passage of the Dream Act, a bill to benefit Dreamers, some immigrants protected by DACA will be subject to deportation, Credo campaign manager Nicole Regalado told PolitiFact. "We believe it is more than reasonable to assert that any Democrat who voted for December’s CR without any protections for DACA recipients voted to help Trump deport immigrant young people whose DACA status will expire in the coming weeks," Regalado said. However, it’s uncertain that lawmakers could have passed the Dream Act. Trump has said he expects "massive border security" in exchange for a solution for Dreamers, and Democrats have voiced strong opposition to his border wall, among other measures. The Trump administration has emphasized that any immigrant in the country illegally is subject to deportation, though Kirstjen Nielsen, in November during her Senate confirmation hearing for Secretary of Homeland Security, said DACA recipients whose protection expired would not be an enforcement priority. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the conversation would continue "because it is an emergency." "They kicked the can for the omnibus into January. It’s this year, extended, that’s what it is. It’s the process," Pelosi told reporters, The Hill reported. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a prominent immigrant advocate, tweeted that Democrats would continue fighting for Dreamers in 2018. His tweet came after confronting Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ahead of the vote, according to the Washington Post. "This fight continues in January & I think Dems are on same page now. Good of the country must outweigh any political calculations, therefore we'll be moving forward on #DreamAct under leadership of @RepLujanGrisham @NancyPelosi @SenSchumer & allies in House & Senate," Gutierrez tweeted Dec. 21. Our ruling Credo tweeted that Democratic lawmakers who voted in favor of short-term spending bills in December "just voted to deport Dreamers." Lawmakers voted to continue funding the government until Jan. 19, but there was no language in the legislation to deport Dreamers. Credo contends that voting for a bill that does not include protection for Dreamers is essentially a vote to deport them. That’s an interpretation of the vote, but not an accurate representation of the content of the bill that was voted on. We rate the statement False. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | Credo Action | null | null | null | 2018-01-09T08:03:11 | 2017-12-21 | ['Democratic_Party_(United_States)'] |
snes-00051 | In 45 states, doctors and medical students are legally allowed to practice pelvic exams on patients who are under anesthesia without being granted explicit consent to do so. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pelvic-exams-informed-consent/ | null | Politics | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Is Performing Pelvic Exams on Unconscious Women Without Informed Consent Legal? | 21 September 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14543 | Says "Joseph Stalin said if you want to bring America down you, have to undermine three things: our spiritual life, our patriotism and our morality." | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/feb/14/ben-carson/ben-carson-flubs-stalin-quote-about-bringing-down-/ | Ben Carson invoked one of America’s most notorious foes in his closing statement at the Feb. 13 Republican presidential debate in South Carolina. "I, like you, am a member of ‘we, the people,’ " Carson said, addressing the audience. "And we know that our country is heading off the cliff. Joseph Stalin said, ‘If you want to bring America down, you have to undermine three things: our spiritual life, our patriotism and our morality.’ We, the people, can stop that decline." The problem is that in all likelihood, this is not a real quote from the former Soviet leader. Stalin led the communist nation from the 1920s until his death in 1953, and it is believed that millions died during his regime. Searches for the quote do not turn up in any history books, scholarly works or primary sources. Mostly it’s just social media sharables with the quote text next to a picture of Stalin. Our friends over at Snopes looked into a similar quote and concluded that it’s "highly unlikely that Stalin ever spoke these words." It seems dubious that Stalin would say something like this, as the quote, in a sense, compliments America for its strengths, Snopes noted. We searched through an online Stalin Archive and an online library compiled by the University of Pennsylvania. Our searches came up empty. It’s unclear where this quote originated. The earliest use of the quote Snopes found was in a 1983 letter to the editor in a Kansas newspaper. It’s possible that Stalin said this quote in a speech or in a letter that was never translated into English or never put on the Internet. But the burden is on Carson to back up his words with evidence. If new evidence pops up to the contrary, we’ll revisit this article. We reached out to Carson’s campaign but haven’t heard back. Our ruling Carson quoted Stalin as saying, "If you want to bring America down, you have to undermine three things: our spiritual life, our patriotism and our morality." All signs point to this being a fake quote that has made its way around the Internet. We rate Carson’s claim Pants on Fire. | null | Ben Carson | null | null | null | 2016-02-14T00:00:15 | 2016-02-13 | ['United_States', 'Joseph_Stalin'] |
pomt-12855 | Says Mike Pence said that "allowing rape victims to have abortions will lead to women trying to get raped." | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2017/feb/02/blog-posting/mike-pence-did-not-say-women-would-seek-out-sexual/ | An old story that keys off Vice President Mike Pence’s opposition to abortion has raised hackles on the Internet, but almost all of its contents are fabricated. "Mike Pence: ‘Allowing Rape Victims To Have Abortions Will Lead To Women Trying To Get Raped’," reads the headline on a July 17, 2016, story on Politicot.com. The story has been reblogged by several other sites, and has regained popularity on Facebook following Pence’s address at the Jan. 27 March For Life in Washington. It was flagged by Facebook as part of the social media giant’s attempts to stamp out fake news on its site. The post opens by saying Pence, who was governor of Indiana at the time, had signed a restrictive abortion bill. It then goes on to quote Pence as saying the bill didn’t have an exception for victims of rape because "we’d then have an epidemic of women claiming to have been raped just so they could have an abortion." To be clear, Pence never said these things. The story originated on a family of websites known for creating stories based on real events, but with made-up details in what it describes as an attempt to be funny. Politicot.com is part of the Newslo network of sites, which we’ve written about before, including one fake story about Pence calling Michelle Obama "the most vulgar first lady we’ve ever had." We rated that Pants On Fire! The site describes itself as a "hybrid News/Satire platform" that focuses on "entertainment." The only indication that the stories might be fake is a "Show Facts" button that highlight what is true, leaving the reader to surmise that the rest of the story is contrived. In this case, what Politicot.com deems as "facts" is limited to the opening paragraph, which noted Pence had "recently" signed a bill restricting abortions. Pence did sign an abortion bill in March 2016 that prevented women from getting an abortion due to the race, gender, or disability of the fetus. Indiana already was one of the most restrictive states in the country for women seeking abortions. The Politicot.com story seems to have been timed to react to Pence being picked as Donald Trump’s running mate on July 15. The site did not respond to our request for clarification. We’ve acknowledged in the past that Politicot.com’s related sites don’t do a good enough job of pointing out their stories are fake, and exacerbate problems by building contrived details upon real news events. This story is no different, and plenty of other sites posted it as truth. We rate this claim Pants On Fire! https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/99addd99-9735-4cbb-9db7-4c23c53cd885 | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2017-02-02T09:27:17 | 2016-07-17 | ['None'] |
pomt-10771 | Clinton "refused repeated requests to meet with the Gold Star Mothers." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2007/oct/20/chain-email/she-has-met-with-them-four-times/ | This rumor started in 2001 after two officials from the Gold Star Mothers, two moms whose children were killed in combat, dropped by Clinton's new Senate office. They did not have an appointment and Clinton was not in the office. A story on the conservative Web site NewsMax reported that the women were unhappy with "the outright shabby treatment shown them by the former First Lady... She and her staff simply refused to meet with them." That claim was picked up in an e-mail that circulated in 2001 and has gotten new life since Clinton became a presidential candidate. The e-mail says that "None other than the Queen herself, Hillary Rotten Clinton ... refused repeated requests to meet with the Gold Star Mothers." Shirley Jones, the legislative chairman for the group in 2001 and one of the women who stopped by Clinton's office, says the e-mail is wrong. She said she sent Clinton a letter requesting a meeting and has since met with her four times. Clinton even sponsored a bill on behalf of the Gold Star Mothers. "As a mother she was very understanding," Jones says. "I felt she was very supportive — and I'm a Republican." The Gold Star Mothers Web site says the allegation in the e-mail is incorrect. "This story passed through several people before being reported by NewsMax on May 26, 2001 and the details were lost ... The NewsMax article did not get the story correct and we deeply regret the misunderstanding about Senator Hillary Clinton." So we give the e-mail a False. | null | Chain email | null | null | null | 2007-10-20T00:00:00 | 2007-10-17 | ['Bill_Clinton'] |
pomt-08201 | More than 10 years of free trade "has brought a $2 billion per day trade deficit." | mostly true | /ohio/statements/2010/nov/22/sherrod-brown/sen-sherrod-brown-cites-daily-deficit-figure-price/ | Congress may have no greater trade-agreement foe than Sherrod Brown, the Democratic U.S. senator from Ohio. It’s not that he says selling cars, soap and widgets to foreign consumers is bad. It’s just that some foreign trading partners use their cheap labor and weak environmental and safety standards to sell cars, toys and widgets to Americans at prices that our domestic industries cannot match while, according to Brown, adopting policies that make it hard to sell America’s goods abroad. So Brown was not saddened when negotiations for a South Korean trade deal went sour in November. After all, he said in a news release, more than 10 years of free trade deals have "brought a $2 billion per day trade deficit and the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs -- jobs that should go to Ohio's skilled workers." PolitiFact and The Plain Dealer expended plenty of bytes and ink on the lost-jobs issue during the election season, so there is no need to wade back into it here. Let’s just say that a persuasive case can be made, although the underlying data on jobs is poor. This country can send a man to the moon but it cannot precisely quantify the number of jobs lost or gained to trade. But what about Brown’s other point -- that more than 10 years of trade under the North American Free Trade Agreement and trade relations with China has resulted in a trade deficit of $2 billion a day? Causation of that kind is in dispute, and some experts and data suggest this country’s reliance on oil plays a big role in the trade deficit, with OPEC countries selling $76.4 billion more to the United States than vice versa so far this year. But imbalances with China ($201 billion and counting so far this year) play a bigger role, government statistics show. We will not argue cause and effect here, nor will we tell you not to enjoy low-price consumer goods. We’re merely examining the numbers. They show that the negative balance of trade went from $70.3 billion in 1993, just before NAFTA, to $378.8 billion in 2000, as the United States accepted permanent normalized trade with China, to a record high of $759.2 billion in 2006, according to Commerce Department records. So what of Brown’s precise number, $2 billion a day? Brown is right -- kind of. Or he’s not right, sort of. This drives us nuts too, but as we dug into the subject, we realized that different groups use different measures to describe the size of the trade deficit. You’d think it would be as easy as comparing the value of goods and services exported from the United States with those imported from other countries. So let’s show you some numbers from the Commerce Department using that exact measure. Trade deficit for 2007: $702 billion. For 2008: $698.8 billion. For 2009: $374.9 billion. The recession’s effects were glaring, but even before then the trend was downward, albeit slightly. For January through September 2010, the most recent measurement available, the trade balance was a negative $379.1 billion. Assuming the monthly trends hold through December, this year’s annual trade deficit should reach $500 billion. Divide that by the days of the year and you’d have a daily trade deficit of $1.37 billion a day. That’s 32 percent lower than Brown’s claim of $2 billion a day. But since flush times will return eventually, imports and exports will presumably resume at robust levels, too. So if Brown was referring to the trade deficits that existed before the recession, his statement would be nearly accurate, because the deficit came to an average of $1.91 billion a day in 2008 and $1.92 billion a day in 2007. But it may not be that simple. Trade balances are affected not only by wages, tariffs and the demands of consumers, but also by events beyond the recession such as currency corrections and the value of the dollar. Considering recent currency corrections, annual trade deficits could stay in the range of $500 billion, said William Cline, a senior fellow at the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics. That would make Brown’s $2 billion-a-day figure somewhat high. "It’s a bit of an outdated figure," Cline said.. Yet there’s another way of viewing the data. Figures from the Commerce Department that we reviewed originated from the U.S. Census Bureau’s economic analysis unit (a bureau within a bureau at Commerce). The figures are the government’s official measure of the trade balance, used by the White House, cited in the news media and accepted broadly by economists. Yet the U.S. International Trade Commission, or ITC, which polices trade matters in the United States, maintains separate data that is used to review tariffs and trade practices. Depending on how one chooses to sort the data, a higher trade deficit can result. Brown’s office told us that his data came from the ITC. So we, too, turned to the ITC, and its staff helped guide us in using its online database. The ITC cautioned that the official figures come from Commerce, but various trade professionals use ITC data to drill down further for other purposes. We drilled. The result: A much higher trade deficit -- as high as $500.9 billion last year, in the depths of the recession, and $800 billion -- averaging $2.19 billion a day -- for 2008. How can one agency have such different figures from another? It’s easy. The ITC, concerned with tariffs, trade laws and trade policy, measures the value of goods -- cars, factory equipment, steel -- but not services. Services represent only a portion of the trade universe, yet they add a sweet spot to the equation. This country had a $132 billion trade surplus in services last year because it exported more in the way of travel, financial services, information services and so forth, than it brought in. Take away those services -- or just look at the ITC numbers -- and the trade balance becomes more bleak. It’s important to remember that when the White House and news reports mention the trade deficit, they are including services as well as goods and relying on the Commerce numbers. Even the ITC stressed this with us. But Brown aides as well as representatives of Public Citizen, a liberal public interest group, and its Global Trade Watch project, say the ITC data can be more relevant in certain circumstances. A state like Ohio exports relatively little in the way of services, for example, so the ITC’s focus on goods may be more pertinent for measuring trade’s impact in Ohio, said Todd Tucker, research director for Global Trade Watch, and Chris Slevin, a Brown aide who previously worked as Global Trade Watch’s deputy director. Even nationally, there is debate as to how much job-creating value can be found in export sectors like financial services and travel, Tucker said. Factories that make things employ a lot more people. Not to complicate this further, but ITC data can be sorted in yet another way, making the trade imbalance appear to be even worse. This occurs when some foreign-made goods are counted as "imports for consumption," an ITC category with an assumption at the port of entry that the goods will be consumed in the United States. The problem occurs, critics say, when these "imports" wind up being shipped back abroad after being stored here temporarily. That gives them a new category on the way out -- "re-exports" -- which is not the same as a simple export of a product made in the United States. So they were counted as imports on the way in, but not subtracted back out as regular exports on their way out. This kind of counting, which defenders say has merit in certain circumstances, results in a higher trade deficit than when every product shipped in is counted as an import, and every product shipped out is counted as an export. By using these other categories in the ITC database, we calculated a trade deficit of $612 billion last year and a stunning $920.6 billion in 2008. These are close to the numbers Brown’s office supplied to us initially, and they support his claim -- and then some. So which figure is right? It’s a matter of legitimate dispute. Global Trade Watch says the larger numbers are more revealing and pertinent in a number of cases, especially when comparing U.S. trade relations with individual countries rather than the entire universe of global trade. The National Association of Manufacturers says that’s nonsense. From "time immemorial," the Commerce/Census data have been used, measuring the total value of goods and services in and the total value of goods and services out, and that’s the only valid way to count a deficit or surplus, said Frank Vargo, the association’s vice president for international economic affairs. "Inside U.S. Trade," a publication for trade policy wonks and attorneys, discussed this at length in a Nov. 12 article. It said that "these different approaches result in widely different numbers when applied to both the global and bilateral deficits, and they have helped fuel and confuse a debate among stakeholders." Global Trade Watch is sticking to its guns, but so is the National Association of Manufacturers. So back to Brown’s $2-billion-a-day claim: Is it accurate? Brown, who has authored a book on what he calls the "myths of free trade," derives his figure from the ITC, and while the ITC cautioned us that the official balance-of-trade measure actually comes from Commerce, it is true that some authorities regard even the outlying ITC numbers as perfectly fine to use in certain circumstances. Yet even if we were to put those numbers aside and only use the Commerce Department numbers, Brown’s figures were close to the mark before the recession. This year is not the best year to measure the normal effects of trade, and no one can predict the future; perhaps the trade deficit will stabilize at a lower number such as $500 billion a year, or $1.36 billion a day. Perhaps it won’t. But based on the historical trends, regardless of which data source is used, we say Brown’s claim is Mostly True. | null | Sherrod Brown | null | null | null | 2010-11-22T12:00:00 | 2010-11-11 | ['None'] |
tron-01960 | Church Announcement Regarding Cell Phones | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/cell-phones-in-church-091213/ | null | humorous | null | null | null | Church Announcement Regarding Cell Phones | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04972 | The Weather Channel announced that it will only use the Celsius temperature scale. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/weather-channel-celsius/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Dan Evon | null | Weather Channel Switching to Celsius-Only | 1 April 2016 | null | ['Celsius'] |
afck-00019 | “Today, we have the highest unemployment rate in the history of our country.” | unproven | https://africacheck.org/reports/nigerian-joblessness-at-all-time-high-checking-a-politicians-claims/ | null | null | null | null | null | Nigerian joblessness at all-time high? Checking a politician’s claims | 2018-08-13 08:34 | null | ['None'] |
vees-00323 | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Duterte flip-flops on asking for emergency powers | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-duterte-flip-flops-asking-emergency-po | null | null | null | null | Duterte,emergency powers | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Duterte flip-flops on asking for emergency powers | December 13, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01442 | Hospitals have already begun layoffs, a direct result of Republican inaction on Medicaid expansion. | half-true | /virginia/statements/2014/oct/06/democratic-party-virginia/va-democrats-say-hospital-layoffs-are-direct-resul/ | The state Democratic Party is continuing to assail the Republican-controlled General Assembly’s refusal to expand Virginia’s Medicaid program. In a recent news release, the Democrats said "hospitals have already begun layoffs, a direct result of Republican inaction." We looked into the claim, made at the start of a special legislative session in mid-September at which Republicans refused to expand Medicaid eligibility to as many as 400,000 additional low-income and disabled Virginians. Under provisions of the Affordable Care Act -- also called Obamacare -- Uncle Sam would pay the entire expansion cost for two years and never less than 90 percent in the future. GOP lawmakers, who control the House and Senate, said they don’t trust the federal government will pay its promised share. Democrats have strongly supported the expansion, arguing, in part, that it would ease losses hospitals suffer from treating indigent patients. We asked Morgan Finkelstein, spokeswoman for state Democratic Party, for proof of the party’s claim that hospital layoffs have begun as a "direct result" of the GOP’s opposition to expansion. She sent us a number of articles and announcements of hospital layoffs and closings in Virginia during the last few years. Here’s the list of layoffs at 13 Virginia hospitals: 50 at three Wellmont Health Systems hospitals in Southwest Virginia in June 2013 140 through the closure of Wellmont’s Lee Regional Medical Center in Southwest Virginia in October 2013 116 at Mountain States Health Alliance, which has hospitals in Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, in January 33 at Valley Health, mainly at Winchester Medical Center, in January 66 at Mary Washington Healthcare in Fredericksburg at the beginning of September The news releases and articles cite the rejection of Medicaid expansion as one reason for the layoffs. But it wasn’t the only reason. The hospitals -- mostly in rural areas -- also blamed declining patient populations and lower Medicare payments. The ACA reduces reimbursements to hospitals for treating Medicare patients -- mostly people 65 and older. Obamacare supporters originally thought hospitals would recoup most of the money through the expansion of Medicaid. But the equation changed in 2012 when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states could not be compelled to broaden their Medicaid programs. That left an opening that’s allowed Virginia and 22 other states to resist expansion. Several of the Virginia hospitals that had layoffs reported Medicare populations as high as 60 percent. So they’ve been disproportionately hurt by the lowered Medicare reimbursements while, at the same time, unable to tap into extra Medicaid money. For example, Mountain States Health Alliance told the Kingsport Times-News in Tennessee in January that Medicaid expansion would help the system recover $20 million of its expected loss of $30 million every year. Mary Washington Healthcare told The Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg that it’s expecting to lose $31 million in Medicare reimbursements and that the expansion of Medicaid would have compensated for $14 million of the loss. In a news release about closing Lee Regional Medical Center, Wellmont attributed the cause to "reimbursement cuts associated with the Affordable Care Act, extremely low community use of the hospital and a lack of consistent physician coverage." It should be noted that rural hospitals across the country were in financial trouble long before Obamacare became part of our lexicon, facing shrinking patient populations and under pressure to shorten hospital stays. The Office of the Inspector General at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found in a 2003 report that 208 rural hospitals closed from 1990 to 2000. The report has not been updated. Eight of the 13 Virginia hospitals cited by the Democratic Party have operated in the red during every fiscal year since 2009, according to records from Virginia Health Information. Our ruling The Democratic Party of Virginia says that hospital layoffs have begun as a "direct result" of Republican legislators’ refusal to expand the state’s Medicaid program. The Democrats point to news releases from four hospital systems -- mostly in rural areas -- that have announced staff cuts since June 2013. The systems cited the state’s resistance to Medicaid expansion as one of several reasons for the layoffs. Of greater impact, however, was a reduction in Medicare reimbursements under Obamacare. Several hospital officials said the expansion of Medicaid would have allowed them to offset some -- but not nearly all -- of the loss. It also should be noted that most of the individual hospitals where the layoffs occurred had been in the red since at least since 2009 -- some of them all but losing their patient base. The GOP’s refusal to expand Medicaid came at a tough time for the hospital systems and certainly added to their woes. But saying the layoffs are the "direct result" of the Republicans’ action is an exaggerated claim that ignores deeper factors. The Democratic claim is partially accurate but leaves out important details. We rate it Half True. | null | Democratic Party of Virginia | null | null | null | 2014-10-06T00:00:00 | 2014-09-16 | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
snes-00830 | Is Using 'Bug Spray' to Get High an Alarming New Trend? | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bug-spray-high/ | null | Medical | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Is Using ‘Bug Spray’ to Get High an Alarming New Trend? | 29 March 2018 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00854 | Do Water Filled Zip-Lock Bags with Added Pennies Keep Flies Away? | unsubstantiated messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/zip-lock-water-bags-fly-repellent.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Do Water Filled Zip-Lock Bags with Added Pennies Keep Flies Away? | July 30, 2014 | null | ['None'] |
snes-06359 | Some symptoms of a heart attack are subtle and can be mistaken for indigestion. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/heart-attack-symptoms/ | null | Medical | null | David Mikkelson | null | Heart Attack Symptoms | 16 March 2007 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01798 | CNN published a story about pastor Joel Osteen that mistakenly featured an image of actor Tim Allen. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cnn-mistake-tim-allen-joel-osteen/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Did CNN Mistake Tim Allen for Joel Osteen? | 1 September 2017 | null | ['Joel_Osteen', 'Tim_Allen', 'CNN'] |
goop-00625 | Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt “Just Married,” | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-brad-pitt-married-again-false/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt NOT “Just Married,” Despite Report | 10:10 am, July 18, 2018 | null | ['Jennifer_Aniston', 'Brad_Pitt'] |
goop-00008 | Ben Affleck Has Returned To Rehab, | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ben-affleck-not-back-rehab-despite-reports/ | null | null | null | Gossip Cop Staff | null | Ben Affleck Has NOT Returned To Rehab, Despite Reports | 3:04 pm, November 11, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01831 | Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) Emit Radiation, Contain Mercury | truth! & misleading! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/compact-fluorescent-light-bulbs-cfls-emit-radiation-contain-mercury/ | null | health-medical | null | null | null | Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs (CFLs) Emit Radiation, Contain Mercury | Mar 31, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00443 | Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher Honeymoon Being Turned Into Movie? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/mila-kunis-ashton-kutcher-honeymoon-movie/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Mila Kunis, Ashton Kutcher Honeymoon Being Turned Into Movie? | 3:16 pm, August 16, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
faan-00064 | “We’re proud to be the only party making life easier for 100% of families with children.” | factscan score: false | http://factscan.ca/dustin-van-vugt-only-party-100-per-cent-of-families-with-children/ | While the Conservative Party’s newly expanded Universal Child Care Benefit does appear to benefit 100 per cent of families with children, the NDP would keep the program if elected. The Conservatives’ claim to be the “only party” to benefit everyone is false. | null | Dustin van Vugt | null | null | null | 2015-08-24 | July 1, 2015 | ['None'] |
snes-03917 | Alleged Cascade Mall shooter Arcan Cetin voted in three elections despite not being a U.S. citizen. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cascade-mall-shooter-voted/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Accused Cascade Mall Shooter Arcan Cetin Voted as a Non-Citizen? | 29 September 2016 | null | ['United_States'] |
tron-01033 | Sniper Jeremy Elmore Saves Family of Six in Texas | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/sniper-jeremy-elmore-saves-family-six-texas/ | null | crime-police | null | null | ['criminal justice', 'guns', 'satire'] | Sniper Jeremy Elmore Saves Family of Six in Texas | Jan 24, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05912 | Gov. Romney cut off kosher meals for Jewish senior citizens who were on Medicaid to save $5 a day. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/feb/01/newt-gingrich/newt-gingrich-says-mitt-romney-cut-jewish-nursing-/ | Newt Gingrich, campaigning in Florida before the state’s GOP primary, accused Mitt Romney of preventing Jewish nursing home residents in Massachusetts from keeping kosher to save a few bucks. "Gov. Romney cut off kosher meals for Jewish senior citizens who were on Medicaid to save $5 a day," Gingrich said in a speech in Tampa on Jan. 30, 2011. "For $5 a day, he said, no, you cannot follow your religious prescription." The next day, as Florida voters headed to the polls, robocalls made an even bolder claim. Gingrich’s campaign confirmed it sent the call statewide Tuesday, though the candidate denied he had heard it. "As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney vetoed a bill paying for kosher food for our seniors in nursing homes," the robocall said, according to CNN. "Holocaust survivors, who for the first time, were forced to eat non-kosher, because Romney thought $5 was too much to pay for our grandparents to eat kosher." We wanted to know, did Romney "cut off kosher meals for Jewish senior citizens who were Medicaid beneficiaries to save $5 a day"? Flashback to 2003 We asked Gingrich’s campaign for support for his claim. Spokesman Joe DeSantis pointed us to a New York Post article from Jan. 27, "Romney rapped for kosher cut." Romney's campaign declined to comment on the specifics of the claim. We dug deeper. Romney was a brand-new governor in 2003 facing a $3 billion budget gap. The year before he took office, a change in the state reimbursement formula for nursing homes removed extra funding for eight kosher homes, said Jeremy Burton, executive director for the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston. One nursing home, the Coolidge House Nursing Care Center in Brookline, Mass., decided in November 2002 that it would have to close its kosher kitchen, the Jewish Advocate of Boston reported. Instead, it would bring in kosher meals from outside — bringing food over from a sister nursing home, catering meals or offering prepacked dishes. Democratic lawmakers wanted to keep nursing homes’ kosher kitchens open. They asked for $600,000 in supplemental funding, an extra $5 a day per kosher diner. "We in the Legislature felt that a nursing home resident that was observant was entitled to that, even in tight fiscal times," said Rep. Ruth Balser, D-Newton, who helped work on the measure. "... People were definitely alarmed, and we took it very seriously." Romney used his line-item veto to scratch the funding, writing that "it unnecessarily requires an increased rate for nursing facilities," the Jewish Advocate reported. "I guess the governor at the time thought it was supplementary or an optional expense we couldn't afford," Balser told PolitiFact. "... "It was his intention to cut them off." But Democrats, who held a majority in the Massachusetts Legislature, "overrode it quickly," Balser said. Nursing homes got their funding. "It never came up again, that I'm aware of," Balser said. Neither Burton nor Balser could confirm that any Jewish nursing home residents lost access to kosher food, nor did we find any other information suggesting that kosher meals were ever eliminated for the nursing home residents. Our ruling Gingrich claimed that as governor of Massachusetts, "Romney cut off kosher meals for Jewish senior citizens who were on Medicaid to save $5 a day." It’s true that one Massachusetts nursing home said in 2002 that it would close its kosher kitchen. But that decision was made based on a state funding decision before Romney took office. And that nursing home still planned to offer kosher meals to its residents — just not from an in-house facility. It’s also true that when lawmakers rallied to provide money to make sure nursing homes didn’t have to make that choice, Romney attempted to veto extra funding, saying it would boost nursing home rates. But his veto was quickly overridden. There's no evidence any senior citizens were denied kosher food. We rate Gingrich’s claim Mostly False. | null | Newt Gingrich | null | null | null | 2012-02-01T18:47:01 | 2012-01-30 | ['Jews'] |
goop-00018 | Gwen Stefani Spotted With ‘Baby Bump’? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/gwen-stefani-baby-bump/ | null | null | null | Gossip Cop Staff | null | Gwen Stefani Spotted With ‘Baby Bump’? | 4:52 am, November 9, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05223 | Homosexual behavior "cuts your life by about 20 years." | false | /virginia/statements/2012/jun/07/bob-marshall/bob-marshall-says-homosexual-behavior-cuts-life-ex/ | Del. Bob Marshall’s statements about homosexuals have generated plenty of controversy this spring. Marshall, one of four candidates running in Tuesday’s GOP primary for the U.S. Senate, made national news May 15 when he led a successful movement in the House of Delegates to reject the judicial nomination of a gay prosecutor. Among other things, Marshall argued that Tracy Thorne-Begland could not be trusted on the bench to uphold Virginia’s ban on same-sex marriage. Two days later, during an interview on CNN, Marshall again questioned Thorne-Begland’s ability to render fair judgments, saying, "Sodomy is not a civil right." And during a campaign swing in Charlottesville on May 24, a reporter asked Marshall whether gay sex should be protected by the constitution. "The court says it is in certain limited circumstances, but you know what that behavior does? It cuts your life by about 20 years," Marshall said. Is Marshall right that the lifespan of gays is, on average, two decades shorter than heterosexuals? We asked him to provide proof. Marshall, who represents Prince William County, sent us an email citing a study published in June 1997 in the International Journal of Epidemiology. The report, conducted by researchers at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, examined how HIV affected the mortality of gay and bisexual men in Vancouver from 1987 to 1992. The study found that life expectancy at age 20 among gay and bisexual men in Vancouver was 8 to 21 years shorter than that of all men in the Canadian city. The researchers also said their conclusion probably underestimated the life expectancy deficit among gay and bisexual men because AIDS cases were underreported. But that’s not the end of the story. The report’s authors, in 2001, took exception to conservatives who used their study to condemn the lifestyle of gay and bisexual men. The researchers said circumstances had changed since their study ended in the early 1990s. "If we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved," the authors wrote. "Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically in this population since 1996." The researchers, however, did not conduct a new study on the life expectancy for gay and bisexual men. We spoke to Julio Montaner, a co-author of the study and director of the British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDs. He said Marshall’s statement is a "gross misrepresentation" of the research. "To use my report to support the notion that gay and bisexual sex is somehow the reason why people die early is misusing the data," Montaner said. Montaner noted that his group’s original report was conducted at a time when the HIV epidemic was poorly controlled and treatments were ineffective. Since then, there have have been great strides in treating the disease and preventing its spread, Montaner said. In British Columbia, annual diagnoses of new infections have dropped from 900 in the mid-1990s to 300 in recent years, he said. Deaths from HIV also have fallen sharply, he said. In the United States, figures from the Centers for Disease Control show that the rate of HIV deaths per 100,000 people peaked at 36.3 deaths in 1995 and fell to 2.7 in 2010, the latest year data is available. Gay and bisexual men remain the group most heavily affected by HIV, according to the CDC. Although they represent 2 percent of the U.S. population, gay and bisexual men accounted for 61 percent of new HIV infections in 2009. Marshall, in his email, listed sent abstracts of other studies saying homosexuals have high rates of suicide attempts and certain types of cancer. Two of the studies cite high number of deaths among gay men from HIV and AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. "With significant investment in medical resources, homosexuals are living longer than in previous years with their compromised health status, but nevertheless still shorter lives than comparable married heterosexuals who don’t eat up medical resources to the same extent," Marshall wrote. None of the other research Marshall listed proves his point that homosexual behavior today cuts life expectancy by 20 years. Marshall, for example, cited a study by the American Journal of Public Health that examined the mortality of men and women in same-sex marriages in Denmark from 1989 to 2004. It found that death rates among those couples was a third higher than the general population, despite a significant drop among men in same-sex couples. Even so, the report, published in 2009, criticized other published claims that homosexuals have a life expectancy that’s more than 20 years shorter than heterosexuals. "Although further research is needed, the claims of drastically increased overall mortality in gay men and lesbians appear unjustified," the report said. We sought U.S. data on how how life expectancy of homosexuals compared to the rest of the population. But the CDC, which compiles statistics on longevity, doesn’t keep figures based on sexual orientation. Laura Durso -- a public policy fellow at the Williams Institute at UCLA, which researches issues facing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people -- said few national population-based surveys in the U.S. inquire ask about sexual orientation. That makes it difficult to compare the life expectancies of homosexuals to heterosexuals, she said. Still, Durso said, reports have shown that LGBT populations face increased certain health risks. LGBT youths in particular have been shown to have a higher rate of suicide, she said. Gay men appear to be at higher risk for anal cancer while lesbians appear to be at higher risk of breast cancer, she said. Our Ruling Bob Marshall said homosexual behavior cuts a person’s life by about 20 years. The research Marshall cites to support his claim is two decades old and was conducted near the height of the HIV epidemic. One of the authors said there have been tremendous advances in HIV treatment over the last 20 years and that Marshall’s statement is a "gross misrepresentation" of the research. The U.S. death rate from HIV was nine times higher in 1990 than it was in 2010, the latest year for the data. Marshall cites a number of other studies that show homosexuals face certain health risks. But none of them focused on the life expectancy of homosexuals, and they certainly didn't conclude that gays die about 20 years earlier than heterosexuals. We rate Marshall’s claim False. | null | Bob Marshall | null | null | null | 2012-06-07T11:17:42 | 2012-05-24 | ['None'] |
pomt-02825 | The state budget has actually grown by $4.6 billion under Gov. Scott Walker’s actions. | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2013/nov/24/mary-burke/democratic-challenger-gov-scott-walker-says-state-/ | From Madison to Tomah, from Janesville to Milwaukee, as Mary Burke has introduced herself to Wisconsin voters, she tells them about her concern over how much Gov. Scott Walker has increased the state budget. Wait -- don’t Democrats usually rip the Republican governor for his budget cuts? In a Madison interview on Nov. 5, 2013, Burke was asked how she would provide tax relief to the middle class if she is elected governor in 2014. "Well, I think we have to make sure that we are living within the means of our taxpayers and I know people are struggling," the Madison school board member and former Trek Bicycle Corp. executive said on WMTV-TV (Channel 15). "So, we need to balance the state budget, we need to make sure the money that we're spending is utilized well. I'm concerned that the state budget has actually grown by $4.6 billion under this administration, which makes it harder and harder to keep taxes lower." You would think Burke’s figure, which she repeated in a Madison speech on Nov. 20, 2013, could be checked with a simple comparison of two numbers. But you’d be like the guy who proposes to his girlfriend while slipping a ring on her right hand: Well-intentioned, but a little misguided. Burke’s numbers Burke’s phrasing could be taken to mean she was claiming the two-year state budget has grown $4.6 billion since Walker succeeded Democrat Jim Doyle in January 2011. Or that it has grown by that amount at some point during Walker's tenure. Initially, even Burke's own campaign wasn't clear on what she meant. When we asked spokesman Joe Zepecki for evidence to back Burke’s claim, he compared the size of Walker’s first budget, for 2011-’13, to Walker’s second budget, for 2013-’15. He provided a PolitiFact Wisconsin article, which made reference to the first budget being $66 billion; and a reference by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, which said the second budget "authorizes the state to spend" $70.4 billion. But the two figures are apples and oranges: the $66 billion figure for 2011-’13 was for the general fund budget -- operations funded with state revenue; the $70.4 billion for 2013-’15 is an "all funds" figure that includes federal funding as well as $2 billion in borrowing. Zepecki then said his staff had made a mistake and that Burke’s statement actually compared Walker's current budget to Doyle's final budget. Zepecki cited figures from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau showing an increase of $4.6 billion, from $65.8 billion in 2009-’11 to $70.4 billion in 2013-’15. But both of those figures are "all funds" appropriations -- not the general fund budget, which comes from state tax dollars and typically is the focus of lawmakers, the news media and others when talking about the state budget. So, let’s review some other numbers. Other numbers We put Burke’s claim to Robert Lang, director of the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state agency in charge of scoring budgets and other money matters. Lang said that looking strictly at biennial general fund budgets -- the ones funded with state revenue -- Doyle’s final spending plan for 2009-’11 was $62.19 billion and Walker’s current budget, for 2013-’15, is $67.5 billion. That’s an increase of $5.31 billion. Lang also said that whenever his agency is asked to compare biennial spending, it considers not only the budget itself, but any other legislation that becomes law during the two-year period. For example, a $100 million property tax relief law approved under Walker after the 2013-’15 budget was adopted would be tallied. Using that method, Doyle’s final spend was $62.95 billion and Walker’s spend in the current biennium -- as of Nov. 15, 2013 -- is $67.62 billion. An increase of $4.67 billion. So, by the two official figures, Burke’s number claim is on target, or even conservative. But what about the rest of her statement, that Walker is responsible for the growth in the budget? Perspective The growth in Walker’s first budget was driven largely by increased expenditures on Medicaid; in his second budget, the increases were in large part for Medicaid and school aids. Walker's press secretary, Tom Evenson, contended the increase since Walker took office is $4.4 billion -- slightly less than Burke’s $4.6 billion claim -- but said it is misleading to say Walker decided to increase spending by that amount. "These are commitments the state cannot easily back out of and stem from decisions largely made prior to Gov. Walker taking office," Evenson said of the federal- and state-funded Medicaid program. Medicaid costs are driven by many factors, from how many people are eligible for the program to the cost of treatment and what recipients are asked to contribute in co-pays. That's much different than a governor simply deciding to boost spending on various programs. Indeed, the highlights of Walker’s first budget included a nearly $800 million cut from public schools, tax cuts for investors and businesses, and clamp-down on property taxes. His second budget included a $651 million income tax decrease, a two-year university tuition for freeze and an increase in property taxes on the typical home limited to 1% in each of the two years. Our rating Burke said the state budget "has actually grown by $4.6 billion under" Walker’s administration, suggesting Walker had boosted the spending. The figure is accurate, but it is due almost completely to Medicaid costs, not budget decisions Walker made. For a statement that is partially accurate but takes things out of context, we give Burke a Half True. | null | Mary Burke | null | null | null | 2013-11-24T05:00:00 | 2013-11-05 | ['None'] |
pomt-12511 | Trump's Cabinet is more white and more male than any first Cabinet since President Ronald Reagan’s. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/apr/26/center-american-progress/true-trumps-cabinet-more-white-and-more-male-any-f/ | As President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office come to a close, many people are using the marker as an opportunity to recap Trump’s efforts. While Trump himself views his first chapter as a success, other groups see it differently. The Center for American Progress, a progressive policy advocacy group, took to Twitter on April 25 to air its list of grievances with Trump’s administration. The thread comprised of approximately 100 tweets, with each tweet representing one way that the Trump administration has harmed women and families. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com Most tweets criticized Trump’s policies, but some took aim at the administration itself. Like No. 57. See Figure 3 on PolitiFact.com "Trump's Cabinet is more white and more male than any first Cabinet since President Ronald Reagan’s," reads the tweet. This made us wonder. Is that true? Long story short, this claim is accurate when you compare the percentage of nonwhite males and women combined to the percentage of white males in each cabinet. However, if you look at each factor separately, Trump's cabinet remains the most white, but not the most male. The president’s first cabinets As evidence of this claim, the Center for American Progress’ tweet linked to a New York Times article that reached a similar conclusion about Trump’s first cabinet. The New York Times story was updated on March 10, 2017, and compares Trump’s first cabinet to the first cabinets of former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and of course Ronald Reagan. The analysis was first written when Trump’s cabinet wasn’t fully assembled, so, it assumes Trump’s remaining nominees would be confirmed. The New York Times included R. Alexander Acosta, Trump’s second nominee for labor secretary, and to the best of our knowledge Trump’s cabinet has remained unchanged since this time. It’s worth pointing out that the New York Times analysis included traditional cabinet positions as well as "cabinet-level" positions. Cabinet-level positions have changed over time. (Trump has 24 cabinet members, whereas George H.W. Bush only had 17). "Some positions, such as the United Nations ambassador and the Office of Management and Budget director, are given cabinet-level rank by individual presidents but are not traditionally considered part of the cabinet," the article says. Furthermore, some traditional cabinet positions were created since Reagan took office. For example, the Department of Homeland Security didn’t get created until 2003 and the Department of Veterans Affairs did not exist in its current form until George H.W. Bush’s presidency. For these reasons, the total number of people in each president’s first cabinet varies. So, with those factors in mind, how white and male is Trump’s cabinet? According to the New York Times, 18 of Trump's 24 cabinet members are white males. The only minorities and women in Trump’s cabinet are: • Elaine L. Chao, transportation secretary; • Betsy DeVos, education secretary; • Nikki R. Haley, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; • Linda McMahon, administrator of the Small Business Administration; • Ben Carson, housing and urban development secretary; and, • R. Alexander Acosta, labor secretary. That means 75 percent of Trump’s first cabinet is white males. A smaller percentage of white males were in Obama’s, W. Bush’s and Clinton’s first cabinets based on the same analysis. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com The only other president who challenges Trump’s standing is George H.W. Bush, whose first cabinet was 71 percent white male. But Bush had fewer cabinet members, according to the New York Times' article. So, the percentage of nonwhite and women cabinet members combined in his cabinet is higher than Trump’s cabinet. But looking at each demographic individually — white and male — changes the picture. Trump's cabinet has a higer percentage of white males out of any first cabinet since Reagan, but he does not have the highest percentage of males. That distinction belongs to George H.W. Bush whose cabinet was 89 percent male. Females makes up a little more than 16 percent of Trump’s cabinet, but only made up 11 percent of George H.W. Bush’s. You have to go back to Reagan to find a more white and more male cabinet. White males comprised 90 percent of his first cabinet. (It's worth noting Reagan had 17 white males to Trump's 18. Reagan's cabinet is considered less diverse, though, because he had even less people in his cabinet.) The idea that Trump’s cabinet lacks diversity has been widely reported on, especially when confirmation hearings and appointments were being made. During that time, a CNN report noted that Trump's four most influential departments are led by white males, which is a first since George H.W. Bush. Those include former ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson (secretary of state), retired Marine Gen. James Mattis (secretary of defense), Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions (attorney general), and ex-Goldman Sachs banker Steve Mnuchin (secretary of the treasury). Our ruling In a tweet, American Progress said, "Trump's Cabinet is more white and more male than any first Cabinet since President Ronald Reagan’s." That claim is based on a credible New York Times analysis that found that Trump’s first cabinet had a smaller percentage of women and nonwhites combined than any president since Reagan. When you look at each demographic separately, however, George H.W. Bush has the most male cabinet. With that in mind, we rate this claim Mostly True. See Figure 4 on PolitiFact.com | null | Center for American Progress | null | null | null | 2017-04-26T11:18:04 | 2017-04-25 | ['None'] |
pomt-03597 | Four balanced budgets in a row, with no new taxes for anyone. The best job growth in 12 years. Nearly 130,000 new private-sector jobs. Merit pay to reward New Jersey’s best teachers, and the most education funding ever. | half-true | /new-jersey/statements/2013/may/12/chris-christie/chris-christie-implemented-merit-pay-teachers-best/ | Chris Christie’s earned a top grade for his efforts to reward teachers and fund education in New Jersey, according to claims in a new TV ad. The ad, released May 1 by the group Christie for Governor, cites a number of achievements that have resulted from Christie’s leadership since he took the state’s reins in January 2010. "Four balanced budgets in a row, with no new taxes for anyone. The best job growth in 12 years. Nearly 130,000 new private-sector jobs. Merit pay to reward New Jersey’s best teachers, and the most education funding ever," a narrator states as scenes from around New Jersey flash in the background. We fact-checked the claims about balanced budgets, taxes and job growth on Thursday. Today we’re looking at the ad’s education claims. Let’s review those claims in more detail, starting with merit pay. Christie’s intent may be to give the state’s best teachers merit pay, but the program is unavailable to the vast majority of teachers in New Jersey’s 588 school districts. So far only Newark has merit pay, which the teachers union approved in November. The three-year pact awards bonuses to teachers earning the classification "highly effective" under a new rating system. The Newark deal is the first of its kind in New Jersey and the nation to base teacher pay on classroom performance, including student progress. In addition, four low-income districts -- Asbury Park, Hillside, Lakewood and North Plainfield -- would be eligible for merit pay through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Teacher Innovation Fund. Rutgers University would administer the nearly $40 million grant over five years to improve educator recruitment, evaluation and rewards programs. The state Department of Education is expected to roll out a teacher evaluation system this fall. So merit pay has been approved for one district in New Jersey, and could eventually apply to teachers in four other districts. That’s not exactly rewarding New Jersey’s best teachers. "Christie’s ad clearly gives the impression that this is a statewide issue," New Jersey Education Association spokesman Steve Wollmer said in an e-mail. It’s worth noting that although Christie supports merit pay for teachers, a bill allowing it has been stalled in the Democrat-controlled Legislature since last fall. The NJEA also opposes merit pay. As for "most education funding ever," Christie’s proposed fiscal year 2014 budget calls for nearly $9 billion in education funding, about $1 billion more than the previous year. State aid to schools would increase $97 million. While no district saw a state aid decrease, many either received a nominal increase of $1 or their funding remained flat. Wollmer agreed that in terms of dollars, the ad’s claim is correct, but points out that there’s more to Christie’s education funding story. "But what he doesn’t mention is that he cut $1.3 billion from state aid in his first year – Withholding $475 million in aid in January, which was the amount that the state’s nearly 600 districts had in total surpluses for unanticipated expenses (a new roof, a bus that needed replacing, an unanticipated special ed placement), and another $820 million in the FY11 budget (which began for schools in September of 2010)," Wollmer said. "Districts cut back dramatically, and 10,000 teachers and staff were laid off, programs were cut, and class sizes increased." The state Supreme Court in 2011 also ordered Christie to increase aid to the now-former Abbott districts by about $500 million. Our ruling A new TV ad for Christie’s re-election campaign claims in part, "Four balanced budgets in a row, with no new taxes for anyone. The best job growth in 12 years. Nearly 130,000 new private-sector jobs. Merit pay to reward New Jersey’s best teachers, and the most education funding ever." The merit pay claim comes across as being available statewide, but so far, the program only applies to teachers in Newark. Of the state’s 588 school districts, four others could offer merit pay eventually. Also, Christie may have a history of slashing education funding as a way to close budget holes, but the ad’s claim about the most education funding, ever, is correct. We rate this portion of the ad’s claims Half True. To comment on this story, go to NJ.com. | null | Chris Christie | null | null | null | 2013-05-12T07:30:00 | 2013-05-01 | ['New_Jersey'] |
hoer-01167 | Adidas is Giving Free Shoes to Everyone Who Clicks a Facebook Post | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/no-adidas-is-not-giving-free-shoes-to-everyone-who-clicks-a-facebook-post/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | No, Adidas is NOT Giving Free Shoes to Everyone Who Clicks a Facebook Post | February 9, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
wast-00053 | Trade deficit \xe2\x80\x94 $52 billion reduction in the trade deficit for the quarter. .\xe2\x80\x89.\xe2\x80\x89. I think nobody would have thought that would be possible so quickly. $52 billion reduction in the trade deficit for the quarter. | 4 pinnochios | ERROR: type should be string, got " https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/08/08/president-trumps-new-favorite-trade-talking-point-falls-apart-under-scrutiny/" | null | null | Donald Trump | Glenn Kessler | null | President Trump's new favorite trade talking point falls apart under scrutiny | August 8 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-06024 | In Connecticut and New York, students at Achievement First schools consistently outperform city and statewide averages. | half-true | /rhode-island/statements/2012/jan/15/angel-taveras/providence-mayor-angel-taveras-says-achievement-fi/ | Politicians, parents and education officials are wrangling over a proposal by Achievement First to open two charter schools in Providence. Supporters say the charter school operator will be able to better educate poor and minority students. Opponents, however, question some of their teaching methods and worry that charter schools will channel money from traditional city-run schools that are already financially strapped. Providence Mayor Angel Taveras is among those in Achievement First’s corner. In a Jan. 8, 2011, commentary in The Sunday Journal, he pointed to the success of schools operated by the organization in two nearby states. "In Connecticut and New York, students at Achievement First schools consistently outperform city and statewide averages," the mayor wrote. That’s essentially the basis of Achievement First’s pitch. According to test scores, the nonprofit organization says, its schools do better than others in their communities and can even compete with those in affluent communities. Many have waded into this debate already. There are claims and counterclaims about the improvements Achievement First’s schools have made on test scores in Connecticut and New York. We decided to examine the issue ourselves. We contacted Taveras’ office first and asked for data to back up the mayor’s statement. While we waited, we started our own search. We began with Achievement First’s website, which lists test results for all of its schools. But the site averages results for math, reading and writing together, so it’s impossible to get a clear picture of how the schools did in individual subjects. We wanted to analyze precise scores, not averages, so we went directly to the sources for testing data. Both the Connecticut State Department of Education and the New York State Education Department make test results available on their websites. Before we get to the test scores, it’s helpful to have some background on Achievement First, which operates 10 schools in Connecticut and 10 in New York. Its flagship, Amistad Academy, opened in New Haven, Conn., in 1999 with a mission to serve underprivileged children. The school has since expanded and so has the organization’s reach, moving into Hartford, Bridgeport and New York City. Achievement First’s approach includes a longer school day, more days in the school year, strict discipline and a focus on reading and math. Taveras uses the present tense in his claim, so we examined results from the most recent years, 2010 and 2011. Because the 20 schools opened at different times and because Achievement First typically starts each school with a single grade and then expands, testing data varies for each year and each school. For some schools, there is only one year of test results. For others, there is six years of results. In considering test results, we used the percentage of students that meet or exceed the standard. (In Connecticut, this is considered being at or above proficiency.) Achievement First argues that a greater percentage of students in its schools meet the standard or are proficient than state and city averages, so we’ll focus our attention on these results. We’ll look at Connecticut first. All students in grades 3-8 take the Connecticut Mastery Test (CMT), which tests students in math, reading and writing. Fifth graders and eighth graders are also tested in science. All 10th graders take the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT), which tests them in math, science, reading and writing. In 2010, students in four Achievement First schools were tested on the CMT, totaling 16 classes in six grades. For math, 11 of those classes exceeded the state average for the percentage of students at or above proficiency. Fifteen of the 16 exceeded city averages. For example, of the 51 seventh graders at Elm City College Preparatory Middle School, in New Haven, 92.2 percent were proficient or better. The state average was 87.2 percent and the city average was 75.2 percent. In the other subjects, Achievement First schools didn’t do as well, with only 4 of 16 classes exceeding the state average in reading and 8 of 16 in writing. Thirteen of the 16 classes did better than city averages in reading and 14 of 16 in writing. The 2011 exams followed a similar pattern. Twenty Achievement First classes in four schools took the tests and 12 exceeded the state average on math while all 20 exceeded city averages. In reading, however, only three exceeded the state average while 16 exceeded city averages. And in writing, 10 exceeded the state average while 19 exceeded city averages. For the CAPT, the only Achievement First high school -- Amistad Academy -- outdid city averages in all subject areas in both 2010 and 2011 and all state averages except in reading in 2010. The results so far: students in Connecticut Achievement First schools do well in math, not as well in reading and writing. Now let’s look at New York. Students in grades 3-8 in that state take the New York State Tests in math and English language arts. In 2010, students in four Achievement First schools were tested, totaling 18 classes in six grades. For math, 15 of those classes exceeded the state average for the percentage of students that met the standard or did better. All 18 exceeded the city average. On the English portion of the exam, only 1 of the 18 Achievement First classes exceeded the state average and only 6 of the 18 exceeded the city average. Results for the 2011 exam were similar. Twenty-one Achievement First classes in five schools took the tests and all 21 exceeded the state and city averages on math. In English, however, only seven exceeded the state average and 12 exceeded the city average. Before making our ruling, we should point out that Taveras’ office did eventually send us data that was nearly the same as what we found ourselves. The only difference was that for New York, Taveras’ office compared the results of Achievement First’s schools to district results, not citywide results. We chose citywide results, because in his commentary in The Journal, Taveras made the comparison to city averages. If district results were used, the Achievement First schools would have fared better, especially in English. Our ruling Achievement First schools do outperform city and state averages for math in Connecticut and New York, but the results aren’t as definitive for other subjects. To quantify this, we added up the number of classes that were tested in the two states in 2010 and 2011 and totaled the number of times the class results in different subject areas could be compared with either state or city averages. Here’s what we found: STATE SUBJECT % OF CLASSES HIGHER THAN STATE AVERAGE % OF CLASSES HIGHER THAN CITY AVERAGE New York Math 90 95 New York English Language Arts 21 46 Connecticut Math 66 97 Connecticut Reading 21 82 Connecticut Writing 53 92 Connecticut Science 40 93 In total, for all grades and all subjects in the two states, Achievement First outperformed state or city averages 66 percent of the time. (If the New York district averages provided by Taveras’ office were substituted for city averages, this number would have risen to 70 percent.) Generally, combining all grades and all subjects, Achievement First schools performed better than their home cities, scoring better 83 percent of the time. Compared with state averages, however, they scored better only 50 percent of the time. Achievement First schools also did better on math, scoring higher than state or city averages 87 percent of the time. But in other subject areas -- science, reading and writing -- they had higher averages only 54 percent of the time. Taveras said that Achievement First schools in Connecticut and New York "consistently outperform city and statewide averages." That’s true for math but it’s not true for other subjects. It’s true for city averages but not for statewide averages. In other words, the mayor overstated the case for the charter school operator. We rule the claim Half True. (Get updates from PolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on our PolitiFact Rhode Island Facebook page.) | null | Angel Taveras | null | null | null | 2012-01-15T00:01:00 | 2012-01-08 | ['Connecticut', 'New_York_City'] |
pomt-15192 | Says Patrick Murphy "hasn't passed a single bill out of committee." | false | /florida/statements/2015/aug/18/alan-grayson/grayson-says-murphy-hasnt-passed-single-bill-out-c/ | U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson is bringing his brash reputation to bear in his Senate campaign, calling his Democratic primary opponent U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy "ineffective" as a legislator. In an Aug. 12, 2015, statement, Grayson, D-Orlando, offered to help Murphy learn how to legislate. Grayson posted the video for the old Schoolhouse Rock song "I’m Just A Bill" and cited an InsideGov.com listicle that called Murphy one of "the least-effective members of Congress." "Patrick Murphy is one of the least effective members of Congress, in part because he hasn't passed a single bill out of committee," Grayson said in the release. Murphy, D-Jupiter, is competing with Grayson for the Democratic nomination to run for the Senate seat now held by GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio. Murphy has already been attacked by some Democrats for allegedly not being progressive enough, but we wondered whether the second-term congressman hadn’t gotten any bills out of committee. It’s time for us to take our own roll call. Murphy’s law? We’re not going to rate Murphy’s effectiveness as a legislator, because that’s a subjective measure. We’ve also noted time and again that passing bills is not the only way to determine a lawmaker’s effectiveness. There’s simply more to the job, such as writing language that gets included in other bills, proposing amendments, being a co-sponsor, holding hearings or negotiating with other legislators, as well as constituent services. Murphy was first elected in 2012, so he has largely been a freshman with little seniority. He’s also a Democrat, which means he’s in the minority party in the Republican-controlled Congress. Grayson cited an InsideGov article as evidence for Murphy's lack of action, but we found two problems with that evidence. First, the article sticks to a single measure: How many bills a member of Congress sponsored and passed out of committee (that is, having them sent to the House floor for debate) as a percentage of all the bills they introduced. Murphy is listed as having zero during his freshman term. Florida Republicans Richard Nugent and Daniel Webster are on the list, too. The list is stacked with rookies — 21 of the politicians named have served four years or less. It’s also overwhelmingly filled with Democrats, the minority party in the House since 2011. But there are other ways to get legislation out of committee. Murphy’s campaign disputed the list, and pointed out two instances of him getting bill language out of a committee as a freshman: • In May 2013, Murphy introduced HR 1974, a bill that would have changed how the Small Business Administration gave out loans for businesses rebuilding after a disaster. Instead of being reported out of committee, Murphy’s language was attached to HR 4121 as an amendment along with other SBA-related changes and sent from the Small Business Committee to the House. No action was taken on the bill. • In October 2013, Murphy was a co-sponsor and co-author of HR 3329, concerning banking regulations. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., was listed as the sponsor, but Murphy’s campaign noted he and Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., managed the bill in the House. In the Congressional Record, Capito credited Murphy for writing the bill with Luetkemeyer. The bill eventually became law. The second problem is that the article didn't look past 2014, so it's out of date. In addition to highlighting several amendments passed on the House floor, Murphy’s campaign said that the House Committee on Veterans Affairs moved HR 456 forward in May 2015. That Murphy-sponsored bill's language amended HR 475 to cover application fees to post-secondary institutions for veterans. HR 456 came during Murphy’s second term, and wasn’t covered by the InsideGov list. Several experts told us the list Grayson is citing isn’t providing a good picture of what lawmakers do. Washington University in St. Louis political science professor Steven Smith told PolitiFact that party-line voting in committees usually keeps Democratic-sponsored legislation from getting anywhere. He called the InsideGov article "disappointing" because of its limitations. "It lists only legislators at the low end of the scale, so we cannot see the majority party bias built into the legislative process and their measure," he said. Grayson, in case you’re curious, passed two resolutions about honoring Rollins College and when high schoolers should learn about the U.S. Constitution during his first term in 2009-10. He also was behind a law passed giving gold medals to astronauts. Our ruling Grayson said Murphy "hasn't passed a single bill out of committee." He cited a source that only looked at Murphy’s first term, not his second. Experts said the source is flawed, and is not a good way to measure how government works. Murphy had a hand in at least two items coming out of committee in 2013: One bill became an amendment, and he co-authored a second that became law. A third bill that Murphy sponsored moved out of committee as an amendment in 2015. We rate Grayson's statement False. | null | Alan Grayson | null | null | null | 2015-08-18T18:01:52 | 2015-08-12 | ['None'] |
afck-00428 | South African schoolgirls had 100,000 abortions last year. | incorrect | https://africacheck.org/reports/is-sa-worse-off-now-than-19-years-ago-the-facts-behind-that-facebook-post/ | null | null | null | null | null | Is SA worse off now than 19 years ago? The facts behind THAT Facebook post | 2013-11-28 05:16 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05486 | The ACLU has filed a suit to end prayer from the military completely. | pants on fire! | /georgia/statements/2012/apr/19/chain-email/chain-email-has-no-defense/ | So has everyone heard about the big legal case going on in Washington? Not the recent three-day hearing before U.S. Supreme Court about the federal government’s health care law and its controversial individual mandate. We mean the case about the American Civil Liberties Union suing the U.S. military, according to a widely circulated chain email. Loyal PolitiFact Georgia reader Robin Fitch asked us to check out a claim she received in her email. inbox "ACLU has filed a suit to end prayer from the military completely," the email said. "They're making great progress. The Navy Chaplains can no longer mention Jesus' name in prayer thanks to the ACLU and others. I'm not breaking this one. If I get it a 1000 times, I'll forward it a 1000 times! Let us pray...Prayer chain for our Military... Don't break it!" Fitch, who lives in Atlanta, got it from a friend in Columbus. She didn’t believe it. Turns out her instinct was correct. This claim has been circulating for a few years. It may have gotten started in 2006, when a Navy court reprimanded and docked the pay of an evangelical Protestant chaplain. Lt. Gordon J. Klingenschmitt was found guilty of disobeying an order by appearing in uniform at a political protest in front of the White House. He had been critical of the Navy’s policies that he said prevented him from saying "Jesus" in a prayer. In 2009, rumors of an ACLU lawsuit to end prayer completely in the military began spreading through the Internet. That year, PolitiFact swatted down a claim that the ACLU filed a lawsuit to have all military cross-shaped headstones removed. The one was rated Pants on Fire. The article mentioned the prayer claim. A year or so later, websites began debunking the specific claim about prayer in the military. But for the record, we checked with the U.S. military to see if anything has changed since these rumors began. "That’s utter lunacy," said Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Defense Department spokesman. "I’m not aware of any notification from the ACLU toward that end." An ACLU spokeswoman told us the same thing. "This email has been widely circulated, but there is no such ACLU lawsuit of this kind pending, nor do we intend to file one," spokeswoman Molly Kaplan told us via email. "The ACLU vigorously defends the rights of all Americans to practice their faith, and the rights of chaplains to serve our armed forces. Military chaplains are certainly allowed to practice their specific faith when conducting specifically sectarian ceremonies and to serve in non-denominational roles when ministering to service members at-large, according to their training." Let’s hope this false claim doesn’t continue to make the rounds on the Internet or via email. This one is a Pants on Fire. | null | Chain email | null | null | null | 2012-04-19T06:00:00 | 2012-03-21 | ['None'] |
snes-00929 | Did Melania Trump Plagiarize Michelle Obama's Statement on Women's History Month? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/melania-trump-plagiarise-michelle-obamas-statement-womens-history-month/ | null | Questionable Quotes | null | Dan Evon | null | Did Melania Trump Plagiarize Michelle Obama’s Statement on Women’s History Month? | 5 March 2018 | null | ['Michelle_Obama'] |
pomt-02968 | Milwaukee County has "a parks capital budget that’s bigger than it’s been in the last 10 years." | false | /wisconsin/statements/2013/oct/23/chris-abele/chris-abele-says-his-budget-improvements-county-pa/ | Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele was brimming with optimism and lung power when he addressed the future of Milwaukee County government in an Oct. 1, 2013 speech to the Rotary Club of Milwaukee. In one breath, he unleashed this accounting: "A couple of years ago if anybody had said, ‘Hey in a few years the county will have a higher credit rating than anyone would guess it would have, would have a deficit that’s almost on its way out, would be on its second operating surplus with a surplus number higher than it’s been in years, would have a parks capital budget that’s bigger than it’s been in the last 10 years and is going to catch up on deferred maintenance, has a child-support service department that with less staff is hitting all-time records in the history of the department’ -- If anybody had told you that a couple years ago, people might have said, some people would have said, ‘No.’ Exhale. A Public Policy Forum report in October 2013 confirmed improvements in county finances under Abele, who won election in 2011 when Scott Walker left to become governor. But Abele’s boast about spending on major parks improvements in Milwaukee County was a new one on us. Abele has received plaudits for putting money into long-neglected central-city parks in Milwaukee, but recently drew criticism for proposing closure of two indoor pools at parks where he would replace them with a splash pad or a skateboard park. Has Abele set a new standard for capital improvements in parks countywide? We started with the adopted 2013 budget, because Abele’s office told us his claim referred to that year and because, for reasons we will explain, it was the first year in which Abele had total control over capital spending. Abele’s 2014 budget proposal is awaiting action by the County Board. First stop, the county’s capital budget book. The book contains the official numbers on capital improvements, which in the Parks Department include things such as fixing leaky pools, building new picnic shelters, paving parkways, replacing walkways and other major work. Going back 10 years puts you at 2004, two years into Walker’s tenure as county executive. We found four years with higher budgeted totals than 2013 -- all predating Abele. There is one wrinkle: Under Walker, the county doubled up its borrowing for capital improvements in 2009 and 2010 -- in effect borrowing for four years, including 2011 and 2012 too. That was so it could get federal subsidies to lower its normal borrowing costs, under President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan. Adjusting for that by spreading that over four years, we actually found six years in the decade with a higher parks capital budget than 2013. Another way to look at it When we asked Abele spokesman Brendan Conway for backup on the exec’s claim, he provided a 2013 parks capital budget figure that was more than double the amount in the budget book. Conway said it included parks-related projects and major maintenance that is spread around the county budget but not tallied under parks capital because other departments supervise the work. For example: Road construction on a county parkway. Abele’s not the first county executive to pull together the numbers that way. In fact, county finance officials told us it’s a legitimate alternative. But the list itself was a bit too broad. It included, for instance, a tally for countywide sanitary sewer repairs ordered by the state. What’s more, Conway didn’t provide any prior years for comparison. So we asked the county official in charge of capital finance, Pamela Bryant, to use Abele’s method to generate a decade’s worth of numbers. Bryant works for the independently elected county comptroller, Scott Manske. Before running her analysis, she conferred with Abele’s office and they came to an agreement on what to include using the broader method, Bryant told us. Bryant developed two tables that dealt with the "double borrowing" issue in different ways. In one table, 2007 and 2010 parks-related capital spending outpaced 2013. In the other, there were three years in which parks-related capital spending was higher than in 2013. It wasn’t close in two instances. In 2011 (Walker’s last budget) and 2012, the spending was about $4 million to $7 million higher than the $14.8 million in 2013. As we mentioned, that was the first budget over which Abele had total control over capital spending due to the stimulus-related borrowing for 2012. In addition, the 2007 budget was just a shade over Abele’s 2013 mark, though if inflation were factored in, the gap would grow. Our rating Abele told Rotarians that Milwaukee County has a "parks capital budget that’s bigger than it’s been in the last 10 years." By any measure, this claim misses the mark. While Abele’s 2013 budget funded parks capital at a higher level than at least six other budgets in the decade, it’s not close to the leader. We rate his claim False. | null | Chris Abele | null | null | null | 2013-10-23T05:00:00 | 2013-10-01 | ['None'] |
pomt-07209 | We in the Democratic Party had no input into the locations of these hearings, nor did we have input into the process. | mostly false | /georgia/statements/2011/jun/06/robert-brown/georgia-democrats-left-out-process-lawmaker-compla/ | It’s important, it’s done once a decade, and many observers can’t wait for it to end. It is the spectacle of reapportionment, the process Georgia lawmakers use to decide the boundaries of each district in the state House of Representatives and Senate, and congressional districts. A slight shift of boundary lines could result in changes to how a district votes, thus a lawmaker could lose his or her job and the political tides in, say, the Georgia Legislature could shift on some important issues. Democrats and Republicans often fight over the boundaries like football players during a fumble. Republicans have the advantage since they hold majorities in both chambers of the Georgia Legislature. With such stakes in mind, the leader of the Senate Democrats complained about some aspects of this year’s reapportionment at the first public hearing May 17 in Athens. "We in the Democratic Party had no input into the locations of these hearings, nor did we have input into the process," Brown said. Sen. Mitch Seabaugh, who is co-chairman of the Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee, countered that he has repeatedly asked Democrats for ideas and suggestions. "Legislators have had ample opportunity to give whatever input in the process," said Seabaugh, a Republican from Sharpsburg. So is Brown off base here? Or is he right about Democrats being shut out of the reapportionment process? Reapportionment is based primarily on U.S. census counts taken at the beginning of each decade. For more than a century, Georgia Democrats dominated the process because they held majorities in both chambers of the Legislature and the governor’s office. This year is the first time Republicans will hold voting sway over reapportionment. Democrats and government watchdog groups such as Common Cause Georgia are suspicious of the Republican plan. The GOP has hired a law firm to, said state Rep. Roger Lane, R-Darien, advise them on the legal compliance of the maps. Brown, who was sworn in to office in 1991, said there are many examples to back up his argument about the process. He said that traditionally state legislators are allowed to ask questions at public hearings. This year, he said, they cannot. Legislators also sit in the audience, which gives them less opportunity to take questions from voters during the public hearings. Another problem with the process, Brown said, was the lack of discussion about the committee schedule during the recent legislative session that ended in April. Brown said there was "no planning" during the session. Speaking about a meeting he had in April with Seabaugh and others, Brown said "that is not involving you in the process" since it was a private meeting. Brown said the planning for the public hearings should have been done through the Legislature’s committees. Seabaugh forwarded us two letters he sent to all senators requesting meetings to discuss their districts and the reapportionment process. Seabaugh also said committee leaders asked legislators for potential locations for the public hearings. He wrote a memo on March 4 to senators requesting locations for the hearings and wanted their replies by March 10. Some Democrats in the House of Representatives responded, Seabaugh said. Senate Democrats did not until the list was approved, he told us. Seabaugh said he and Lane, also a co-chairman of the Reapportionment and Redistricting Committee, chose the sites from the cities suggested by lawmakers that "we felt covered the state of Georgia." Sen. Vincent Fort, a Democrat from Atlanta, said some Democrats proposed additional sites for the hearings. He forwarded us a letter from Seabaugh that the committee would not add any locations. "It makes me question whether they are really interested in any Democratic input into the process," Fort said. Seabaugh’s response: "They had a form on their desk. They had an opportunity to participate. I can’t make them fill out a form and hand it in on time." House Democratic Whip Carolyn Hughley of Columbus confirmed to PolitiFact Georgia that lawmakers were asked for suggestions to hold the hearings. But like Fort, she complained about some sites that weren’t selected. She also told us that Seabaugh wrote a letter to lawmakers telling them not to ask or answer questions from the public at reapportionment hearings. "The public hearings are opportunities for us as legislators to hear from the public," Seabaugh wrote. Hughley said that "raises key questions about transparency and fairness." Seabaugh’s letter said it is standard practice for lawmakers not to ask or answer questions at joint committee public hearings. Veteran University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock offered some perspective on Brown’s complaints. "I would take all Democratic screams of outrage with a grain of salt," said Bullock, who contends that Democrats gave Republicans no input into reapportionment a decade ago. We have trouble with Brown’s comment that Democrats had "no input" in location of the hearings because all members of the Georgia Legislature were asked for suggestions of sites. Some of the sites are in largely Democratic terrain such as Atlanta, Albany, Columbus and Macon. As for Brown’s point about being left out of the process, his argument is based on not being asked to speak at the hearings and how Seabaugh has asked other lawmakers for input. Seabaugh did ask lawmakers not to ask or answer questions. Seabaugh has written letters to lawmakers asking them for their ideas or concerns about reapportionment. Brown’s claim and argument ignore some critical facts we believe will give the casual reader a different impression of this issue. We rate his claim Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. | null | Robert Brown | null | null | null | 2011-06-06T06:00:00 | 2011-05-17 | ['None'] |
pomt-13921 | Says Hillary Clinton’s immigration platform would "create totally open borders." | false | /florida/statements/2016/jun/23/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-hillary-clinton-would-create-tot/ | While Donald Trump vows to build a wall between the United States and Mexico to keep undocumented immigrants out, he says Hillary Clinton has the opposite approach. "She’s pledged to grant mass amnesty, and in her first 100 days, end virtually all immigration enforcement and thus create totally open borders for the United States, totally open borders," Trump said in a June 22 speech. Claiming that Clinton would create "totally open borders" is a serious charge that suggests allowing people to travel freely or with very few restrictions between two countries. That’s not what Clinton has proposed. Clinton has supported legislation that includes a path to citizenship (with conditions) and included heightened border security. As a candidate, she says she will focus on deportations of criminals. However, some experts argue that "open borders" doesn't necessarily mean no enforcement at all but making it far easier for undocumented immigrants to stay here. Clinton does want to make it easier for many undocumented immigrants, but that’s not the same as getting rid of enforcement. We emailed a Trump spokeswoman twice and did not hear back. Clinton’s immigration platform So if Clinton hasn’t called for "open borders," what does she want to do on immigration? During this campaign, she has called for addressing immigration laws including a path to citizenship within her first 100 days. But she has also called for protecting borders and deporting criminals or those who pose threats. "We need to secure our borders, I’m for it, I voted for it, I believe in it, and we also need to deal with the families, the workers who are here, who have made contributions, and their children," she said in November. "We can do more to secure our border and we should do more to deal with the 11 or 12 million people who are here, get them out of the shadows." This is pretty consistent with her view as a senator and secretary of state. As a senator, Clinton supported changing immigration laws, including supporting immigration bills in 2004, 2006 and 2007, and she co-sponsored the Dream Act, an effort to help young people who emigrated illegally as children avoid deportation. In her 2014 book Hard Choices, Clinton praised the 2013 immigration bill, which included billions for border enforcement over a decade for new surveillance equipment and fencing along the Mexican border, as well as adding 20,000 border agents. Clinton’s immigration platform does not amount to open borders, said Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute. Open borders existed before 1875, when there were no federal restrictions on emigrating to the country, he said. The United States had immigration restrictions from 1875 to 1924 without a border patrol, which was created in 1924. "Trump may be conflating the term ‘open borders’ with anything less than perfect enforcement of our immigration laws -- which would be a serious rhetorical error on his part," Nowrasteh said. "Trump can’t claim Clinton is for open borders while she has also supported massive increases in border security to better enforce our restrictive immigration laws." Clinton has said she wants to limit deportations to violent criminals, not deport children and end raids and round-ups and go further than Obama for DREAMers and their parents if legally possible. That greatly expands who could avoid deportation in a Clinton White House. Those policies amount to less enforcement to supporters of reduced immigration, including Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, and Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA. "This really is a breathtaking step toward open borders," Krikorian told the Washington Post after the March 9 Miami debate. "If you take that step, it needs to be put in front of the public: Do you think immigration laws are irrelevant unless the illegal immigrant has committed a violent offense or drug crime?" Beck said the term "open borders" is imprecise. However, if undocumented immigrants can "stay as long as you don’t commit a violent crime, that is pretty close to open borders. You don’t have to give amnesty -- you can just not have a threat of deportation and it allows people to stay." Clinton’s aim to reform immigration laws and focus on deporting criminals is not the same as ending enforcement and creating open borders, said David Leopold, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Trump also fails to acknowledge that Clinton has supported legislation with border patrol measures. "Proposing immigration legislation is a far cry from mass amnesty, and it’s generally accepted that any immigration reform proposal will include background checks, an English requirement, back taxes and fines," he said. Our ruling Trump said Clinton’s immigration platform would "create totally open borders." This is a huge distortion of Clinton’s proposals. Clinton has praised work already done to secure the border, and she said she supported a 2013 bill that would have invested billions more in border security while creating a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants. Her plan calls for protecting the border and targeting deportation to criminals and security threats. Her plan would make it easier for many undocumented immigrants to avoid deportation, but that’s not the same as ending all enforcement. We rate this claim False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/03023b69-7158-41e1-a1b0-ed91e0c1b5be | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-06-23T16:34:09 | 2016-06-22 | ['None'] |
snes-01076 | Armed Trump supporters protesting immigration demanded to know if a Native American legislator is in the United States "legally." | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-supporters-navajo-legislator-legal/ | null | Viral Phenomena | null | Bethania Palma | null | Did Armed Trump Supporters Ask a Navajo Legislator If He’s ‘Legal’? | 2 February 2018 | null | ['United_States'] |
snes-01208 | Ten Democratic Congressmen demanded that Mount Rushmore be altered to accommodate the likeness of Martin Luther King, Jr. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mlk-add-to-rushmore/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | Do Democrats Want to Add Martin Luther King to Mount Rushmore? | 15 January 2018 | null | ['Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.'] |
pomt-14893 | Go look on the West Point website and you’ll see those specific words, ‘full scholarship to West Point.’ So even though it is, you know, given as a grant for anybody who gets in, those words are used. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/08/ben-carson/carson-defends-west-point-scholarship-story/ | Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson stuck to his story about being offered a scholarship to West Point after a Politico article blasted him for "fabricating" the account. Carson has highlighted the offer to the prestigious military academy — allegedly made by Gen. William Westmoreland in 1969 when Carson was a ROTC student leader in Detroit — in his books and comments throughout the years. But Carson never applied to West Point nor does Westmoreland’s schedule place him in Detroit at the time Carson said he was, according to Politico. What’s more, there’s no such thing as a "full scholarship" to West Point, as everyone accepted to the five federal service academies receives free tuition in exchange for their service. When asked about discrepancy on ABC’s This Week by host George Stephanopoulos, Carson said the academy itself uses the terminology. "Wait a minute George, go look on the West Point website, and you’ll see those specific words, ‘full scholarship to West Point,’ " Carson said Nov. 8. "So even though it is, you know, given as a grant for anybody who gets in, those words are used. And if a recruiter or somebody who’s trying to get you to come there or trying to get you to do that, those are the very words they will use. It’s on their website." We wondered if the words really are advertised on West Point’s website. We could not reach the military academy. Searching for the "specific words ‘full scholarship to West Point’" turned up no results on West Point’s own website or on Google. The official admissions page also makes no mention of a scholarship of any kind. Instead, it simply notes that tuition, room and board, and expenses are fully paid for those who are selected to attend West Point. The academy’s diversity page, however, states that "this four-year college experience is a fully funded scholarship." Carson’s spokesperson told us that West Point has referred to their benefits as a full scholarship in publications, a point Carson made in a Nov. 8 Facebook post. He uploaded two West Point recruitment ads targeted at African-Americans that contain the word "scholarship," including one from the 1960s, when he was a student. We also found examples of the words "full scholarship" used in publications that are linked on West Point’s website, as well as some old recruiting advertisements: • A dataset from 2014: "At the United States Military Academy all students receive a full scholarship, including room & board and medical- and dental-care are provided by the U.S. Army." • A prospectus from 2012: "As a cadet, you are a member of the U.S. Army and receive a full scholarship and an annual salary of more than $10,000 from which you pay for your uniforms, textbooks, a laptop computer, and incidents." • An ad in a 1991 issue of Black Enterprise magazine: "Each year about 1,400 young men and women take advantage of the opportunity to attend West Point on a full government scholarship, which includes tuition, room and board and medical care. • An ad that appeared in a few issues of Ebony magazine in 1990: "You receive a full scholarship, earn a degree from one of the country’s finest colleges, and build a foundation for a challenging career of service to the nation." The financial benefits to attending military academies have been essentially described as scholarship-like or equivalent to a scholarship by USA Today, a West Point spokesperson in Forbes, and the Naval Academy. But the term "full scholarship" is an inaccurate description, experts told us. The phrase typically refers to a college providing financial aid to allow a candidate to attend a college free of charge, but that doesn’t really apply to West Point’s across-the-board zero-tuition policy, said Antonio Buehler, a West Point alumnus who founded the admissions coaching service Abrome. "No such scholarship is named, every cadet is treated the same and there is an eight-year military commitment after graduation. Hence, not free," Buehler said. The proper terminology is "appointment," said Vu Tran, a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy who runs the Denver-based admissions consulting firm Service Academy Coach. But because that’s not apparent from the get-go, Tran says he can’t fault Carson for using the term loosely, albeit incorrectly. "I can definitely see where parents and students who are beginning the process can misconstrue it to be a scholarship," he said. "But for those who have gone through the admission process and through the nomination process, they would never call it a scholarship." Carson’s use of the words "full scholarship" is even more inaccurate if he’s describing his own experience, experts agreed. Tran told us it’s conceivable a ROTC commander or even a general would encourage a student to apply to West Point, touting the free tuition, but noted that anyone familiar with the process understands that that’s contingent upon nomination and acceptance. "(Carson) would not have been ‘offered’ the opportunity to attend West Point at no cost, like all other cadets, until he applied and received an appointment, which he never did," Buehler said. Our ruling Carson defended his use of the word scholarship in discussing his recruitment to West Point, saying, "Go look on the West Point website and you’ll see those specific words, ‘full scholarship to West Point.’" The military academy has used the words "full scholarship" a few times in admissions literature and advertisements and in one place on its website. However, experts say Carson’s use of the word scholarship doesn’t properly explain the application and appointment process to West Point. Carson’s statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. That meets our definition of Mostly True. Correction: After this story was published, we found an additional instance of the words "full scholarship" on West Point’s website. The article has been updated to reflect that. The ruling remains Mostly True. | null | Ben Carson | null | null | null | 2015-11-08T14:56:27 | 2015-11-08 | ['None'] |
tron-03092 | Transcript of Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs Speech Released | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/transcript-of-hillary-clintons-goldman-sachs-speech-released/ | null | politics | null | null | null | Transcript of Hillary Clinton’s Goldman Sachs Speech Released | Feb 29, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08932 | Karen Handel "would have felt like it was OK to go in and abort" Sarah Palin's son Trig, who has Down syndrome. | pants on fire! | /georgia/statements/2010/jul/26/melanie-crozier/abortion-group-says-gop-gubernatorial-hopeful-kare/ | Now that the Republican gubernatorial runoff is on, some Georgia abortion foes are taking aim at front-runner Karen Handel. Handel placed first in the GOP primary despite Georgia Right to Life's criticisms that she's not pro-life enough. A late endorsement by conservative darling Sarah Palin helped her rocket ahead of opponents. And that's what concerns Melanie Crozier, the director of the Georgia Right to Life's Political Action Committee, Crozier said in a recent article for Politico, an online news site. "[Palin] has a son with Down syndrome, and under Karen Handel’s laws, Handel would have felt like it was OK to go in and abort that child," said Crozier. Crozier added that they plan to back Nathan Deal, Handel's opponent in the GOP runoff. We did a double take. Handel is fine with aborting a fetus that tests positive for Down syndrome? No, she's not, Handel said. Her campaign called Crozier's statement a "cruel and revolting lie." She called on Crozier and GRTL President Dan Becker to step down. We requested to speak with Crozier. Instead, GRTL sent us a press release on their opposition to Handel's views on in vitro fertilization. But Crozier did talk with WSB-TV. In the interview, she apologized for making a statement that was unclear and said she was really criticizing Handel's views on in vitro fertilization. GRTL thinks doctors should create only as many embryos as they plan to implant. Handel thinks that if any are left over, they should be considered for adoption. Crozier has not asked for a correction or clarification on the Politico story, according to its author. GRTL and Handel have tangled before. She, like other GOP candidates, has declared herself "pro-life," but some claim she's not "pro-life" enough. In statewide runs, Handel has consistently opposed abortion except in the cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at stake. GRTL supports only one exception: the life of the mother. Handel has taken hits from GRTL for her views for years, but she has stood her ground. When Handel ran for secretary of state in 2006, GRTL sent out a postcard naming her primary runoff opponent as the race's only true right-to-life candidate. Handel won without the organization's support. GRTL and Handel were at loggerheads again in June, after Becker used the word "barren" to talk about Handel's struggles with fertility and her position on abortion. She has previously talked publicly about how she tried unsuccessfully to have a child for 10 years. And when Palin announced her endorsement of Handel on July 12, GRTL issued a press release to say they were "stunned" because Handel's views on abortion showed she did not cherish the lives of children with genetic disorders as much as she should. Palin's son Trig was born in 2008 with Down syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes physical problems and cognitive delays. In a July 22 interview with Lori Geary on WSB-TV, Crozier tried to clarify the statement she made to Politico. Crozier: "What I’m saying is, if a baby who is created through the process of in vitro fertilization ..." Geary: "Which again, Palin’s was not ..." Crozier: "But we’re saying, if this was the case, and was found to have Down syndrome, Karen Handel is OK with that life being exterminated." Handel's campaign denies this claim as well. "They're making a series of reaches beyond anything Karen believes," said her campaign spokesman Dan McLagan. What Crozier told Politico doesn't stand up to to scrutiny. Neither does her clarification. GRTL failed to provide any evidence whatsoever for the statement that Handel thinks it is fine to abort a child because it has Down syndrome. And the organization failed to explain how it came to its conclusion. The group should have known that they were misrepresenting Handel's beliefs. They've been quibbling with her stances for years. After Handel called for the resignation of GRTL's leadership, the group backed so far off its statement that Crozier claimed she wasn't really talking about aborting children with Down syndrome. Instead, she told WSB-TV, she was really talking about in vitro fertilization. But, as Geary pointed out, Trig wasn't conceived in a test tube. How could the subject apply to him? Crozier made a baseless and outrageous statement. She earns PolitiFact's lowest rating, Pants on Fire. | null | Melanie Crozier | null | null | null | 2010-07-26T06:00:00 | 2010-07-21 | ['Sarah_Palin'] |
tron-00836 | Bill Clinton’s 1996 Immigration Law Behind Child Separations | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/bill-clintons-1996-immigration-law-behind-child-separations-fiction/ | null | clinton | null | null | ['bill clinton', 'congress', 'donald trump', 'immigrants', 'immigration'] | Bill Clinton’s 1996 Immigration Law Behind Child Separations | Jun 21, 2018 | null | ['Bill_Clinton'] |
goop-00972 | Meghan Markle’s Wedding Dress Designed By Stella McCartney, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/meghan-markle-wedding-dress-designer-stella-mccartney-wrong/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Meghan Markle’s Wedding Dress NOT Designed By Stella McCartney, Despite Claim | 12:13 pm, May 19, 2018 | null | ['Stella_McCartney'] |
goop-01714 | Anne Heche Wants Ellen DeGeneres Back? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/anne-heche-wants-ellen-degeneres-back/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Anne Heche Wants Ellen DeGeneres Back? | 2:16 pm, January 26, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12173 | As Governor, Wolf has already proposed more than $8B in tax increases. | half-true | /pennsylvania/statements/2017/aug/02/paul-mango/truth-behind-new-gop-gov-hopefuls-wolf-nickname-th/ | A businessman without political experience using his outsider status to rise to power: It worked for President Donald Trump, and now Western Pa. Republican Paul Mango — a Harvard-educated veteran and former healthcare consultant — will attempt to use it to take the governor’s mansion in Harrisburg. Mango kicked off his campaign in May, running in part on an anti-tax platform. At an event at Lackawanna College in mid-May, Mango called Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf "Thomas the Tax Engine," according to The Scranton Times-Tribune. "He has never met a tax he doesn’t like," Mango continued to reporters. "He has requested almost $6 billion in taxes in the years he’s been in office. We cannot afford any more of Tom Wolf." Mango has repeatedly used that nickname for Wolf, including in a campaign video posted to YouTube on May 18. What’s changed, however, is Mango’s estimate for Wolf’s proposed tax increases: from $6 billion to more than $8 billion during the governor’s time in office. "Governor Wolf is refusing to accept a revenue plan unless it includes tax increases," a July 24 post on Mango’s campaign Facebook page states. "As Governor, Wolf has already proposed more than $8B in tax increases." Has Wolf earned the Tax Engine sobriquet? When contacted about the $6 billion claim in May, a Mango campaign advisor, Matthew E. Beynon of consulting firm BrabenderCox, shared a spreadsheet that showed $5.7 billion in estimated revenue from tax increases and modifications for budget years 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18. The sources listed were Wolf’s executive budgets. While the revenue estimates for years 2016-17 and 2017-18 matched those under the heading "PROPOSED TAX AND REVENUE MODIFICATIONS" in Wolf’s proposed budgets, the estimate for 2015-16 did not. Mango’s campaign estimated 2015-16 revenue at $1.9 billion, while Wolf’s own budget showed the revenue estimate at $4.6 billion. The bulk of that — an estimated $2.4 billion — would have come from an increase in the personal income tax rate and an additional $1.6 billion from a higher and expanded sales and use tax. When asked about the discrepancy, Beynon said, "We based our initial numbers by taking the most conservative estimates that we found." The campaign revised the numbers, he said, to project $8.6 billion in "tax increases" during Wolf’s time in office. That $8.6 billion figure appears to come from combining the positive revenue estimates from tax changes proposed in Wolf’s first three budgets. It falls to an estimated $8.3 billion when tax cuts and modifications that would have resulted in a revenue reduction in budget years 2015-16 and 2016-17 are included. Gina Diorio, director of media relations for the Commonwealth Foundation, said the conservative think-tank would use that $8.3 billion number as the estimate for Wolf’s tax increase requests during his time in office. However, Marc Stier, director of the nonpartisan Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, says it is misleading to look at the proposals cumulatively. Proposed tax changes from Wolf's first budget did not pass and were modified and carried over to the second. The same goes for Wolf's second and third budget proposals, although to a lesser degree. In budget year 2016-17, Wolf proposed $2.7 billion in tax changes. Stier said that’s practically what Wolf asked for during his first budget year when one takes into account the $2.1 billion in property tax relief it would have provided. "That is a tax shift," he said. Hypothetically, if Wolf’s requests for tax increases would have been granted during the first year, there would be no deficit today and therefore no need to increase taxes. "If the General Assembly had enacted [Wolf’s] tax proposals from the first or the second year, there would be no need to enact any taxes this year," Stier said in a follow-up email. "We have a two-year deficit (this year and next year) that approaches $4 billion. If we raised $2.7 billion (or a bit more with inflation) this year and next, we would have $5.4 billion more revenue over two years. Thus there would be no need for new tax revenues." The Commonwealth Foundation’s Diorio said she couldn’t "conjecture what might or might not have been introduced had certain tax proposals passed." When asked about Mango's tax claim, Beth Melena, communications director for the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, said Wolf was working to restore $1 billion in education cuts and was dealing with "a massive budget deficit" when he proposed his first budget. The statement did not directly address the number. Our ruling Mango asserted at a campaign kickoff event that Wolf has requested "nearly $6 billion in taxes" since taking office. His campaign revised that estimate to more than $8 billion, which is approximately the total revenue estimate from tax changes in Wolf’s three budgets combined. But one expert says looking at the proposals cumulatively is misleading, as proposed changes that did not pass were modified and carried over from one year to the next. We rate this claim Half True. | null | Paul Mango | null | null | null | 2017-08-02T12:00:00 | 2017-07-24 | ['None'] |
pomt-08654 | Over 10 years, (extending tax cuts for the wealthy) would add less to the deficit than Obama added with the stimulus in one year. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/14/george-will/george-will-says-tax-cuts-wealthy-cost-less-over-1/ | Two of the most contentious fiscal policy disputes in Washington today have to do with the stimulus bill passed under President Barack Obama in 2009 and the soon-to-expire tax cuts passed under George W. Bush in 2001. During the Sep. 12, 2010, edition of This Week with Christiane Amanpour, conservative columnist George Will compared their relative pricetags. "The president says we can't afford the tax cuts for the wealthy because that would add $700 billion to the deficit over 10 years, which is to say, over 10 years it would add less to the deficit than Obama added with the stimulus in one year," Will said. We decided to see if he's right. First, we'll look at whether the upper-income tax cuts cost $700 billion over 10 years, as Will said. The president's fiscal year 2011 budget categorizes three tax provisions as being targeted to upper-income Americans: expanding the 28 percent bracket and reinstating the 36 percent and 39.6 percent bracket; reinstating the personal exemption phaseout and limitation on itemized deductions for taxpayers with income over $250,000 (for married couples) and $200,000 (for single taxpayers); and imposing a 20 percent capital gains and dividend tax rate for those above those income thresholds. According to the president's budget, ending these three tax breaks would reduce the deficit by more than $678 billion over 10 years. So the reverse -- continuing them -- should cost the government about $678 billion over the same time period. While other calculations have included other factors, we think it's reasonable for Will to use this figure from the president's own budget. And while Will is off a bit on the numbers -- saying $700 billion instead of the actual $678 billion -- the difference between the two figures doesn't undermine the comparison he's trying to make. So let's call this part of the statement accurate. Now, how does the stimulus compare? The updated total cost, as determined by the Congressional Budget Office in August 2010, is $814 billion. (That's up from the initial estimate of $787 billion at the time the bill was passed.) So Will's in the clear? Not really. Just as the upper-income tax cuts are being charged against the budget over several years, so too is the stimulus, as different funding streams are spent and tax breaks exercised. The same CBO report attributed $180 billion in new spending and foregone tax revenues to the 2009 budget, followed by $392 billion in fiscal year 2010 and a cumulative $242 billion over the course of fiscal years 2011 to 2019. The report does not provide updated yearly breakdowns for the period 2011 to 2019, but CBO's analysis at the time the bill was passed showed that the measure would increase the deficit in each year between 2009 and 2015, before reducing the deficit starting in 2016. So it's clear that the funds authorized by the law are not being charged in one year, as Will said, but rather over several years. When we ran this by Will's camp, they e-mailed back that "you have a good point." A final note: Some of our sources noted another difference that undermines the comparability between the tax cuts and the stimulus. The stimulus, whatever one thinks of it, is a one-time charge to the budget. By contrast, the upper-income tax cuts -- at least if most Republicans had their way -- would be permanent, and thus a continuing cost in perpetuity. Because the stimulus is temporary, it adds "only a small amount of interest on the debt in the long run, while permanent extension of the upper-income tax cuts would add a significant amount to the long-term fiscal problem," said James R. Horney, director of federal fiscal policy at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Ultimately, we feel that Will had a point worth making -- that the 10-year cost of the upper-income tax cuts was lower than the total cost of the stimulus. But he overplayed his hand by suggesting that Obama obligated more in one year than the tax-cut extensions would cost over 10. Hearing Will's formulation, we think a listener would be led to believe that the stimulus is vastly more expensive than the Bush tax cuts, when in fact it is not. We rate Will's claim Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. | null | George Will | null | null | null | 2010-09-14T18:38:57 | 2010-09-12 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-03986 | When the Affordable Care Act was signed, 17 million American children had a pre-existing condition and were "uninsurable." | false | /wisconsin/statements/2013/feb/11/tammy-baldwin/sen-tammy-baldwin-says-obamacare-17-million-kids-h/ | In what was called her first major speech since becoming a U.S. senator, Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin praised President Barack Obama’s health care reform law and made a conspicuous claim about the law’s impact on children. The setting was a Jan. 31, 2013, conference in Washington, D.C., sponsored by Families USA, a liberal group that pushed for what Obama himself has come to call "Obamacare." Hailing the 2010 law as a victory "70 years in the making," Baldwin recounted the story about how she had no health insurance coverage as a child because she was raised by her grandparents and had a pre-existing condition. "I got better," Baldwin said, referring to her illness, which she said is similar to spinal meningitis, "and my grandparents looked for an insurance policy that would cover me in the future. But they discovered that, because of my illness, they couldn’t find such a policy. Not from any insurer. Not at any price. "Never mind that I had fully recovered from my illness. I had been branded with the words ‘pre-existing condition.’ My story, of course, isn’t significant because it was unique. In fact, it’s significant because it wasn’t unique. When the Affordable Care Act was signed, 17 million American children wore that same brand. ‘Pre-existing condition.’ Uninsurable." When Obamacare became law, 17 million children were impossible to insure because they had a pre-existing health condition? Baldwin’s evidence Baldwin’s staff cited two pieces of evidence to back her claim. One is a White House fact sheet that says that as a result of the Affordable Care Act, "more than 17.6 million children with pre-existing conditions can no longer be denied coverage." But that’s essentially a restatement of part of Baldwin’s claim -- without any evidence that the figure is correct or that so many children were uninsurable. Baldwin also cited a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services analysis, the same one Obama cited in March 2012 when he said that because of the reform law, "17 million kids can no longer be denied because of a pre-existing condition." PolitiFact National rated his statement Mostly False. The analysis Obama and Baldwin cited focuses on people who could potentially be helped by the law if they found themselves uninsured in the future -- not on those who actually were uninsured and were blocked from getting coverage by pre-existing conditions today. The federal analysis estimated that between 4 million and 17 million children have some type of pre-existing condition -- which means that like Obama, Baldwin cherry picked by citing the high end of that range. The higher figure also includes cases in which the child isn’t actually denied insurance, but in which the family simply has to pay higher premiums. PolitiFact National estimated, based on the analysis, that 160,000 to 1.1 million of the children with a pre-existing condition were uninsured because of the condition. While those are significant numbers, they are far below 17 million. FactCheck.org also faulted Obama’s statement, finding that the 17 million part of the claim was on the high end. The claim also implied "that these children were previously being denied coverage. But that’s not the case," FactCheck.org said. Baldwin went further than Obama, not implying but declaring that 17 million children could not be insured. Our rating Baldwin said: "When the Affordable Care Act was signed, 17 million American children" had a pre-existing condition and were "uninsurable." It’s possible that as many as 17 million children have a pre-existing health condition, but the figure could be as low as 4 million. And only a fraction of children with a pre-existing condition didn’t have insurance because of that condition. We rate Baldwin’s statement False. | null | Tammy Baldwin | null | null | null | 2013-02-11T09:00:00 | 2013-01-31 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-10927 | Congressman (Ron) DeSantis sponsored legislation to increase sales taxes by 23 percent, hurting families, destroying jobs, devastating tourism | mostly false | /florida/statements/2018/jul/27/adam-putnam/misleading-putnam-ad-twists-desantis-stance-taxes/ | With just a month left before the Florida primaries, Republican candidate for governor Adam Putnam accused rival Ron DeSantis of backing a massive tax increase that would hurt Florida’s economy. Set to suspenseful bluegrass music, the ad from Putnam’s Florida Grown political committee warns that a DeSantis-backed sales tax hike of 23 percent would touch everything from the market to the beach. "What would a 23 percent sales tax do to Florida’s economy? If Congressman DeSantis had his way, everything would cost 23 percent more — groceries, gas, home purchases," the ad says. "Congressman DeSantis sponsored legislation to increase sales taxes by 23 percent, hurting families, destroying jobs, devastating tourism." DeSantis did support a bill that proposed introducing a 23 percent federal sales tax, but the ad fails to mention an essential component of the plan: all other federal taxes, including income tax, would be eliminated. A brief history of the Fair Tax Act The ad shows a copy of HR 25, a bill known as the Fair Tax Act. A version of the bill has been introduced in Congress 10 times since 1999, earning support from prominent Republicans Mike Pence and Mike Huckabee. In 2013, 2015 and 2017, DeSantis, representing Florida’s 6th District, co-sponsored the bill. The idea behind the Fair Tax Act is to introduce a 23 percent federal sales tax that would replace other federal taxes. The bill eliminates income, estate, payroll and gift taxes, as well as the Internal Revenue Service itself. Supporters of the tax argue that even though purchasing items would be more expensive, consumers would be able to keep more of their income, and therefore have enough purchasing power to maintain the same lifestyle. Businesses would also save money, which would ideally lead to lower prices and more jobs. Libertarian radio host Neal Boortz, who co-wrote "The FairTax Book," responded to Putnam's ad with a tweet: "If you are having trouble understanding the FairTax, perhaps you ought to comment me. I wrote the book." He followed up, "The Adam Putnam campaign is LYING THROUGH ITS TEETH … and they know it." Critics of the bill say that this would be a regressive tax plan, where poor and middle-class families pay more than wealthy households. The sales tax would apply to every purchase, even essentials like food and shelter, which comprise a larger portion of a low-income earner’s budget. There’s a lot of debate about the best-case and doomsday scenarios that could go down were the Fair Tax to become a reality. The bill might, for example, have a major impact on vacation destinations like Florida, which leans on tourism and its state sales tax. According to Jon Hamilton, finance professor at the University of Florida, higher sales prices would incentivize foreign tourists to visit cheaper destinations instead, like Cuba or the Bahamas. Steve Hayes, Americans for Fair Taxation president, says that the Fair Tax might actually cause prices to go down; because businesses would no longer have to pay payroll taxes, they could afford to cut prices overall. Because the ad is so skimpy on details, viewers could guess that DeSantis will push for the changes of the Fair Tax Act to be applied at a state level. Florida’s sales tax is 6 percent. DeSantis has not pushed for this as a candidate for governor. The plan does not appear in DeSantis’s campaign materials. Spokesman David Vasquez said, "The Fair Tax plan is a federal proposal. He’s running on low taxes and limited regulation in Florida." Our ruling The ad said, "Congressman DeSantis sponsored legislation to increase sales taxes by 23 percent." The ad distorts what DeSantis sponsored in a few ways. It completely leaves out that the same plan would have eliminated almost all other federal taxes. And by only mentioning "sales taxes" in the context of Florida’s economy, the ad creates a misleading impression that DeSantis wants the state’s 6 percent sales tax to skyrocket by that amount. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts, leaving voters with the wrong impression. We rate this claim Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Adam Putnam | null | null | null | 2018-07-27T16:09:43 | 2018-07-24 | ['None'] |
pomt-12760 | If you're in Texas, you have got to drive 120 miles to get an ID. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/feb/24/thomas-perez/texas-drive-120-miles-voter-id/ | During a CNN debate among candidates to chair the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez -- a leading candidate who served as secretary of labor and assistant attorney general for civil rights under President Barack Obama -- emphasized the importance of protecting voting rights. Perez cited efforts, typically led by Republicans, to require voters to show state-issued ID cards at the polls. Democrats say such policies suppress the vote. Republicans say they cut down on voter fraud. "I've spent a substantial portion of my life doing these cases at (the) Department of Justice," Perez said at the debate. "Let me give you some facts and figures. We sued Texas, and we won. And we won, because over a 10-year period, 46 million votes were cast -- zero, count them, zero reported incidents of illegal noncitizen voting, two incidents of in-person voter fraud, (out of) 46 million votes cast. If we weren't on television I would call this a word that begins with a B. I will anyway. It's bunk. And you know what, it's bunk in every other case. And if you're in Texas, you have got to drive 120 miles to get an ID. If you're poor, that is a poll tax." This includes a lot of different claims, but we will look at one aspect. Is it true that you have to drive 120 miles to get an acceptable ID in Texas? The short answer: The vast majority of Texans don’t. Residents of its big metropolitan areas like Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Austin will certainly have a driver's license office much closer than that. However, for a small percentage of the population, the trip could be that far, or even farther. The source of the talking point The statistic comes from testimony against Texas’ voter ID law, which required voters to show certain forms of a government-issued ID. The law, signed in 2011 by then-Gov. Rick Perry, required voters to show a valid government-issued photo ID, such as a Texas driver's license, Department of Public Safety identification card, state concealed handgun license, U.S. military ID or U.S. passport. When the law was under attack, Texas state Sen. Carlos Uresti, a Democrat from San Antonio, testified that some of his constituents would have to drive up to 120 miles to secure a driver’s license, the Houston Chronicle reported. This bit of testimony appears to have been picked up by federal appellate judges in Washington, who ultimately issued a unanimous ruling striking down the law. During oral arguments, U.S. Appeals Court Judge Robert L. Wilkins asked the attorney defending the law for the state whether the law would be a burden on people having to travel more than 100 miles for a driver’s license. "How does that impact your argument?" Wilkins asked. "Isn’t that unduly burdensome?" John Hughes, the attorney for Texas, said rural Texans are used to driving long distances, according to the Washington Post. "People who want to vote already have an ID or can easily get it," he told the judges. But another judge on the panel, David S. Tatel, said, "The record tells us there is a subset of registered voters who lack ID. We have to think about the economic burden and the fact that minorities are disproportionately poor." He, too, cited the 120-mile drive statistic, the Post reported. And the talking point made it into the ruling in which the appeals court struck down the law. That said, the claim deserves some context. Where would someone have to drive that far? Uresti, the Texas state senator, had testified that the drive could be up to 120 miles for some Texans who live between San Antonio and El Paso -- basically, the lightly populated western portion of the state. So that’s where we focused our attention. We found one newspaper reader who contributed some thoughts on the law to the Dallas Morning News. Kirby Warnock, of the Dallas suburb of Oak Cliff, told the paper that he has family in the Big Bend region, a rural area of west Texas along the Rio Grande. "If a person lives in tiny Imperial, or Terlingua, they have to get a friend or family member to drive them 60 miles and 120 miles respectively, round-trip, just to be able to vote," Warnock said. So we looked at the situation in Terlingua. According to the Texas driver’s license handbook, the closest driver’s license office to Terlingua is in Alpine. According to Google Maps, that is 83.4 miles one way, or about 167 miles round trip. That’s an even longer distance than Perez had said. This shows that there’s at least one place in Texas that would require more than a 120-mile round-trip journey. (Imperial, Texas, for the record, is only 30 miles from Fort Stockton, or a 60-mile round trip, as Warnock indicated.) It’s also worth noting that the 9,145 people who live in Brewster County, Texas -- where Terlingua is located -- are 43 percent Hispanic, which is a bit higher than the state average. Considering that there are no driver’s license offices in 81 of the state’s 254 counties, it’s not hard to imagine that there are other locales beyond Terlingua for which a 120-mile round trip would be necessary to secure a driver’s license. How common would such a long trip be? But just because a 120-mile drive is possible in Texas doesn’t mean it’s common. Most of its 27.5 million people live in metropolitan areas. To get a handle on how many people might be impacted by long trips for a driver’s license, we looked at the 81 smallest-population counties in the state. As it turns out, the population of Texas’s 81 least-populated counties is 343,823, or 1.3 percent of the overall state population. And it’s likely that many of them already have a driver’s license. So the 120-mile threshold is a pretty extreme scenario that affects a tiny slice of Texas’ population. That said, it’s still possible that the law would be a burden for thousands of rural residents living far from a Department of Public Safety office. Our ruling Perez said, "If you're in Texas, you have got to drive 120 miles to get an ID." He has some basis for this statement: The 120-mile figure did crop up in the court case against the law, and we found at least one example of a west Texas town for which the distance was actually even longer. However, Perez not only failed to communicate just how rare this scenario is, but he didn’t even use a basic qualifier like "some people in Texas." Taken literally, he said everyone in Texas has to drive 120 miles to get a license. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate it Half True. CORRECTION, Feb, 27, 2017, 11 a.m.: After we published this article, several readers noted that there was a closer driver’s license office to Terlingua than Fort Stockton -- the one in Alpine. We have changed the article to reflect this. We have not changed our rating. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/fd5bccc4-db1f-4a28-9f62-e4bbba9e2063 | null | Thomas Perez | null | null | null | 2017-02-24T15:01:27 | 2017-02-22 | ['Texas'] |
tron-02914 | President Trump’s Tweet About “Covfefe” Has Hidden Meaning | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/meaning-covfefe-definition-covfefe/ | null | politics | null | null | ['conspiracy theories', 'donald trump', 'media', 'social media'] | President Trump’s Tweet About “Covfefe” Has Hidden Meaning | Jun 5, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07789 | The federal government regulates the holes in Swiss cheese. | half-true | /georgia/statements/2011/feb/21/lynn-westmoreland/congressman-calls-out-cheesy-federal-program/ | This one smelled cheesy to us. Georgia Congressman Lynn Westmoreland was trying to make a point and brought up a claim that was too tasty to pass up fact-checking. Westmoreland believes the federal government is too heavily involved in regulating American business. The Coweta County Republican offered this up in a Feb. 11 press release after voting for a bill aimed at examining the impact of government regulation on jobs and economic growth. "Over the last two years, the federal government has gotten out of control," he said. "I mean, the government actually regulates how large holes in Swiss cheese can be. That’s just absurd. More government does not mean better government." Does Uncle Sam really regulate the size of the holes in Swiss cheese? Others, like the conservative-leaning Peach Pundit political blog, also wondered about this claim. Were there holes in this story? (Sorry, we couldn’t resist.) The congressman’s office quickly shared a 15-page federal report titled "United States Standards for Grades of Swiss Cheese, Emmentaler Cheese." Emmentaler is a form of cheese. The report refers to the holes in Swiss cheese as the "eyes." On Page 3, the report says the eyes "shall" be ⅜ to 13/16 inch in diameter. Sounds like regulation to us, Westmoreland’s spokeswoman, Leslie Shedd, told us in a telephone interview. We looked for the big cheese at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to explain all of this to us. USDA spokesman Michael Jarvis was our cheese wiz and offered to help. He said that the federal agency has a voluntary program to examine Swiss cheese in a number of categories, including the size of its eyes. Jarvis said cheese manufacturers pay the federal government to examine their Swiss cheese in order to get rated on the USDA’s grading scale. The grades range from A, which is the best, to C. Manufacturers, Jarvis said, do not have to obtain a USDA rating to sell Swiss cheese. He said the practice is similar to countless foods, such as eggs, fruit or even chicken wings. "This is a voluntary program for Swiss cheese standards, which was created at the request of cheese makers and buyers that is paid for by industry, not government," Jarvis said. For the curious cheese lovers, an A grade goes to Swiss that is white to light yellow, smooth, round and firm, with oval-shaped eyes and has just the slightest degree of mold. The cheese industry paid the USDA about $11,000 to grade 3,905,923 pounds of all forms of cheese in 2010, Jarvis said. It invoices the industry for all grading costs, Jarvis said. The USDA could not provide a cost breakdown for grading Swiss cheese. The holes in Swiss cheese come from the microbes or bacteria that are added to the milk that is used to make the product. The bacteria give Swiss cheese much of its distinct flavor, while the carbon dioxide in the cheese creates bubbles that result in the holes that make this food distinct. Shedd, the Westmoreland spokeswoman, defended her boss’s point with several news articles that used the word "regulation" to describe the Swiss cheese grading system. Some of the reports noted the USDA’s argument that it is voluntary. One incorrectly reported that the grading is at taxpayer expense. "While, yes, the company can continue to make Swiss cheese without complying with these specific regulations, failure to garner that USDA seal will absolutely affect their ability to have success," she said. "If you were given the option of two kinds of Swiss cheese and one had the USDA approval and one didn’t, more likely than not, you would select the one with the approval because you would assume that it’s better." The effort by the cheese industry to create Swiss cheese standards dates back to the mid-1940s, said Jarvis, the USDA spokesman. The rules -- including hole, er, eye size -- were last changed in 2001 at the request of the cheese industry, according to an ABC News article provided by Westmoreland’s office. We understand the larger point Congressman Westmoreland was trying to make. His staff recently found the 15-page document about Swiss cheese and thought it was a classic example of government overreach. However, the congressman’s statement gives an impression about Swiss cheese grading that does not completely convey how this works. The Swiss cheese grading is done by the federal government. But this is regulation the cheese industry seeks -- not regulation foisted upon them. We rate the congressman’s claim as Half True. | null | Lynn Westmoreland | null | null | null | 2011-02-21T06:00:00 | 2011-02-11 | ['Switzerland'] |
pomt-06142 | The fact is, over 2.4 million jobs have been lost since the 'Stimulus' bill was signed into law in February of 2009. | half-true | /florida/statements/2011/dec/21/steve-southerland/rep-steve-southerland-says-over-24-million-jobs-ha/ | U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland's office recently sent direct mail to constituents with a multiple-choice survey, telling them: "Make your voice heard in Washington." The mailer also offered a snapshot of the Panama City Republican's priorities: Create jobs. Lower taxes. Cut government spending. In a note on the back, Southerland explained how those ideas fit together. He begins: "Dear Neighbor, The fact is, over 2.4 million jobs have been lost since the 'Stimulus' bill was signed into law in February of 2009." So, more government spending, fewer jobs. One of those neighbors sent us the mailer, asking us to check the facts. The message Here's Southerland's whole message, under the headline "Listening to you. Working for you." Dear Neighbor, The fact is, over 2.4 million jobs have been lost since the "Stimulus" bill was signed into law in February of 2009. Over 15,800 construction, manufacturing, and retail jobs were lost during August 2011 and overall our country continues to face a 9.1 percent unemployment rate. Higher taxes, record spending, and bigger government have failed to create jobs or boost economic growth. As Congress debates the next steps we must take toward job creation and economic growth, I invite you to fill out the attached questionnaire. Your concerns are of utmost importance to me, and your feedback and suggestions will be the driving force behind my work as your Representative in Congress. Sincerely, Rep. Steve Southerland The jobs The 2.4 million jobs lost figure Southerland cited comes from employment data kept by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Southerland calculated the net change in jobs between February 2009 and August 2011. (We should note that the bureau did revise its estimate down to 2.3 million from 2.4 million.) Also of note: If Southerland included jobs numbers through October 2011 -- which he could have done and still got his mailer out on time -- the net jobs figure would be different. Measuring from February 2009 to October 2011, the net reduction is 1.98 million jobs. That's 18 percent fewer jobs lost since February 2009 than the August number Southerland's mailer used. Still, it's right in thrust — the country has around 2 million fewer jobs since February two years ago. And Southerland's full statement did include a reference to "August 2011," which provides readers additional context. The stimulus If the statement had been, "The fact is, over 2.4 million jobs have been lost since February of 2009," we would be done. Southerland used mainstream stats correctly, even if they were a few months old. But it also included this phrase: "since the 'Stimulus' bill was signed into law." At PolitiFact, when we evaluate statistical claims, we also examine the underlying point. Often, the claim implies blame. The claims have two parts: Were the numbers right? And: Was the politician to blame? Southerland's claim implies the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 didn't help job creation. Later, he explains: "Higher taxes, record spending, and bigger government have failed to create jobs or boost economic growth." What does the evidence say? The most recent report from the White House's Council of Economic Advisers, released in July, estimates the Recovery Act "raised employment by 2.4 to 3.6 million jobs relative to what it otherwise would have been." Don't trust White House advisers to evaluate the president's policies? It's not just their handiwork. The March report cited four independent analyses by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and three by private economic analysis companies, IHS/Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody's Economy.com. Estimates ranged from 1.3 million to 2.45 million jobs created or saved. In November, the Congressional Budget Office released the most recent report, estimating that in the third quarter of 2011, Recovery Act policies: • Raised real gross domestic product by between 0.3 percent and 1.9 percent. • Lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.2 percentage points and 1.3 percentage points. • Increased the number of people employed by between 0.4 million and 2.4 million. • Increased the number of full-time-equivalent jobs by 0.5 million to 3.3 million. (Increases in FTE jobs include shifts from part-time to full-time work or overtime and are thus generally larger than increases in the number of employed workers.) So, since the stimulus bill passed through August 2011, 2.4 million jobs were lost. But without it, 2.8 million to 4.8 million people might be out of work, according to the nonpartisan CBO and private economic analysts. Our ruling Southerland's mailer accurately cites government employment data when it says that since February 2009, 2.4 million jobs have been lost. But it misleads when it says those jobs were lost "since the 'Stimulus' bill was signed into law" — even saying later that the approach "failed to create jobs." The reality is that government and independent economic analysts say policies in the Recovery Act salvaged half a million to 2.4 million jobs. Southerland can argue the stimulus wasn't worth what it cost, but it's inaccurate to say it didn't do anything for the economy. On balance, we find his claim Half True. | null | Steve Southerland | null | null | null | 2011-12-21T12:12:38 | 2011-12-05 | ['None'] |
tron-01791 | Health Warnings About Flouroquinolone Antibiotics | mostly truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/warnings-flouroquinolones-antibiotics/ | null | health-medical | null | null | ['medical', 'pharmaceuticals', 'warnings'] | Health Warnings About Flouroquinolone Antibiotics | Mar 21, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-15219 | Says Jill McCabe "supports late term abortions. Larger baby parts are more profitable." | pants on fire! | /virginia/statements/2015/aug/10/dick-black/black-says-jill-mccabe-backs-selling-fetal-parts-p/ | Undercover videos in which Planned Parenthood officials discuss harvesting fetal tissue appall state Sen. Dick Black, R-Loudoun. A staunch opponent of abortion, Black is seeking to link the controversy to his Democratic opponent this fall, Jill McCabe, a pediatric emergency room physician. McCabe "supports selling late term abortions for bigger body parts," Black tweeted on July 28. He renewed the charge on Aug. 4, tweeting that McCabe "supports late term abortions. Larger baby parts are more profitable." So we decided to examine Black’s charge. Let’s start with some background. The controversy over fetal parts erupted last month when the Center for Medical Progress, a conservative group that opposes abortion, released a nine-minute video secretly taped during a 2014 lunch with Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood’s senior director of medical services. The center says the tape shows Nucatola talking about performing partial-birth abortions to keep body parts intact in order to "sell" them. The video put Planned Parenthood on the defensive and ignited Republican calls to end federal funding for the group and for investigations into its practices. Planned Parenthood provides a wide array of health services to women -- 97 percent of which are not related to abortions. The organization has denounced the secret taping as a misleading campaign by anti-abortion activists. Officials of the group say fetal tissues are integral to medical research and that the organization does not profit from their sale. Allegations by Black and others that profits were made raise legal questions. Federal law bars clinics from selling fetal tissue for gain. It’s legal, however, for clinics to donate the tissue for scientific research and receive reimbursement for their "reasonable" costs in providing the tissue. Cecile Richards, CEO of Planned Parenthood, has said the organization’s clinics don’t sell fetal tissue for profit but do provide it for research and are reimbursed for their collection costs. In the video, Nucatola discusses fees of $30 to $100 per specimen provided. Arthur Caplan, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at New York University’s Langone Medical Center, told PolitiFact National that the fees Nucatola discusses don’t appear geared to making a profit. Many of the sales are made to brokers -- middlemen who process the tissue and then sell it to researchers at significant markups. A vial of highly concentrated fetal liver cells, for example, can sell for about $24,000. The brokers say their prices reflect their high costs of buying medical equipment and employing skilled technicians. Now, let’s get back to Black’s claim that McCabe supports selling fetal tissue for profit. Chris Lore, Black’s legislative assistant, told us the senator’s statement isn’t based on any statement from McCabe explicitly supporting the practice. Instead, Lore said, it’s implicit by the support she’s received from Planned Parenthood.The group has endorsed McCabe and has given her a 100 percent rating. Lore also noted McCabe has been endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia. In addition to those endorsements, Lore noted that amid the controversy, McCabe was quoted in a newspaper saying she still supports Planned Parenthood. "You take those two facts into consideration and it seems her position is pretty clear," Lore said. Lore forwarded a copy of a Loudoun Times-Mirror story in which McCabe was asked about whether she still welcomed Planned Parenthood’s support in the wake of the controversy. "I'm a doctor, and I take care of patients, including women," McCabe was quoted as saying. "Women need health care choices and Planned Parenthood provides that. That's kind of the end of it for me." We contacted Lore a second time for more information. After we spoke with him, Black posted this message on Twitter: "PolitiFact is desperate to give cover to @DrJillMcCabe to give cover for supporting late term abortions. #MediaLies #PPSellsBabyParts." We also reached out to McCabe to see what her position was on late term abortions and selling tissue for a profit. We heard back from Kyle Sutton, her campaign manager. "Jill McCabe does not support late term abortions, but as a doctor she does understand that there are unfortunately circumstances where a pregnancy proceeding to full-term is not in the best health interest of either a mother, or child," Sutton wrote in an email. What about selling fetal tissue for profit? "Jill does not support selling fetal tissue for profit, the same way she does not support any illegal activities, because they're illegal," Sutton wrote. We also asked McCabe if she supports Planned Parenthood providing tissue for research at cost, without a profit. "As a doctor, Jill McCabe understands life-saving medical research," her campaign manager wrote in an email. In an Aug. 1 story in the Washington Post story said McCabe said she had seen the Planned Parenthood videos and found them "concerning." But the newspaper also quoted her saying that "Planned Parenthood is an important organization that provides vital services." Our ruling Sen. Dick Black says McCabe, "supports late term abortions. Larger baby parts are more profitable." McCabe indicates she supports late term abortions in instances when it is "in the best health interest" of the mother or child. She says she opposes the sale of fetal tissue for profit. Black links McCabe’s qualified support for late term abortions to what he says is an effort to profit from the sale of "large baby parts." In effect, he’s accusing his opponent of supporting an illegal practice because U.S. law bans the sale of fetal tissue for profit. It’s incumbent of Black to prove his inflammatory claim and he offers nothing but speculation. We rate his statement Pants on Fire. | null | Dick Black | null | null | null | 2015-08-10T11:28:57 | 2015-08-04 | ['None'] |
hoer-00548 | 'Unborn Baby Pregnant Inside Womb' | statirical reports | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/satire-unborn-baby-pregnant-inside-womb.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | SATIRE - 'Unborn Baby Pregnant Inside Womb' | June 25, 2014 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-01094 | Kohls $70 Off Any Purchase Gift Card | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/kohls-70-off-any-purchase-gift-card-facebook-scam/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Kohls $70 Off Any Purchase Gift Card Facebook Scam | October 5, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-06255 | Barack Obama "lied" about his father's military service during World War II. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fortunate-grandson/ | null | Politicians | null | David Mikkelson | null | Did President Obama Lie About His Father’s Military Service? | 2 August 2010 | null | ['None'] |
farg-00501 | “Clinton Foundations [sic] Sends Water To Houston…For $7 A Bottle.” | false | https://www.factcheck.org/2017/09/clinton-foundation-isnt-charging-fema/ | null | fake-news | FactCheck.org | Rosie Nagele | ['Clinton Foundation'] | Clinton Foundation Isn’t Charging FEMA | September 8, 2017 | 2017-09-08 18:14:54 UTC | ['None'] |
snes-05910 | The interaction of Motrin and Robitussin causes heart attacks in children. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/motrin-robitussin-interaction-warning/ | null | Medical | null | Snopes Staff | null | Does the Interaction of Motrin and Robitussin Cause Heart Attacks in Children? | 11 February 2009 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00795 | Says Indiana Gov. Mike Pence "provides zero state funding for homeless shelters." | mostly true | /punditfact/statements/2015/apr/06/us-uncut/advocacy-group-compares-gov-pence-jesus-unfavorabl/ | Indiana’s Religious Freedom law quickly turned into a political and economic minefield for Republican Gov. Mike Pence. One activist group, US Uncut, took the moment to cast Pence as a man who defended religion while acting in ways that fell short of Christian charity. It posted this image on its Facebook page, which has since been shared nearly 70,000 times, comparing Pence to Jesus: We wanted to look at the claim that Pence provided "zero state funding for homeless shelters." The 2014 Indiana homeless population was 5,971, according to the state’s annual census. Of that population, officials counted 5,568 living in emergency shelters while 403 were found living on the street. Overall, the homeless count was down 12 percent from 2013, officials said. We looked at Pence’s most recent budget and found no money for emergency shelters. Under the line item for homelessness prevention, Pence requested zero dollars in both years of the biennial budget. There is $1.17 million in homeless assistance grants, but those are federal dollars. They come from the McKinney-Vento program administered through the Housing and Urban Development Department. There is also $1 million in mental health services for the homeless, but those too come from Washington. "There has never been state funding directly for homeless shelters or programs," said Brad Meadows, communications director for the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority. Meadows added that towns and cities have the option to spend local money to care for the homeless. However, that would still not be state dollars. Barb Anderson is director of Haven House, a homeless shelter in Jeffersonville, Ind., and a long-time homeless advocate. "We’ve tried to get state funding for shelters for over 25 years," Anderson told PunditFact. "We’ve stayed open, but no one’s taken a salary in four years." So Pence has not requested funding homeless shelters, but it’s worth noting that’s far from unique in Indiana. The state budget ultimately is the work product of the Legislature, not the governor. And the lack of state funding has been consistent under Republican and Democratic leadership. (Indiana had Democratic governors from 1989-2005, before electing Republican Mitch Daniels and then Pence.) Michael Stoops, director of community organizing with the advocacy group National Coalition for the Homeless, told PunditFact that Indiana follows the pattern of many rural and southern states. "They are getting federal homeless dollars and passing them through to the cities and counties," Stoops said. "They don’t spend any of their own money." We contacted staff at Indiana University’s Public Policy Institute and the Indianapolis Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention, and they, too, could not identify any state money going toward emergency shelters. Indiana’s State Homeless Planning Council says on its webpage that the priority is on "systematically preventing and ending homelessness for those most vulnerable in our communities." The Council writes, "Merely managing homelessness is in no one's best interest." Stoops said many states do put their tax dollars into emergency shelters. That list includes, Colorado, Ohio, Oregon and Florida. "Florida has been doing this since 1989," Stoops said. Our ruling The activist group US Uncut said Gov. Mike Pence provided zero state funding for homeless shelters. While the state budget and summaries from the experts and staffers we contacted confirmed that, it’s really an approach of the Indiana state government more than that of any particular person. Advocates say the state has never funded homeless shelters, a de facto policy that includes the consent of both the Legislature and former Democratic governors. We rate the claim Mostly True. | null | US Uncut | null | null | null | 2015-04-06T13:44:07 | 2015-03-31 | ['Mike_Pence'] |
farg-00225 | Claimed “new information” proves he was “right” when he tweeted that President Obama illegally wiretapped his phones during the 2016 election. | false | https://www.factcheck.org/2017/03/still-no-evidence-mr-president/ | null | the-factcheck-wire | FactCheck.org | Eugene Kiely | ['FBI'] | Still No Evidence, Mr. President | March 23, 2017 | 03/22/2017 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
goop-01279 | Ben Affleck’s Girlfriend Lindsay Shookus Wants His Baby? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ben-affleck-lindsay-shookus-baby-girlfriend-false/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Ben Affleck’s Girlfriend Lindsay Shookus Wants His Baby? | 5:49 pm, March 30, 2018 | null | ['Ben_Affleck'] |
pomt-13948 | Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world. | true | /global-news/statements/2016/jun/17/david-beckham/david-beckham-says-swaziland-has-worlds-highest-ra/ | British soccer star (or footballer if you prefer) David Beckham is a long-time goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. For a decade, he has lent his presence and fame to help the United Nations agency in its work with children around the world. A video posted on Facebook showed Beckham’s visit to Swaziland, a landlocked nation on the border between South Africa and Mozambique that has just over 1 million people. In the video, which has been viewed more than 1.3 million times, Beckham said "Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world." That statistic checks out. Here’s the research behind it. There are two ways to talk about the reach of HIV/AIDS (or any disease for that matter). There’s prevalence, which tells you the fraction of people who are infected with the virus at any particular time. And there’s incidence, which tells you how many new people get infected in a given year. Swaziland tops the rankings for both. UNAIDS, the United Nations group focused on HIV/AIDS, reports that last year, HIV prevalence among adults 15-49 in Swaziland was 28.8 percent of the population -- more than 1 out of 4. The incidence rate was 2.36 per 100 person-years. These charts, drawn from UNAIDS data, back up Beckham’s claim. The CIA World Factbook has the same rankings, although the actual numbers vary a bit. A survey published in 2012 by the Swaziland Ministry of Health found slightly higher rates -- 31 percent prevalence and 2.4 percent incidence -- but that would certainly leave the ranking unchanged. Why so high? Kate Grabowski and Ronald Gray at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told us that a constellation of factors led to what Gray called "an unmitigated disaster" in Swaziland. Researchers debate the relative importance of certain drivers, but a lack of HIV treatment and prevention, as well as migration patterns and social structures all likely play a role. In Swaziland, there are "very high rates of polygamy," Gray said, plus many men work as miners in South Africa and Botswana where prostitution is common. That could explain the high rate, but as far as Swaziland’s top rank among nations, that might have more to do with its small size. Grabowski noted that in some ways, Swaziland resembles other HIV hot spots. "There are other communities that are not necessarily countries which also have high HIV prevalence," Grabowski said. "Unfortunately Swaziland gets highlighted because it happens to be one of those places and it is also a country." Our ruling Beckham said that Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV in the world. Official numbers back that up. Whether you look at how many people are infected with HIV at any moment, or how many new infections emerge in a year, Swaziland is worse off than any other nation. We rate this claim True. | null | David Beckham | null | null | null | 2016-06-17T16:00:00 | 2016-06-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-03191 | Every year, more than $40 million are leaving Missouri for the Lone Star State. | half-true | /texas/statements/2013/aug/30/rick-perry/dollars-dont-walk-perry-claim-about-missouri-roote/ | Do dollars slip from state to state? Texas Gov. Rick Perry suggested as much in a radio ad aired in Missouri as he framed his case for businesses there to slip away to Texas. In the ad, posted online Aug. 21, 2013, Perry said: "Every year, more than $40 million are leaving Missouri for the Lone Star State." (He failed to say, "'Show Me' the money.") To our inquiry, Perry spokesman Josh Havens said the $40 million traces to an online application created by Travis H. Brown, CEO of a St. Louis public affairs and advocacy firm and author of the 2013 book,"How Money Walks." Havens said clicking on Missouri on the app shows that between 1992 and 2010, more than $791 million "was lost to the state of Texas. That equates to more than $40 million each year." We confirmed his figures on the "Wealth Migration" app, which indicates that Missouri lost an average of $1.38 billion in adjusted gross income from 1992 through 2010--with the net loss to Texas alone totaling $791.3 million. As defined by the Internal Revenue Service, adjusted gross income is a person’s gross income minus adjustments. "For most people," according to the app, adjusted gross income "is the starting point in calculating their taxable income" for federal tax purposes. At a glance, then, Perry's math seems to work. But is it accurate to say all those dollars annually leave Missouri for Texas? We failed to connect with Brown, but an analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation, which researches state and federal tax policy, told us the IRS annually makes available its data tallying changes in adjusted gross income across the country and state to state--also taking into account how many taxpayers have moved from one state to another since the previous year’s filings. For instance, the foundation’s Nick Kasprak said by phone, if a taxpayer in Missouri had adjusted gross income of $30,000 one year and then the next year filed a return from Texas showing $65,000 in such income, the IRS would record that as $30,000 moving to Texas--basing that on the adjusted gross income reported in Missouri in the first tax year. A foundation web page breaks down such IRS data for 1993 through 2010, the latest year of available data. Adjusted for inflation, according to the foundation, Texas netted $862 million in adjusted gross income from Missouri over the 17 years, or nearly $51 million a year on average. By email, Kasprak told us the net difference in raw dollars over the 17 years was $710 million, or an annual average of $42 million. This net shift in Texas’s favor exceeded $40 million in 11 of the 17 years, including every year from 2006 through 2010, as shown on a chart we generated. The year 2005 was the latest one in which there was less than a $40 million difference, according to the chart. The low point: In 2001, the difference was less than $7.4 million. Source: Web interactive, "State to State Migration Data," the Tax Foundation (accessed Aug. 29, 2013) Per Perry’s statement, Kasprak said it would be helpful to clarify that the cited adjusted gross income figures refer to how much money was made by residents of Texas in their previous year living in Missouri. That is not the same, he said, as saying that those exact earnings moved to Texas. "It’s not as if these people are literally carrying sacks of money over the border," Kasprak said. "The only thing that is literally true is that if you add up all income of people who moved from Missouri to Texas versus people who moved from Texas to Missouri, this is the net difference" in the tax year prior to their moves. Another expert, Art Hall, director of the Center for Applied Economics at the University of Kansas, agreed by phone that Perry’s statement reflects only what individuals earned in the state they departed, either Missouri or Texas. "We don’t know if they got a wage increase or wage cut when they moved to Texas or vice versa," Hall said. Regardless, Hall said he considers Perry’s statement in line with the IRS data as adjusted for inflation by the foundation. Our ruling Perry said: "Every year, more than $40 million are leaving Missouri for the Lone Star State." That assessment ties to IRS data on adjusted gross income for 1992 through 2010, but the results are more complex and admittedly clunky than this claim acknowledges. That is, Missouri residents who moved to Texas through those years earned more the year before they moved than all income-tax-filing Texas residents who moved to Missouri in those years. Still, adjusted for inflation, the annual difference averages about $50 million--more than Perry’s unadjusted figure. Then again, this did not hold for every year. In six years--most recently 2005--there was less than a $40 million difference. On balance, we rate this claim as Half True. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Rick Perry | null | null | null | 2013-08-30T16:10:35 | 2013-08-21 | ['Missouri', 'Texas'] |
pomt-06065 | When Georgia tightened its voter identification laws, the state sent a van and photographer to the homes of people who needed photo IDs and made them for free. | mostly false | /georgia/statements/2012/jan/10/phil-gingrey/gingrey-voter-id-van-made-house-calls/ | More states are adopting laws that require voters to show photo IDs at the polls, and the Obama administration is crying foul. The U.S. Department of Justice recently announced that it’s challenging a South Carolina photo ID requirement because it discriminates against minorities and the poor. Supporters say the new rules prevent fraud. As the debate intensifies, all sides are turning their attention to one of the first states to say paper identification isn’t enough: Georgia. U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Marietta Republican, said in a recent article on the Fox News website that when the state passed its new rules in the mid-2000s, the state bent over backward to see that it disenfranchised no one. After the state tightened the voter ID laws, it told people, "Look, we will literally send a van and a photographer to the home of anybody that can say they can't get a picture made and a photo ID and we will do it ... at the state's cost and the taxpayer cost and not at the individual cost," Gingrey said in the Dec. 28 article. This was news to us. Since when did bureaucrats make house calls? We asked Gingrey spokeswoman Jen Talaber, who told us about the Department of Driver Services’ Georgia Licensing on Wheels, otherwise known as the GLOW bus. Starting September 2005, an aging Blue Bird lumbered across Georgia making voter IDs. The poor got theirs for free. The rest paid $5. The rug was the color of oatmeal, a media report said. A bench was upholstered in vinyl. It was a bit of a junker. Leaky hoses forced the rescheduling of stops in rural Pulaski and Wilcox counties, according to an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A bad alternator pushed back a visit to Statesboro. A battery problem made the GLOW bus late for a Cherokee County appearance. And the bus service wasn’t nearly as convenient as Gingrey said. It did not go to individual homes. Instead, it stopped at gathering places such as the Augusta-Richmond County Civic Center and the Talbot County Courthouse west of Macon, according to a 2005 schedule. "Appointments cannot be made for individuals," said a 2005 Department of Driver Services press release announcing the service. Still, it was the big bus that could. News accounts said the GLOW bus had the capacity to make as many as 200 cards a day. Yet for the most part, it was the big bus that didn’t. Between Aug. 30 and Oct. 1, 2005, the GLOW bus issued 22 voter IDs, according to Department of Driver Services figures. Today, there are 559 active voter cards statewide that were issued through the department. The bus service was ultimately canceled. Supporters and foes of Georgia’s voter ID law debated why the GLOW bus was such a dud. Then-Gov. Sonny Perdue argued the numbers were proof there was no need for it. Others said the service wasn’t well advertised, or that a single bus couldn’t handle the needs of a large state. Helen Butler, executive director of the Georgia Coalition for the People's Agenda, a civil rights group, told PolitiFact Georgia that the bus didn’t solve the cost problem. While a voter ID card is free, getting the documentation to obtain one isn’t. It can cost $30 for a birth certificate, she said. So yes, the GLOW bus existed. It made voter IDs for free. But the state did not "literally send a van and a photographer to the home of anybody that can say they can't get a picture made and a photo ID," as Gingrey said The GLOW bus didn’t do house calls. It might have made getting a voter ID more convenient. And the fact that few used the bus might bolster Gingrey’s argument that people who want the IDs don’t need help. But this is a far cry from door-to-door service. A wheelchair-bound senior with no car could not apply for an ID from her living room couch, as Gingrey’s claim suggested. A civic group would have to request the van travel to a nearby civic center or courthouse, and an individual would have to trek there to get one. Gingrey’s statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Gingrey earns a Mostly False. | null | Phil Gingrey | null | null | null | 2012-01-10T06:00:00 | 2011-12-28 | ['None'] |
snes-05233 | The band Megadeth is set to play a rally for Bernie Sanders. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/megadeth-bernie-sanders/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Heavy Metal Legends Megadeth to Play for Bernie Sanders? | 11 February 2016 | null | ['Bernie_Sanders'] |
goop-00548 | Justin Bieber, Hailey Baldwin “Already Married,” | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/justin-bieber-hailey-baldwin-married-ring/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Justin Bieber, Hailey Baldwin NOT “Already Married,” Despite Report | 6:06 pm, July 30, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01343 | Says Charlie Crist could have expanded Medicaid after the health care law passed but didn't. | mostly false | /florida/statements/2014/oct/22/rick-scott/rick-scott-says-charlie-crist-could-have-expanded-/ | To hear Gov. Rick Scott and Charlie Crist tell it, the 2014 gubernatorial campaign isn’t about policy positions, but more about which candidate did less as governor. Take the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion. No, really, someone should take it, because neither governor did. Now each is berating the other for it. "He will not lift a finger to get Medicaid expansion done," Crist said during Tuesday’s CNN debate in Jacksonville. He said Floridians are suffering from the resultant lack of medical care, plus the loss of jobs the expansion has been predicted to bring. Scott answered by first accusing Crist of running up the state’s debt. "And then you want to talk about Medicaid," he said. "You were governor when it passed. Why didn't you get it passed right then? Why didn't you expand it right then?" Say, why didn’t he expand it right then? Could Crist have even done anything about the Medicaid expansion while he was in office? We decided to look into the assertion and find out. How a bill contains a flaw One of the original provisions in President Barack Obama’s signature health care law was to expand Medicaid, the joint federal and state program to cover the poorest of the uninsured. The new Medicaid guidelines covered everyone up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. In Florida, this would have amounted to between 800,000 and 1 million residents getting coverage. The federal government would have paid 100 percent of the costs for the first three years starting in 2014, gradually decreasing to 90 percent by 2020. To get the funds for this expansion, the Affordable Care Act presented states an all-or-nothing proposition: Change state law to cover every eligible resident and get the expansion money, or refuse to comply and lose all federal money for Medicaid. That isn't just the expansion money, that's every dollar for a state's Medicaid program -- billions of dollars every year -- a move critics immediately decried as overwhelmingly punitive. Crist was in the final year of his term in office, prepping for an ill-fated Senate run, when Obama signed the bill into law on March 23, 2010. Florida joined Virginia and a dozen other states in suing the federal government the same day, insisting Washington couldn’t force citizens to buy insurance and protesting the terms of the Medicaid expansion. Elements of the law were slated to take effect in stages (the Medicaid expansion wouldn't take effect for more than three and a half years, until 2014), so many states waited to see what happened with the lawsuit. What’s a governor to do? The Republican-controlled Legislature had already started its 60-day law-making session, so it’s possible Crist could have pushed for compliance with the law then. But considering legislators begin work on bills in the September prior to a session, and given how unpopular the new law was to begin with, this was a pretty unlikely scenario. Also, the state of Florida only creates budgets one year at a time, and too much of the law's specifics were up in the air to be fully addressed in 2010. "I think it would have been difficult, but perhaps not impossible, for Charlie to have moved on the Medicaid expansion, because components of the law were very uncertain with the ACA at that point in his term," Kevin Walsh, assistant political science professor at Broward College, told PolitiFact Florida. The Scott campaign told us Crist could have addressed expansion in a special session. But that's impractical. There was no rush to implement an expansion of Medicaid -- remember, it wouldn't start until 2014 -- and there was little to no chance Republican lawmakers would agree to the expansion even if Crist called them back (at a cost of around $45,000 a day). The idea of creating compliant legislation so quickly wasn’t practical either, experts told us. (A special session Crist called that year to debate offshore oil drilling was ended on a GOP party line vote after 49 minutes.) "Technically, Scott is correct," said Gail Wilensky, senior fellow for the Center for Health Affairs at Project HOPE. "However, since the benefit wasn't going into effect for a couple of years, there wasn't an obvious need to pass legislation immediately." The U.S. Supreme Court eventually ruled on June 28, 2012, that while the federal government could compel people to buy health insurance, it couldn’t threaten to withhold Medicaid money for refusing to comply. That made the expansion a choice for each state. By then, Scott was in office. Most states -- even those that overwhelmingly supported expanding Medicaid -- waited until the Supreme Court decision was final to formally expand their Medicaid programs through legislation. Before this year’s campaign, Crist said little on the Medicaid expansion. In March 2010, he said he was against the Affordable Care Act and favored repeal. In July 2010, he waffled back and forth on repeal but still wanted it modified. And within two hours on Aug. 27, he said both he would have voted for the bill and against it. For the record, Crist now says he is for it. Scott, an opponent of the Affordable Care Act, initially was against the Medicaid provisions, largely because of concerns about added costs for state taxpayers (that 10 percent we mentioned). In 2013 he had a change of heart, but still did not push the Legislature to enact a law for more Medicaid coverage. To this day, Florida has refused the expansion. Crist has floated the idea that he could issue an executive order if elected, in the same vein as Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich. Kasich signed an executive order last year expanding the program, using an obscure government entity called the controlling board. Florida doesn’t have one of those, so it’s unclear if Crist could take similar action. Scott certainly doesn’t think so. "An expansion of Medicaid could not be accomplished on a whim from the executive office," Scott said in October. "It requires legislative action." Our ruling Scott said Charlie Crist could have expanded Medicaid after the health care law passed but didn't. Experts we talked to said that was possible, with an assist from the Legislature, but not at all likely. The law was too new for legislation to be passed during the 2010 legislative session. Even if Crist had wanted lawmakers to discuss it, they would have been hostile to the idea. The state was a plaintiff in a lawsuit against the government, and there was no urgency to enact such sweeping change. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate the statement Mostly False. | null | Rick Scott | null | null | null | 2014-10-22T19:03:37 | 2014-10-21 | ['Charlie_Crist'] |
pomt-02463 | There are 4.7 percent of Virginians who are minimum wage earners who are over 25 years of age working full-time and trying to raise a family. | mostly true | /virginia/statements/2014/feb/24/mark-obenshain/obenshain-says-few-minimum-wage-earners-virginia-a/ | During a recent floor debate, state Sen. Mark Obenshain disputed contentions that raising the minimum wage would ease plight for many poor families. Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg, said the recipients of Virginia’s minimum wage of $7.25 an hour are mostly young, single workers. "There are 4.7 percent of Virginians who are minimum wage earners who are over 25 years of age working full-time and trying to raise a family," he said during the Feb. 11 floor debate on a bill that would have raised the wage over two years to $9.25 an hour. The measure passed the Democratic-controlled Senate but died in the Republican-led House, where opponents said raising the wage would force employers to cut jobs. Even so, we were interested in Obenshain’s statistic on minimum wage earners raising families and looked into it. We contacted Jared Walczak, Obenshain’s legislative assistant, and he said there was an error. Obenshain mischaracterized an estimate from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that has nothing to do with the percentage of Virginians raising families on the minimum wage. What the BLS figure tells us is that 4.7 percent of all U.S. hourly wage earners in 2012 were paid at or below the minimum wage. Of an estimated 75.3 million hourly earners, almost 3.6 million received bottom-line pay or less. The agency does not keep track of how many of these earners are raising families. What can we learn about Virginia minimum wage workers? Not much. BLS figures only tell us that an estimated 6.8 percent of hourly workers in the Old Dominion were paid the minimum wage or less. That’s the sixth highest percentage among states, trailing from the top Idaho, Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas. In raw numbers, the BLS estimates 1.8 million Virginians were hourly earners in 2012 and, of them, 123,000 were paid the minimum wage or less. The agency cautions that its estimates may have a large margin of error due to small sampling sizes in some states, particularly small ones. For that reason, it says the estimates of low earners should not be compared to other BLS tables detailing overall employment numbers in each state. Despite Obenshain’s botched explanation of the data, evidence strongly supports the senator’s overall point that minimum wage earners raising families are a small part of Virginia’s workforce. The BLS spreadsheets estimate that roughly half of the people earning minimum wage or less in the U.S. are 25 or older. If that trend applies to Virginia, it would mean about 3.4 percent of hourly workers are minimum wage earners are older than 25. That percentage would drop if the low earners not raising families could be weeded out. Our rating Obenshain said 4.7 percent of Virginians are minimum wage earners older than 25 raising families. The senator’s office acknowledges he garbled a statistic. In fact, no data is kept on the class of people to which Obenshain referred. Obenshain’s overarching point must be considered, however. He was speaking against raising the minimum wage, arguing that the increase would threaten jobs while improving the lot of only a few working families. Our analysis of data that is available strongly suggests that the percentage of Virginia workers supporting families on the minimum wage might be even lower than what Obenshain mistakenly said. So Obenshain stumbled into a credible conclusion. We rate his statement Mostly True. | null | Mark Obenshain | null | null | null | 2014-02-24T00:00:00 | 2014-02-11 | ['None'] |
goop-01873 | Kylie Jenner, Travis Scott Engaged, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kylie-jenner-engaged-travis-scott-ring/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Kylie Jenner, Travis Scott NOT Engaged, Despite Report | 6:10 pm, January 9, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01852 | Johns Hopkins Scientist Exposes Flu Vaccine Danger? | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-flu-plot/ | null | Medical | null | David Mikkelson | null | Johns Hopkins Scientist Exposes Flu Vaccine Danger? | 23 October 2014 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03167 | American intelligence has confirmed that President-elect Donald Trump was blackmailed by Russian operatives. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/u-s-trump-intelligence-russia/ | null | Politics | null | Bethania Palma | null | U.S. Intelligence Confirms Trump was Blackmailed by Russia? | 10 January 2017 | null | ['United_States', 'Russia', 'Donald_Trump'] |
pomt-00280 | Says Kansas U.S. House candidate Paul Davis was caught with a stripper during a drug raid and later voted to "allow strip clubs to open near homes, churches, schools and daycare facilities." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/oct/01/congressional-leadership-fund/did-paul-davis-vote-allow-strip-clubs-open-nears-h/ | A new ad from the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC working to protect the GOP Majority in the U.S. House, attacks a Kansas congressional hopeful for an incident at a strip club 20 years ago. You bet we wanted to see if the facts here stood up to scrutiny. Democrat Paul Davis is locked in a competitive race with Republican Steve Watkins in Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District, a seat that includes Topeka, Lawrence and the communities west of Kansas City. The ad targets Davis for his alleged involvement in a 1998 strip club drug raid, where he was found in a dark room with a nearly naked woman. "What’s worse than getting caught at a strip club during a drug bust? Ask Paul Davis." The ad then claims Davis was found in a VIP room with a woman wearing only a G-string. Then it says, "Even worse, after Davis was caught with a stripper, he voted to allow strip clubs to open near our homes, churches, schools and even daycare facilities. Shady Paul Davis can’t be trusted." Here, we are checking the details surrounding the strip club incident, along with the claim that Davis voted to allow strip clubs to operate near places like schools, homes, churches and daycares. The strip club incident The situation involving Davis and a strip club came to light in September 2014 during his bid for governor, which he lost. According to reports, Davis was getting a lap dance in a back room in the late 1990s when cops raided the club in search of drugs. He was not charged with a crime, but police involved in the raid reported he was found in a "compromising position." Davis said he "was at the wrong place at the wrong time." Independence Police Chief Harry Smith later corroborated Davis’ account that the candidate was not involved in any wrongdoing, or, to his knowledge, the focus of an investigation. He said Davis was questioned briefly before being released. Kelsi Browning, a spokeswoman for Davis’ campaign, told PolitiFact that the ad is based on something that happened 20 years ago when Davis was 26. As a new lawyer, she said, Davis went with his boss to meet an "unsavory client" of the law firm. So what about this vote? The ad refers to HB 2107, or the Community Defense Act, which was a 2011 state bill that would have prohibited strip clubs and other sexually oriented businesses from being established within 1,000 feet of the property line of an existing one as well as any schools, churches, public parks, residences, libraries or daycare centers. The bill would have also required semi-nude dancers to remain at least 6 feet away from their customers and for sexually oriented businesses to remain closed from midnight to 6 a.m. Davis was one of 28 Kansas House members who voted against the bill, which ultimately failed in the Senate. The Davis campaign says that the legislation was a perennial bill that rarely made it out of committee. When it first came up in 2010, Davis actually voted for the bill before it was struck down in the Senate. It came up again in the 2011 session, but this time, he voted against it. Critics of the legislation, which included Davis, argued at the time that regulating these businesses was best left to cities and counties. Some also questioned taking the time to focus on the issue when the state was facing a massive budget deficit. In a Lawrence Journal-World story around the time of the vote, Davis, who was the House minority leader, was quoted saying that the Legislature was "probably intruding in areas where we don’t need to be. We’ve got a lot more important things that we need to be dealing with here." Our ruling The Congressional Leadership Fund ad says that Kansas U.S. House candidate Paul Davis was caught with a stripper during a drug raid and later voted to allow strip clubs to open near homes, churches, schools and daycares. The ad is piecing together two unrelated issues to draw an unsavory conclusion, while embellishing parts of the story. Davis did not vote to allow strip clubs to open near schools, churches, daycares and the like. He once voted against a measure that would have banned them from opening near these places. He also once voted for the same proposal. The ad’s claim that he was found in a strip club during a drug raid is accurate, but any suggestion he was connected to the drug raid is misplaced. Overall, this claim is partially accurate but takes things out of context. We rate it Half True. Share the Facts 2018-10-01 17:02:15 UTC PolitiFact 4 1 7 PolitiFact Rating: Half True Says Kansas U.S. House candidate Paul Davis was caught with a stripper during a drug raid and later voted to "allow strip clubs to open near homes, churches, schools and daycare facilities." Congressional Leadership Fund Super PAC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMRYYKs9dbs&feature=youtu.be Wednesday, September 19, 2018 2018-09-19 Read More info | null | Congressional Leadership Fund | null | null | null | 2018-10-01T11:00:00 | 2018-09-19 | ['None'] |
pomt-04448 | Says his deficit plan "made some adjustments to (Simpson-Bowles), and we're putting it forward before Congress right now, a $4 trillion plan." | half-true | /florida/statements/2012/oct/11/barack-obama/obama-says-his-plan-made-some-adjustments-simpson-/ | Mitt Romney has accused President Barack Obama of essentially missing the bus on the Simpson-Bowles commission’s recommendations to reduce the deficit. Obama shot back that he is in the driver’s seat -- he simply adjusted that commission’s recommendations for his own version of deficit reduction. Here’s the back and forth from the Oct. 3 debate in Denver: Romney: "Simpson-Bowles, the president should have grabbed that." Moderator Jim Lehrer: "Do you support Simpson-Bowles?" Romney: "I have my own plan. It's not the same as Simpson-Bowles. But in my view, the president should have grabbed it. If you wanted to make some adjustments to it, take it, go to Congress, fight for it." Obama: "That's what we've done, made some adjustments to it, and we're putting it forward before Congress right now, a $4 trillion plan..." Obama’s answer could leave the impression that his own deficit reduction plan simply made "some adjustments" to Simpson-Bowles, and therefore that commission’s recommendations didn’t languish or die. But is that the truth? In this fact-check, we will explore the differences between the Simpson-Bowles recommendations and Obama’s plan. The Simpson-Bowles plan First, here’s a little history on the Simpson-Bowles deficit reduction proposal. (We’ve fact-checked claims about it before.) Obama created the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform by executive order in February 2010. It included 18 members, split between Democratic and Republican appointees, who were charged with studying the federal budget, "identifying policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run." In December 2010, the commission released its final report, which included dozens of proposals to cut discretionary spending, reform the tax code and Social Security and rein in health care costs, among other measures. This proposal was named after the panel’s co-chairs, former Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., and Erskine Bowles, a Democrat and the former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton. The proposal failed to achieve enough "yes" votes from the 18 members to have the proposal sent to Congress. One of the "no" votes was from Romney’s eventual running mate: U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. The members’ rationales for voting "no" ranged from taxes to Social Security to federal spending -- either too much or too little, depending on the dissent in question. The group’s report shows total deficit reduction between 2012 and 2020 would be about $4 trillion. The panel proposed cuts in discretionary and mandatory spending totaling $2.2 trillion and estimated interest savings of $673 billion. The remainder of the deficit reduction total involves new revenues -- a combination of closing tax loopholes and increasing certain types of taxes and other revenue streams. The new tax revenues work out to $995 billion over that period. Experts cite similarities and differences We sent the Romney-Obama exchange to economists, and they summarized some key similarities and differences between Simpson-Bowles and Obama’s plan. Our experts included: Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense; Howard Gleckman, editor of TaxVox, the fiscal policy blog of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center; Joshua Gordon, policy director of the Concord Coalition; Paul N. Van de Water, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities; Alan Viard of the conservative American Enterprise Institute and Jason Peuquet and Marc Goldwein, both of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Our experts agreed that Obama and Simpson-Bowles shared a general framework that included both tax increases and spending cuts. But beyond that, whether you agree that Obama made "some adjustments" to Simpson-Bowles depends on your definition of "some adjustments." One of our experts -- Gleckman -- described Obama’s wording here as "legalese" or "Talmudic." Other than the general framework, "these plans have very little common," Gleckman said. Many of our experts cited vast differences between the two plans. Viard, who served on the President’s Council of Economic advisers under President George W. Bush, said, "It’s a little misleading for the president to say he merely made ‘some adjustments’ to Simpson-Bowles." It’s no surprise that an appointed commission would recommend more ambitious reform than someone holding elected office -- the commission had the freedom to do that, Viard said. But "if the president had felt it was in his interest to distinguish the two plans he could have easily justified very sweeping language. He could have said my plan is a lot different ... That would have been more credible," Viard said. Let’s summarize some of those key differences: Amount of deficit reduction: Simpson-Bowles reduces the deficit more than Obama. Simpson-Bowles shows a reduction of $4 trillion by 2020 while Obama shows that same amount by 2022. If we add two years to the Simpson-Bowles plan, the reduction rises to $6.3 trillion. Both plans put public debt on a downward path as a share of the economy later this decade but again, Simpson-Bowles goes further, Peuquet said. Peuquet’s Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has published a detailed analysis comparing the plans that shows the differences. Tax reform: "Simpson-Bowles calls for bold tax reform to dramatically reduce tax rates by cutting tax expenditures," said Goldwein, who was an associate director for the fiscal commission the year it released its report. "Though the president gives a shout out to this concept, his plan actually calls for starting with an increase in individual rates for higher earners; and only modest reductions to tax expenditures." Reductions mentioned in the Simpson-Bowles plan include capping deductions for home mortgage interest and taxing capital gains and dividends at the same rates as earned income. Social Security, Medicare and health care: Obama doesn’t include any changes to Social Security, whereas Simpson-Bowles proposed a comprehensive Social Security reform plan, Goldwein said. Obama’s plan includes savings for Medicare, but not as much as Simpson-Bowles. "There are some areas where Simpson-Bowles pursued structural reform – like totally redesigning Medicare’s cost-sharing structure – but the president’s budget instead focused on changes on the margins," Goldwein said. Spending cuts: Obama includes many specific spending cuts that are similar to those in Simpson-Bowles, but some of those cuts are scaled back, while others were already enacted in 2011, said Van de Water, who worked at the Congressional Budget Office for about two decades. Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense said that overall, Simpson-Bowles "was more aggressive in going after federal program spending and reforms to entitlements. ...Obama’s budget is "evolutionary, Simpson-Bowles is more revolutionary." Gleckman summarized the two plans this way: When looking at the the plans from "50,000 feet, yes, they are similar. When you look at them at even 10,000 feet they are very different. When you look at them on the ground they are entirely different." Obama’s explanation Obama’s campaign sent us a statement: "The president has proposed a balanced approach to deficit reduction that takes a framework consistent with Simpson-Bowles, asking for both spending cuts and additional revenues from the wealthiest and closing corporate loopholes." The campaign also cited some of our earlier fact-checks about Obama’s plan. PolitiFact New Jersey evaluated a claim by Gov. Chris Christie that Obama failed to stand up for the proposed solutions by the Simpson-Bowles Commission. We ruled that claim Mostly False. Obama did not fully embrace the commission’s recommendations at the outset, but outlined some deficit reduction measures similar to those proposed by the commission. Even the commission’s co-chairs said so. "We are encouraged that the president has embraced a balanced, comprehensive approach to deficit reduction similar to that outlined in the Fiscal Commission report," Bowles and Simpson said in a 2011 press release. In 2011, we evaluated John Boehner’s claim that Obama "took exactly none of his own deficit reduction commission’s ideas. Not one. Come on! It’s time to grow up and get serious about the problems that face our country." We ruled that False, concluding the commission’s recommendations were sprinkled throughout Obama’s 2011 budget proposals, in recognizable -- if not always in identical -- form. Is Obama’s plan before Congress? The second part of Obama’s claim about this deficit reduction plan was that: "We're putting it forward before Congress right now." After the president releases his budget, lawmakers introduce resolutions about that budget and took votes rejecting it. Technically his plan is still out there -- he has to submit one every year, and it does exist, but there is no indication that Congress will revisit it. Our ruling Obama said of his deficit plan that he "made some adjustments to (Simpson-Bowles), and we're putting it forward before Congress right now, a $4 trillion plan." Obama has presented plans that share the general framework with Simpson-Bowles, but Simpson-Bowles’ plan is more bold. And while Obama’s plan still exists, we don’t expect the GOP-led Congress to pursue it. There are a lot of caveats to Obama’s claim. We rate this claim Half True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2012-10-11T16:48:24 | 2012-10-03 | ['United_States_Congress', 'National_Commission_on_Fiscal_Responsibility_and_Reform'] |
pomt-12731 | Three of the 11 most violent cities in the U.S. are in Missouri — St. Louis, Kansas City, and Springfield. | half-true | /missouri/statements/2017/mar/03/eric-greitens/greitens-takes-crime-statistics-out-context/ | The FBI releases its Uniform Crime Report every year. And every year politicians, news outlets and pundits use it to rank cities by their rate of violence, despite FBI cautions against doing so. This year was no different. In his first State of the State address, Missouri Republican Gov. Eric Greitens used the data to make a point: The state has a crime problem. "Three of the 11 most violent cities in the U.S. are in Missouri — St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield," Greitens said. "And it’s not just in the cities. When you talk to sheriffs, chiefs of police and front line officers around the state, they’ll tell you it’s getting harder to do police work." We wondered if the statistic was true. Were Missouri’s three largest cities also some of the most violent in the country? The limits of comparing cities Taken at face value, the crime reporting data paints a bleak picture of crime in the state. If you were to compare the rate of violent crime for U.S. cities with a population of at least 100,000, Greitens would appear to be on target. In 2015, the most recent year with available data, St. Louis was in first place with a crime rate of 1,817 per 100,000. Kansas City came in 10th place (1,417 per 100,000) and Springfield in 11th (1,355 per 100,000). However, according to Richard Rosenfeld, a criminology professor at University of Missouri-St. Louis, rankings should be taken with a grain of salt. "Crime statistics are simply not accurate enough to, for example, meaningfully distinguish city number five from city number six or seven in a ranking of city crime rates," Rosenfeld said. "But they can be used to compare the crime rates in cities of similar size and demographics." Let’s take, for instance, the 50 largest cities in the country. Detroit, with a population of 673,225, had the highest rate of violent crime, at 1,759 per 100,000. Kansas City fell in 6th place. But St. Louis isn’t even included on that list. The city, which does not include the smaller, suburban cities around the downtown area, is the 57th largest city with a population of 317,095. And Springfield, with a population of 166,860, isn’t anywhere near as large as Kansas City (473,373). Why does this matter? One reason is that any increase in crime has a larger effect on smaller populations than it does on more populous areas. An increase of 200 more violent crimes in Springfield would bump the city up three places on the list. The same hypothetical increase for Kansas City bumps it up one place. Over the last few years, Kansas City and St. Louis have remained around the same spot on the rankings, give or take two or three ranks. Springfield, however, was in the 27th spot in 2012. To Greitens’ credit, if you were to compare these cities to other cities with about the same population, the three have higher than average crime. St. Louis’ crime rate was 2.5 times the average rate of violent crime for cities with a population of 250,00 or more. Kansas City’s was a little under twice the average rate. "Springfield has surprisingly high crime rates," Rosenfeld said. Compared to the average rate of violent crime for cities with between 100,000 and 250,000 people, Springfield had almost three times as much violent crime. Rosenfeld said much of that has to do with poverty. "When you see high levels of poverty, you tend to see high levels of crime," he said. Almost 55 percent of kids in the Springfield R-12 school district qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, a measure of poverty, according to data from the Missouri Department of Education. Because factors like crime and other underlying characteristics vary from city to city, even the FBI says it’s unfair to rank them on a single variable like crime. "Data users should not rank locales because there are many factors that cause the nature and type of crime to vary from place to place," reads an FBI disclaimer. "UCR statistics include only jurisdictional population figures along with reported crime, clearance, or arrest data. Rankings ignore the uniqueness of each locale." The disclaimer lists several dozen different factors, including economic conditions, citizens’ crime reporting practices and population density. "Cities are considerably different from another based on things like demographics, tourism, commutes," said James Alan Fox, a criminology professor at Northeastern University. Where does the city end? Because crime doesn’t respect political boundaries, presenting data from a crime-infested area as an exact reflection of an entire city can be misleading. The FBI estimated the St. Louis metro-area population at 2.8 million in 2015, and Kansas City’s was a little more than 2 million. Yet the populations considered in the crime reporting data were 317,000 for St. Louis and 473,000 for Kansas City. One of the problems is the extent to which nonresidents spend time in the city’s center, Fox said. Suburbs have a moderating effect on the data, so crime rate can depend on how many suburbs are included in the city’s jurisdiction. For St. Louis, that appears to be the case. Sam Dotson, the police chief of the St. Louis Metro Police Department, said the Uniform Crime Reporting statistics are "absolutely not" reflective of crime in the region. Unlike almost every major metropolitan area in the country, St. Louis city is independent from its county. In 1877, the two split after a contentious and narrow vote among county residents and city voters, many of whom were tired of the extra tax burden from the county. "When St. Louis city made a decision to separate itself, it was political," Dotson said. "We’re living with the repercussions today." The county crime data has an equalizing effect. If you were to combine the county with the city, St. Louis’ crime rate would fall to around 44 on the list, Dotson said. He did not deny that the city has a crime problem, which he said has everything to do with the city’s level of poverty. "We have crime," Dotson said. "We have too much crime. So does everywhere else. To single us out is wrong." Dotson also disagreed with Greitens’ comments blaming crime on the ability of police departments to perform their job. "Policing has a piece and responsibility," he said. "But police officers can’t fix school systems. Police officers can’t fix the economy. If you want to reduce crime in Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield, you have to address those issues too." Our ruling Greitens said, "Three of the 11 most violent cities in the U.S. are in Missouri — St. Louis, Kansas City and Springfield." Greitens is basing his comments on high-quality data, but he uses the data in ways that experts recommend against. Experts dispute the reliability of ranking one city against others based on crime rates. Even the FBI, which compiles the statistics, has a policy against the practice. Greitens’ statement is partially accurate but takes things out of context. We rate this claim Half True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Eric Greitens | null | null | null | 2017-03-03T11:58:28 | 2017-01-17 | ['United_States', 'St._Louis', 'Kansas_City,_Missouri', 'Missouri'] |
tron-02661 | The Symmetry of the Date Feb 20, 2002 | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/symmetry/ | null | miscellaneous | null | null | null | The Symmetry of the Date Feb 20, 2002 | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00121 | Nike offered 'people of color' several coupons for discounts on the company's products. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nike-coupon-color/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Did Nike Offer ‘People of Color’ a 75 Percent Off Coupon? | 7 September 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01730 | There has never been an alderman who has defeated an incumbent mayor in the history of this great city. | true | /wisconsin/statements/2014/aug/06/bob-donovan/bob-donovan-wants-to-go-where-no-alderman-has-gone/ | Milwaukee Ald. Bob Donovan harbors no illusions of a cakewalk to the mayor’s office in 2016. The well-funded and entrenched incumbent, Tom Barrett, appears poised to seek a fourth four-year term. And history’s not on Donovan’s side, the alderman told supporters July 29, 2014, when he announced his bid. "What we are proposing is monumental and also unprecedented," Donovan said. "As a matter of fact to the best of my knowledge there has never been an alderman who has defeated an incumbent mayor in the history of this great city." Milwaukee’s modern-day tendency to return incumbents to office is well documented: it’s been almost 75 years since a mayor fell (Carl Zeidler stunned Daniel Hoan in 1940). But never’s a long time. No alderman has ever dethroned a mayor? To the history books We took up Donovan’s history challenge, looking back to the early days of city government, when aldermen received no salary and worked out of a church and above a livery stable. Milwaukee has elected a "boy mayor" (flashy 29-year-old Sherburn Becker, 1906). It has backed mayors born in Germany, Ireland and France. It voted in a mayor (Zeidler) whose surprising win was engineered by the future writer of "Psycho." The city’s voters have made a mayor of the man who wrote the "Peck’s Bad Boy" books (George W. Peck), and have tapped surgeons, liquor peddlers, judges, congressman, bankers and many lawyers to the post. Democrats are the rule, but a few Republicans have broken through. But relatively few aldermen even have run against an incumbent. The last to try, unsuccessfully, was Rod Lanser in the 1968 primary. Mayor Henry Maier won a third term and served until 1988. The last to win a mayor’s race as an alderman: Emil Seidel (1910), owner of a small pattern shop. Seidel is remembered not for that, but for starting the city’s half-century of mainly Socialist Party mayors. He made a national splash, becoming the first Socialist to run a major U.S. city. But Seidel didn’t defeat a sitting mayor. He tried, but in 1908 lost narrowly to David S. Rose, described by historian John Gurda as "a political prince of darkness who allowed prostitution, gambling dens, all-night saloons and influence-peddling to flourish on his watch" while fighting off criminal charges. Rose wasn’t re-nominated by the Democrats in 1910, and Seidel defeated Republican physician John Beffel ("Dr. Good Government"). Like Donovan, Seidel was fond of meeting constituents in taverns. so much so that "Seidel" became a nickname for a beer mug, Martin Hintz recounts in "A Spirited History of Milwaukee Brews & Booze." Back to Donovan’s claim that since the city charter was signed in 1846, no alderman has defeated a sitting mayor. Echoing Donovan, to the best of our knowledge, he is correct. We examined newspaper archives and the Milwaukee Public Library’s "Milwaukee Mayors" digital collection. We consulted with the city’s Legislative Reference Bureau’s library manager, Eileen Lipinski, Gurda and Milwaukee City Clerk Jim Owczarski. We reviewed races up to the present day. Only a handful of aldermen or former aldermen have advanced to the mayor’s office, and none against an incumbent, Lipinski found after combing through records kept by the non-partisan research agency. A tough challenge What makes the leap from alderman to mayor so tough? After all, there’s only a couple hundred feet separating their second-floor offices in Milwaukee’s 119-year-old City Hall downtown. "Most alderman are very familiar to voters in their districts," offered Donovan. "But not citywide." There’s also a general fear among alderman about taking on any sitting mayor, for fear of losing and suffering retribution in terms of help for their districts, Donovan said. "I’m not accusing the mayor," said Donovan, who intends to run for both mayor and his district seat simultaneously. "That’s always a concern of aldermen. We’re only as good as what we can deliver." Donovan might not find as much comfort from Seidel’s example if he digs into the deep background on the Socialist. Seidel, we found, was elected in 1908 as an "alderman at large," which meant he had a citywide constituency, rather than representing a smaller geographical area. Our rating No Milwaukee alderman has defeated an incumbent to become mayor, according to Donovan. It’s relatively rare for aldermen or former aldermen to run for mayor. It’s even more rare for them to win. And none has ever bested a sitting mayor, experts agree. We rate Donovan’s statement True. | null | Bob Donovan | null | null | null | 2014-08-06T05:00:00 | 2014-07-29 | ['None'] |
farg-00017 | Said Democrats manufactured a death toll of 3,000 for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico to make him "look as bad as possible." | false | https://www.factcheck.org/2018/09/trumps-false-tweets-on-hurricane-marias-death-toll/ | null | the-factcheck-wire | FactCheck.org | Eugene Kiely | ['Hurricane Maria'] | Trump’s False Tweets on Hurricane Maria’s Death Toll | September 13, 2018 | 2018-09-13 21:36:05 UTC | ['Puerto_Rico'] |
snes-02518 | Tornado Carries Mobile Home 130 Miles, Family Inside Unharmed? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tornado-carries-mobile-home/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Tornado Carries Mobile Home 130 Miles, Family Inside Unharmed? | 23 August 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03271 | The name of Boxing Day comes from the need to rid the house of empty boxes the day after Christmas | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/boxing-day/ | null | Holidays | null | Snopes Staff | null | The Origins of Boxing Day | 7 November 2000 | null | ['None'] |
bove-00045 | Pakistani Ad Agency Behind Child Kidnapping Video Breaks Its Silence | none | https://www.boomlive.in/pakistani-ad-agency-behind-child-kidnapping-video-breaks-its-silence/ | null | null | null | null | null | Pakistani Ad Agency Behind Child Kidnapping Video Breaks Its Silence | Jul 06 2018 4:15 pm, Last Updated: Jul 06 2018 4:42 pm | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00007 | Card Cutter Car Robbery | bogus warning | http://www.hoax-slayer.net/card-cutter-car-robbery-hoax-warning/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Card Cutter Car Robbery Hoax Warning | January 25, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02080 | Congress has cut funding, has slashed funding, for veterans' benefits over these last years. | false | /punditfact/statements/2014/may/21/katrina-vanden-heuvel/katrina-vanden-heuvel-says-congress-has-slashed-fu/ | Allegations about secret wait lists and delays for veterans seeking care at VA facilities around the country have begun to reverberate in Washington. The controversy stemmed from a variety of reports about lengthy delays that may have contributed to veterans’ deaths, compounded by allegations of efforts to cover up the delays at several VA facilities, including one in Phoenix. By May 21, 2014, the concern had become so intense that President Barack Obama held a news conference following a meeting with Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki. Despite calls from some corners for Shinseki’s resignation, Obama did not say the VA secretary was stepping down. A few days earlier, the Sunday morning talk shows addressed the growing VA controversy. One of those who discussed the VA health care troubles on CBS’ Face the Nation was Katrina vanden Heuvel, the editor and publisher of the liberal magazine The Nation. "It's an outrage," vanden Heuvel said. "Those who are involved in these longer wait times must be held accountable, prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But I think we need to step back." She continued, "I mean, Congress has cut funding, has slashed funding, for veterans' benefits over these last years. If anyone should be offering their resignation, maybe the Congress should." Vanden Heuvel's claim is problematic for a pair of reasons. First, she said "veterans' benefits" -- which include disability payments, pensions, survivor benefits and programs like the G.I. Bill and vocational rehabilitation. Those programs are considered "mandatory spending," which means they’re paid by a statutory formula and are not subject to annual budgetary tinkering by Congress. What vanden Heuvel meant to refer to -- based on what she told us and the context of her comments -- was spending for the VA health system. Health system spending is considered "discretionary" spending and under the purview of Congress. But Congress hasn’t "cut" or "slashed funding to the VA health care system. This VA budget summary sheet shows that, far from being "slashed," discretionary spending on the VA has risen each year over the last decade. In fact, on Obama’s watch, the VA’s discretionary budget has risen from $47.8 billion in 2009 to $63.4 in 2014 -- a one-third increase over five years. When we reached out to vanden Heuvel, she acknowledged that the words she had used on Face the Nation made her statement inaccurate. "In the moment, I was not precise with my words and made it sound like Congress cut year-over-year funding, which is not what happened," vanden Heuvel said. Instead, she continued, "I should have said Congress systematically underfunded the VA, in part because they were slashing budgets generally." Vanden Heuvel said her point was that the Department of Veterans Affairs had been underfunded compared to what it should have been getting, and that Congress deserves some blame because it was clear that the agency was grappling with a backlog of old cases even as new claims continued to flood in. (As we were reporting our fact-check, vanden Heuvel posted a column that lays out her argument in greater detail.) Is her point valid? We aren’t able to say what, objectively, would be a proper level of departmental funding -- that’s a matter about which reasonable people can disagree. However, Congress has consistently agreed to to spend less money on the VA than Obama had requested. Since 2010, by our calculations, Congress has agreed to fund about $2 billion a year less, on average, in discretionary spending than Obama had sought. That’s a few percentage points on the president’s proposed budget every year. On the other hand, it’s not unusual for presidents, as a negotiating tactic, to make their initial budget proposal on the high side. And Obama himself eventually signed off on the lower funding levels when he signed the final spending bills. Our ruling On Face the Nation, Vanden Heuvel said, regarding the VA health care allegations, that "Congress has cut funding, has slashed funding, for veterans' benefits over these last years." That’s incorrect, as vanden Heuvel acknowledged to PunditFact. VA health care and "veterans’ benefits" aren’t the same thing, and the pot of money that paid for VA health care has gone up every year. No reasonable definition of "cut" -- much less "slash" -- fits the data, experts told us. We’re rating the claim she made on national television, and we rate it False. | null | Katrina vanden Heuvel | null | null | null | 2014-05-21T15:08:12 | 2014-05-18 | ['United_States_Congress'] |
pomt-02113 | Human activity is not "causing these dramatic changes to our climate." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2014/may/13/marco-rubio/marco-rubio-says-humans-are-not-causing-climate-ch/ | Scientists have been issuing more new reports on the irreversible effects of climate change in recent weeks. Two groups reported on May 12, 2014, that the global sea level will rise at least 10 feet, accelerating to a dangerous pace after the next century. Just a day before those reports were released, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sat down with ABC’s Jonathan Karl on This Week. Talk turned to climate change, where the possible Republican presidential candidate denied a link between humans and the changing environment. "I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it," he said. "And I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it. Except it will destroy our economy." We’ve noted before that Rubio has disputed the basic science of climate change. So when Rubio said human activity isn’t causing changes to the environment, he’s got it all wrong. In this case, Rubio framed his thoughts about climate change as his personal opinion. But the causes of global warming are backed up by thorough research, so we didn’t see room for debate in Rubio’s claim. Rubio’s said before, "I’m not a scientist, man." So PolitiFact reached out to scientists who could explain the facts behind climate change. We've rated similar claims False from Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry, but we'll rate it again because it's a persistent claim we see year after year. Rubio’s staff didn’t return our request for comment. How our climate is changing Historically, the earth goes through periods of hotter and cooler temperatures. So how do we know global warming isn’t a natural part of this cycle? By taking measurements, said Leonard Berry, director of Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Environmental Studies. "We can measure the fact that the earth is warming. We can measure the fact that the ocean is warming," Berry said. "While geological history shows warming and cooling periods, as far back as we go, none shows the kind of warming and the kind of changes we’re experiencing right now." Scientists trace back this shift to the Industrial Revolution, which began in 1760. Since that period, carbon dioxide rose 40 percent and methane by 150 percent. High levels of these and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere trap heat at the surface of the earth, warming the planet. By burning fossil fuels, chopping down trees, and using fertilizer, humans have directly contributed to global warming. The connection between increased levels of greenhouse gases and rising temperature has been confirmed by scientists for over a century, said Jennifer Francis, a Rutgers University marine and coastal sciences professor. "There is as much uncertainty about this connection as there is about what will happen when you drop an object," Francis said. "It will fall." The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is also on board with human activity as a cause. They reported that were it not for human impact, the likely effect of natural changes to the environment would’ve been one of cooling, not warming. They cite "very high confidence" that human activities caused a change of course. The U.S. Global Change Research program published a 2014 report on climate change. It doesn’t debate whether human activity causes climate change. Rather, it focuses on what actions to take to lessen its effects. A May 2013 report analyzing all scientific papers that address the causes of climate change showed 97.1 percent of findings that took a position agree that there’s been a negative human impact on the atmosphere. Comedian John Oliver cleverly addressed the debate’s conclusiveness on a recent Last Week Tonight episode by arranging a representative debate between 97 climate change scientists and three deniers. As a politician from Florida, Rubio must contend with research that pegs Miami and Tampa as two of the U.S. cities most likely to be impacted by climate change. Rising sea levels will make them more prone to flooding. "Whatever the cause of climate change, the impacts on Florida are already important and that it would be difficult for responsible people in Florida to ignore that fact," Berry said. Our ruling Rubio said human activity is not "causing these dramatic changes to our climate." An overwhelming majority of scientists agree that humans, by burning fossil fuels, contribute directly to global warming. Not only is Rubio incorrect, but he’s ignoring a mountain of concrete, scientific research. We rate his claim False. CORRECTION: This story was updated on May 15 to clarify that 97.1 percent of the studies that took a position on global warming agreed that there's been a negative human impact on the atmosphere; more than half the studies did not take a position. Also, the story clarifies that the 2013 report looked at studies, not individual scientists. | null | Marco Rubio | null | null | null | 2014-05-13T16:07:55 | 2014-05-11 | ['None'] |
pomt-13907 | Go look at a Trump product. They’re all made in China. | mostly false | /virginia/statements/2016/jun/27/thomas-perez/tom-perez-erroneously-tags-all-trump-products-made/ | U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez says Donald Trump does a fine job of creating jobs - in China. Perez made that dig in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch shortly before he gave the keynote speech at the Democratic Party of Virginia’s Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner on June 18. "Go look at a Trump product. They’re all made in China," Perez said. No doubt, many Trump products are made overseas, a point the presumptive GOP presidential nominee has acknowledged in debates and interviews. Perez went a few leaps beyond that in saying all Trump products are made in China. So we checked to see whether the secretary is right. We asked Perez’s office for the source of his information. Mattie Munoz, his press secretary at the Department of Labor, said that since his comments were made on private time during a political event, she couldn’t comment. She suggested contacting Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, which in turn forwarded our request to the Democratic Party of Virginia. Emily Bolton, a state Democratic Party spokeswoman, said she couldn’t comment on Perez’s statement but sent us links to a series of articles about Trump products that are made overseas. So we set out on our own window-shopping spree, eying items listed on The Trump Organization’s website and searching for where they are manufactured. We found that many Trump items are made in China, including cuff links, sport coats, shirts, eyeglasses, lamps and mirrors. It’s impossible to get an exact read on what percentage of items are from China, because many items don’t disclose their exact origin. Some listed on Amazon.com and other shopping websites merely say that they’re "imported." We emailed the Trump campaign twice to see what percentage of his products are made in China but didn’t get a response. China isn’t the only country that makes Trump products. The billionaire candidate acknowledged during a June 21 interview on ABC that his company manufactures neckties in China, suits in Mexico, furniture in Turkey, and barware in Slovenia. We found that some Trump ties were made in Indonesia and Vietnam in addition to China. Many Trump shirts were made in Bangladesh, and some sport coats were made in India. If you’re wondering, some Trump products also are made in the U.S., including the candidate’s iconic "Make America Great Again" baseball cap, which is manufactured in California. PunditFact gave a Pants on Fire rating in October to a claim made by Twitter users that the hats were made in China. Here are some other Trump products that we found are manufactured in the U.S.: •bedding comforters, advertised as being "master suite worthy"; •cologne, called "Success by Trump"; •Trump Natural Spring Water, served at Trump facilities. It’s bottled in Willington, Conn. by the Village Springs water company; and •Trump Wine, made on a 1,300-acre estate near Charlottesville. A disclaimer on the winery website says the GOP presidential candidate doesn’t personally own the winery, which is run by his son, Eric. We also found a few Trump suits online that were made in the U.S. Trump has said he’d like to make more products domestically, but the U.S. can’t compete with foreign countries that "manipulate their currencies" to reduce manufacturing costs. Trump’s overseas product lines have become a central campaign issue for Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee. In a June 21 speech, she accused the GOP candidate of hypocrisy for outsourcing his own products. Our ruling Perez said Trump’s products are "all made in China." There’s an element of truth to his statement in that Trump clearly relies on China to produce many products -- ties, shirts, cuff links, sport coats, jackets, lamps, eyeglasses and mirrors. That buttresses the labor secretary’s broader point that Trump relies on foreign labor to produce much of his product line. But Perez goes too far in saying all of Trump’s products are made in China. They come from a lot of other places as well. We rate his hyperbolic claim statement Mostly False.https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/53f7cb21-360f-4c93-873a-a05fbad270f5 | null | Thomas Perez | null | null | null | 2016-06-27T00:00:00 | 2016-06-18 | ['China'] |
tron-01502 | President Trump Announces $612 Stimulus Checks | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/donald-trump-612-checks/ | null | government | null | null | ['donald trump', 'presidencies', 'taxes'] | President Trump Announces $612 Stimulus Checks | Feb 15, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05265 | Iceland forgave the entire mortgage debt of its population, and a "media blackout" prevented Americans from learning about it. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/iceland-debt-forgiveness/ | null | Politics | null | David Mikkelson | null | Iceland Forgives Entire Population of Its Debt? | 4 February 2016 | null | ['United_States', 'Iceland'] |
pomt-04206 | The Broward Republican Executive Committee "had the liberal League of Women Voters Guide removed from the Broward Supervisor of Election's website." | half-true | /florida/statements/2012/dec/03/broward-republican-executive-committee/broward-gop-activists-claim-we-had-liberal-league-/ | It’s not easy being a Republican in Broward County -- home to the largest number of Democratic voters in Florida and a county where registered GOP voters are outnumbered two to one by Democrats. Beyond the numbers, Broward’s liberalism often makes amusing headlines -- from a 2002 gay mayoral candidate in Wilton Manors who said he was attacked for not being "gay enough," to a county commissioner in 2007 who questioned airing emergency warnings on the station that ran Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. It wasn’t a surprise that Democrats swept Broward and helped re-elect President Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson. But the Broward GOP also suffered the loss of two of their most prominent local Republicans: state Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff of Fort Lauderdale who lost after redistricting, and Sheriff Al Lamberti, who lost to Democrat Scott Israel. (They also had the blow of Fox News favorite U.S. Rep. Allen West moving out of Broward to the Treasure Coast and then losing.) Richard DeNapoli, chairman of the Broward Republican Executive Committee, or BREC, wrote a memo to the group listing accomplishments of the past year. Most of those accomplishments were nothing surprising, such as lining up volunteers and distributing thousands of Romney bumper stickers. But one accomplishment caught our eye: "We had the liberal League of Women Voters Guide removed from the Broward Supervisor of Election's website." We wanted to know, did the Broward GOP get the Broward Supervisor of Elections to remove a League of Women Voters guide from its website? And was that guide or is the League itself "liberal"? The League of Women Voters guide First, some background on the Florida League of Women Voters 2012 voters guide. The guide had short biographical sections and statements submitted by Obama and Mitt Romney. It also included bio information on U.S. Senate candidates Democrat Nelson and Republican Connie Mack and questionnaire responses from Nelson. (Mack chose not to answer the questionnaire.) It included a section on the state Supreme Court justices seeking retention, as well as the state’s constitution and a list of voter resources. The longest section was about the 11 proposed state constitutional amendments. The guide included a synopsis of each amendment and a brief explanation about what a "yes" or "no" vote would mean. The guide summarized conflicting viewpoints -- for example about a question on public funding of abortion: "Supporters say this amendment puts the state on even footing with the federal government. Opponents say it is a pre-emptive strike on a woman’s right to make her own health care choices." The guide didn’t just include opposing viewpoints -- it included analysis, such as noting a "yes" vote on a question about the health care law would add language to the state’s constitution that could be found unconstitutional. "Amendment 1 is more of a political referendum than a meaningful change to our Constitution. Since the Supreme Court has upheld the federal government’s right to impose the individual mandate, the legal standing of Amendment 1 is precarious," the guide said. "The passage or defeat of Amendment 1 may have no practical implications other than to send a message that a majority of Florida’s voters are either for or against the individual mandate." The guide didn’t endorse candidates or tell voters which way to vote on the amendments -- but the League did separately come out against the amendments. The guide, funded in part by Wells Fargo and American Express, was developed in conjunction with experts including the Collins Center for Public Policy, said Deidre Macnab, president of the Florida League, in an interview with PolitiFact Florida. League members distributed the guides at events and public libraries. The League did not request that it be linked to on the Broward Supervisor of Elections website, Macnab said. The voters guide on the Broward elections website DeNapoli said he learned the League’s guide was linked to the Broward Supervisor of Elections homepage sometime near the beginning of October. DeNapoli said he called Mary Cooney, a spokeswoman for Broward Supervisor Brenda Snipes, to express his concern. "As soon as you went to the Broward Supervisor of Elections home page it was glaringly right there," DeNapoli told PolitiFact Florida. DeNapoli said his goal was to get the guide off the home page: "If they bury the link (to the League’s website) way into the Supervisor of Elections website, that wasn’t our main concern." Within a day or two, the link was moved off the home page. "I made a decision to remove the brochure from our website after several calls, one of which was from Mr. DeNapoli," Snipes told PolitiFact Florida in an email. She also heard from the conservative news website BizPac Review which reported on DeNapoli’s efforts and then advocated removing the link from the website’s voter education page. When we searched the supervisor’s website on Nov. 27, we could only find the link to the guide if we typed "League of Women Voters" into the website’s search engine. Was the League’s voter guide liberal? So BREC did get the supervisor of elections to move the voters guide to a less prominent spot on its website. But is it accurate to call the guide or the League itself "liberal"? The national League of Women Voters was formed in 1920 from the movement to give women the right to vote, and it continues to advocate for voter education and participation. The Florida League formed in 1939 with the help of women in St. Petersburg and other cities. "But being nonpartisan does not mean we lack opinions, or the willingness to express them. Our opinions are formed after research, study and consensus," states the national League of Women Voters website. "We are passionate advocates – both women and men – who work to influence policy on specific issues by speaking out and putting pressure on our elected leaders." The national League has taken stances in favor of expanded early voting, backing the Affordable Care Act and calling on Obama to do more about climate change. The League also has a history of supporting abortion rights. We asked DeNapoli for his evidence that the League or its guide was liberal. He said he found the guide’s discussion of the amendments "slanted" and noted that the League separately came out against the amendments, and that the Republican Party of Florida supported the amendments (nearly all of them). Macnab said the League wasn’t the only group to oppose the amendments -- the Hillsborough County Republican Party opposed the majority of them. Ultimately Florida voters rejected most of the amendments. Macnab said the League has been consistent in its support of certain issues, but the parties have changed their stances. "We often get tagged with one name or another," she said. "We see it as a pretty age-old political tactic to divert voters’ attention." Our ruling The Broward Republican Executive Committee claimed on its website that in 2012, "We had the liberal League of Women Voters Guide removed from the Broward Supervisor of Election's website." The group’s chairman did contact the Broward elections office to complain about the guide, and the link was moved from the home page. It can now be found through a few clicks by using the search engine, but you have to know to look for it. It’s more difficult to say whether the League’s voter guide or the League itself is "liberal." Some of the national League’s stances on issues -- in favor of more early voting, in favor of tackling climate change and supporting the health care law -- do dovetail with current liberal positions. The League officially considers itself nonpartisan and independent. But the guide didn’t endorse candidates and gave them an equal chance to respond. The committee was mostly correct about getting the voters guide removed from the Broward website, but the guide wasn’t clearly "liberal." We rate this claim Half True. | null | Broward Republican Executive Committee | null | null | null | 2012-12-03T11:00:00 | 2012-11-05 | ['None'] |
pomt-14297 | Twenty-seven out-of-state pharmaceutical companies have raised more campaign dollars (against a drug price control measure) than all other state ballot measures have raised to date, combined. | half-true | /california/statements/2016/apr/04/californians-lower-drug-prices/big-pharma-not-king-ballot-spending-california-its/ | Big-time spending is expected in the fight over California’s ballot measures this election year. One expert estimates campaigns could dole out nearly a half billion dollars to influence the fate of the dozen or more initiatives expected on the November ballot. Eight have already qualified. They include a measure to overturn the state’s ban on single-use plastic bags; one to raise funds for school facilities; and another that would regulate the cost the state pays for prescription drugs. Campaigns for a dozen additional initiatives, including a proposed tobacco tax hike, are gathering signatures and could qualify their measures later this year. As money pours in for and against these initiatives, a claim by Californians for Lower Drug Prices caught our attention. The campaign is backing a measure on the November ballot that would impose price controls on state prescription drug purchases. Supporters call the initiative the California Drug Price Relief Act. And they say spending by the measure’s opponent has dwarfed all other fundraising. "Twenty-seven out-of-state pharmaceutical companies have raised more campaign dollars (against the prescription drug measure) than all other state ballot measures have raised to date, combined," Californians for Lower Drug Prices said in a March 21 press release. That campaign is funded by the Los Angeles-based nonprofit AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which offers health services and is often at odds with the pharmaceutical industry. We wondered was its claim about Big Pharma true? Had a group of pharmaceutical companies really outspent all other ballot campaigns, combined? How much did all that spending add up to? We set out on a fact check. Our research Californians Against The Misleading Rx Measure is the campaign opposing the ballot measure. It’s the one that is claimed to have outraised everyone by a wide margin. First, we checked to see if it’s contributions came from 27 "out-of-state pharmaceutical companies," as claimed by Californians For Lower Drug Prices. We found the campaign in question is sponsored by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturer’s Association of America, an industry group based in Washington D.C. And 27 of the 30 companies that had contributed to it are, indeed, from outside California, according to records on the secretary of state’s website. Johnson & Johnson of New Jersey and Pfizer, Inc., of New York, made the largest single contributions at $5.7 million each last year. Big Pharma is uniquely positioned to influence America’s political system. The pharmaceutical and health products industry spent more than $3.2 billion on lobbying from 1998 through 2015, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington D.C. based nonprofit that tracks money in politics. That was $1 billion more than the next sector, insurance. Also last year, the pharmaceutical industry had nearly 1,400 lobbyists working for it, the center reported. Capital Public Radio / file photo More than everyone, combined? Looking back at the California drug price measure, records show pharmaceutical companies spent nearly $53 million against it by mid-March. It’s a big sum, especially this early in the election year. The total ranks among the top 20 largest sums contributed by a campaign for or against a California initiative, according to the research group MapLight. But as we dug deeper, we found it’s not necessarily more that what’s been spent on all other 2016 ballot measures in the state, combined. It’s not even the highest total raised for an individual measure on this year’s November ballot. Another big money pot The $53 million from the pharma firms is certainly more than what’s been spent on all other ballot measures (about $33 million), but only if you look at what’s been doled out during the 2015-2016 election cycle. What’s missing is the huge sum -- nearly $59 million -- contributed by a California hospitals association over the past three years for a hospital fees measure on November’s ballot. Most of that money streamed in before this election cycle, because the measure was initially intended for the November 2014 ballot. When making its claim about the pharma cash, it appears Californians for Lower Drug Prices missed a big pot of money, said Ned Wigglesworth a Sacramento-based campaign strategist, who is not associated with either side on the prescription drug measure. "The statement (by Californians for Lower Drug Prices) doesn’t appear to be accurate," he said. "When you take a closer look at the (campaign) filings … you realize far more money has been raised." He estimated spending could eventually top $450 million for all measures on this year’s ballot. Representatives for the Californians for Lower Drug Prices campaign said they only looked at the 2015-2016 cycle, and "missed" the early money contributed by the hospital group. Kathy Fairbanks, a spokeswoman for the campaign backed by the pharma companies, said the claim about its spending "is an early snapshot," noting it’s expensive to campaign in a state as large as California. But because other campaigns are expected to pour in hundreds of millions of dollars in more spending, she said the claim "ignores the bigger picture. Look at (spending totals) in October." Our ruling Californians for Lower Drug Prices is backing a drug price control measure on the November ballot. In late March, it claimed: "Twenty-seven out-of-state pharmaceutical companies have raised more campaign dollars (against the drug measure) than all other state ballot measures have raised to date, combined." From our research, it’s clear that 27 of the 30 companies backing Californians Against The Misleading Rx Measure are, indeed, from outside California. Together they’ve amassed nearly $53 million, which dwarfs the $33 million spent on all other initiative campaigns during the 2015-2016 election cycle. But what’s also clear is that Californians for Lower Drug Prices did not count a large pot of money, nearly $59 million, collected by a hospital association for a separate ballot measure. It says it simply "missed" these funds because it was focused on the current election cycle. Much of the $59 million was contributed outside the timeframe used to make the claim, but it is money that was gathered to be spent on a November ballot measure. This doesn’t take away from the fact that pharma firms have aggressively spent funds, so much that their totals already are in the top 20 for cash contributed for any California ballot measure. But the omission of the hospital association money leaves out important details that would give a different impression. We rate the claim Half True. CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the pharmaceutical and health products industry spent more than $3.2 billion on lobbying efforts in 2015. The industry spent that total from 1998 through 2015. It spent $240 million in 2015, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Data from big-pharma-contributions.silk.co Source: California Secretary of State | null | Californians for Lower Drug Prices | null | null | null | 2016-04-04T00:00:00 | 2016-03-21 | ['None'] |
pomt-13931 | For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America. | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/22/donald-trump/trump-wrong-clintons-refugee-plan-would-cost-more-/ | A day after Hillary Clinton gave her list of Donald Trump’s many flaws on the economy, Trump returned the favor. In a speech from New York, he called her a "world-class liar" who has "spent her entire life making money for special interests." Trump delivered a broadside on Clinton’s immigration policies — to him, they represent "mass amnesty" and "open borders" — and blended those faults with her plans for refugees. "Hillary also wants to spend hundreds of billions to resettle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States, on top of the current record level of immigration," Trump said. "For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America." We asked the Trump campaign where he got those spending numbers and did not hear back. But as you’ll see, whatever number Clinton could conceivably spend resettling refugees come nowhere near what it would cost to rebuild America’s urban centers. The cost of refugees The only numbers we could find for Clinton’s budget plans were $15 million for immigrant integration services (from her campaign website), and $582 million to resettle 70,000 refugees. The second figure comes from an analysis of federal refugee spending by the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. We used that as one starting point. President Barack Obama seeks to increase the number of refugees accepted from around the world to 100,000. That includes 10,000 Syrian refugees. Clinton has said she wants to take in 65,000 Syrians. If we add her higher number to Obama’s, and we assume she wouldn’t trim his plan, we can estimate a total number of refugees of 155,000. Scaling up the dollar amounts, we can roughly estimate a total cost for her plan of about $1.3 billion. That is about half a percent of the "hundreds of billions" that Trump claimed. We also looked at the Obama administration’s FY 2017 budget request for refugee and entrant assistance. That is a bit under $2.2 billion for 100,000 refugees. When you add in the additional costs for more resettled Syrian refugees, you might get a budget in the neighborhood of $3 billion to $4 billion. The cost of rebuilding inner cities Trump used a term that generally refers to low-income urban neighborhoods. What he meant by rebuilding them is unclear. It could include rebuilding substandard housing, fixing aging water systems, investing in schools and job training, creating an enticing business environment, or any number of aspects of life where low-income communities are lacking. Solomon Greene, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, an academic center in Washington, told us he knows of no comprehensive study that added up the rehabilitation needs of every American city. He did, however, note that alone there is a $26 billion backlog to repair the nation’s public housing. "It’s a very conservative estimate," Greene said. "It only includes public housing, and that’s a small share of the low-income housing stock." Not all public housing is in urban centers, but Greene, a housing specialist, told us that the great majority of it is. New York City alone could use billions of dollars in improvements. The Center for an Urban Future, a research and policy group supported by funders ranging from MetLife to the Child Welfare Fund, estimated that fixing the Big Apple’s aging infrastructure would cost about $47 billion over five years. Researchers at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, an urban planning research center in Cambridge, Mass., found a number of estimates for different urban needs. The Federal Transit Administration estimated in 2013 that it will cost $85.9 billion to bring the nation’s transit systems to a state of good repair. The Council on Great City Schools said facility needs for schools in the 50 largest cities will cost $85 billion. The institute’s director George McCarthy estimated that it would cost $975 million just to demolish abandoned structures in Detroit. We could go further, but the numbers are clear. Barely scratching the surface of the needs of America’s cities, we find a price tag of over $225 billion. Even if Clinton doubled the Obama administration’s funding for refugees, the money would barely make a dent. Our ruling Trump said that Clinton wants to spend hundreds of billions on refugees and for that money, "we could rebuild every inner city in America." Trump’s campaign provided no supporting numbers. Clinton has not said how much she would spend on refugees, but the Obama administration request for FY 2017 is about $2.2 billion. That figure could increase for Clinton, as she has said she wants to take in more Syrian refugees. If it doubles or even triples, it is nowhere near "hundreds of billions." It is also a scant fraction of the price tag to rebuild America’s inner cities. There is no comprehensive tally of what it would take to deal with substandard housing and infrastructure, but we quickly found a backlog of about $225 billion in projects. Trump’s numbers are off by a huge margin. We rate this claim Pants on Fire. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/939f9175-5c91-4f06-aeae-8acc8af38c08 | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-06-22T17:03:08 | 2016-06-22 | ['United_States', 'Hillary_Rodham_Clinton'] |
pomt-05833 | A 10-year state program that created 202 jobs at a cost of $247,000 per job was approved by former Gov. Jim Doyle. | pants on fire! | /wisconsin/statements/2012/feb/17/scott-walker/gov-scott-walker-says-247000-job-capco-program-was/ | Issue No. 1 in Madison: Jobs. Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers of both parties say the state should be doing more, with much debate centered on proposals to boost companies poised for rapid growth. The idea is for the state to use millions of dollars to "seed" venture capital funds -- pools of money that are invested in young firms with high growth potential. But legislation has been bogged down by a debate over whether or not to use state certificated capital companies, or CAPCOs, to handle the investments. A previous $50 million program, which ran from 1999 through 2008, used three out-of-state CAPCO firms and had disappointing results. A Journal Sentinel analysis determined it resulted in the creation of only 202 new jobs at a cost of $247,000 per job. The Feb. 12, 2012 story said the program was the result of poorly drafted legislation and had minimal state oversight. The headline: "State spent millions for 202 jobs." Facing a near-certain recall election, Walker that day used his Twitter account to highlight the story as a failure of the previous administration, that of Democrat Jim Doyle. (Other tweets included the fact he stopped for ham and rolls after church.) His tweet: "Headline ‘State spends millions for 202 jobs’, missed rest of sentence:, ‘under program approved by Gov Doyle.’" In other words, the poor performing program was created under Doyle. And that’s where the blame should fall, Walker says. Did Doyle approve the plan? The legislation creating the program was introduced in 1997 and passed and signed into law the following year -- not by Democrat Doyle, but by then-Gov. Tommy Thompson, a fellow Republican now running for a U.S. Senate vacancy. Doyle didn’t take office until 2003, five years after the CAPCO bill was signed. Indeed, the proposal had bipartisan support. It was authored by Democratic state Sen. Gwen Moore, now a congresswoman from Milwaukee. Among the 89 members of the state Assembly who voted in favor of the bill March 25, 1998: Walker himself. Walker’s tweet gained a broader audience the following day. WTMJ radio talk show host Charlie Sykes picked up on the topic and in a three minute segment linked Doyle to the CAPCO program five times. He called it "a Jim Doyle idea," and said the program was "one of Jim Doyle’s signature venture capital bills." In an email, Sykes acknowledged that the program was created under Thompson. And he pointed out that Walker had tweeted on the subject the day before. We asked Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie to explain the tweet, but he didn’t respond. Our conclusion In the wake of a story about poor jobs results of a state-sponsored program, Walker sought to pin the blame on his predecessor, Jim Doyle. But he was off by five years, two governors -- Thompson and successor Scott McCallum -- and one political party. As governor, Doyle didn’t have anything to do with approving the CAPCO bill. But as an Assembly member, Scott Walker did. Pants on Fire. | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2012-02-17T09:00:00 | 2012-02-12 | ['Jim_Doyle'] |
snes-03151 | Sarah Palin blamed the Fort Lauderdale shooting on "Mexican Muslim" immigrants. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sarah-palin-blames-mexican-muslims/ | null | Junk News | null | Bethania Palma | null | Sarah Palin Blames ‘Mexican Muslim’ Immigration for Fort Lauderdale Shooting? | 12 January 2017 | null | ['Fort_Lauderdale,_Florida', 'Sarah_Palin'] |
pomt-15237 | I took the state of Ohio from an $8 billion hole … to a $2 billion surplus. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/aug/06/john-kasich/kasich-i-took-state-ohio-8-billion-hole-2-billion-/ | During the Republican presidential debate on his home turf of Cleveland, Ohio Gov. John Kasich touted his economic record in the state. Repeating a claim he has often made -- including on his campaign website -- Kasich said, "I took the state of Ohio from an $8 billion hole … to a $2 billion surplus." We decided to take a closer look. An $8 billion hole? There’s an argument for $8 billion, but there’s also an argument for something closer to $6 billion, according to a deep dive by the Cleveland Plain Dealer in 2011. The $8 billion figure is rounded up from a $7.7 billion gap between spending and expected revenues. It was an initial estimate from January 2011, based on the assumption made several months earlier that there would be no new revenue growth. However, revenues did grow as the economy rebounded that year, reducing the gap to between $5.9 billion to $6.1 billion -- a calculation that Kasich’s budget director, Tim Keen, agreed with "conceptually" in a 2011 interview with the newspaper, though he took issue with some of the methodological details. Whatever the number, Kasich avoided a potential misstep when he spoke of this in the debate as a "hole" rather than a deficit, since Ohio, like most states, cannot run an actual budget deficit. The $8 billion gap is more accurately described as a projected shortfall rather than a deficit. A $2 billion surplus? This figure is clearer. The state’s Office of Budget and Management reported in July 2015 that the state’s "rainy day fund" had a little more than $2 billion in it, up from effectively zero when Kasich took office in 2011. Does Kasich deserve credit? It’s not unreasonable to give Kasich some credit for the state’s improving economic fortunes -- he is a governor, after all, and he forged the state’s fiscal policy in concert with the Legislature. But it’s important to remember that he took office at the very beginning of the national economic recovery, and as the national economy has improved, so has Ohio’s. When Kasich was inaugurated in January 2011, the unemployment rate in Ohio was 9.2 percent -- exactly the same as the national rate. Today, the national unemployment rate is 5.3 percent and the rate in Ohio is 5.2 percent. So Kasich’s timing has been fortunate. Our ruling Kasich said, "I took the state of Ohio from an $8 billion hole … to a $2 billion surplus." It’s possible to argue over whether the initial amount should be $6 billion rather than $8 billion. But Kasich didn’t pull that figure out of thin air, and it certainly was high by historical standards. He also used the term "hole," which is more appropriate than "deficit" would have been. Meanwhile, the $2 billion figure seems solid. Still, it’s worth noting that Kasich spoke a little grandly when he said that "I" did it, since the state’s fiscal improvement got a big assist from the national economic recovery. The statement is accurate but needs additional information, so we rate it Mostly True. | null | John Kasich | null | null | null | 2015-08-06T23:32:04 | 2015-08-06 | ['Ohio'] |
pose-00028 | Will address the infrastructure challenge by creating a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to expand and enhance, not supplant, existing federal transportation investments. This independent entity will be directed to invest in our nation's most challenging transportation infrastructure needs. The Bank will receive an infusion of federal money, $60 billion over 10 years, to provide financing to transportation infrastructure projects across the nation. These projects will create up to two million new direct and indirect jobs and stimulate approximately $35 billion per year in new economic activity. | promise broken | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/31/create-a-60-billion-bank-to-fund-roads-and-bridge/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Create a $60 billion bank to fund roads and bridges | 2010-01-07T13:26:46 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10478 | Obama served on a board with former Weather Underground member William Ayers and "that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11." | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/apr/16/hillary-clinton/obama-served-on-board-with-ayers/ | A little-known relationship in Sen. Barack Obama's past — one that had been buzzing in mostly conservative circles for months — took a very public turn Wednesday night during a Democratic debate in Philadelphia. It relates to Obama's relationship with William C. Ayers, a onetime member of the Weather Underground, a leftist fringe of the 1960s antiwar movement. Known as the Weathermen, the group was responsible for bombings of the New York City police headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971 and of the Pentagon in 1972. During the debate, moderator George Stephanopoulos asked Obama about his relationship with Ayers, as part of a discussion about Obama's patriotism. "An early organizing meeting for your state Senate campaign was held at his house and your campaign has said you are 'friendly,' " Stephanopoulos said. Stephanopoulos quoted a New York Times story, published Sept. 11, 2001, in which Ayers was quoted as saying: "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Asked Stephanopoulos: "Can you explain that relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?" Obama downplayed the relationship. "This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who's a professor of English in Chicago who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from," Obama said. "He's not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis. "And the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense, George." Sen. Hillary Clinton then piled on. "I also believe that Senator Obama served on a board with Mr. Ayers for a period of time, the Woods Foundation, which was a paid directorship position. And, if I'm not mistaken, that relationship with Mr. Ayers on this board continued after 9/11 and after his reported comments, which were deeply hurtful to people in New York and, I would hope, to every American, because they were published on 9/11, and he said that he was just sorry they hadn't done more." We need to point out that it was merely a coincidence the remarks were published in the New York Times on Sept. 11 and they had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks that day. They were referring to activities by the Weather Underground in the 1970s. Deborah Harrington, president of the Woods Fund, a philanthropic organization in Chicago, said Obama was a director from 1994 through 2001. That overlaps Ayers' time as a director by three years. It also means Obama served with Ayers for the final months of 2001, after Ayers made his comments to the New York Times. Ayers, now a professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago (not English as Obama stated), is still on the seven-member Woods Fund board. In 2001, Ayers wrote a book, ''Fugitive Days'' — he called it a memoir — in which he wrote that he participated in the bombings of New York City police headquarters, the Capitol building and the Pentagon. But in a review of the book, the New York Times noted that Ayers coyly noted that some of the book was fiction. Last week, Ayers defended the September 2001 comments on his blog stating: "I'm sometimes asked if I regret anything I did to oppose the war in Vietnam and I say: No, I don't regret anything I did to stop the slaughter of millions of human beings by my own government." Obama has minimized his relationship with Ayers. Campaign finance reports show Ayers donated $200 to Obama's re-election campaign in 2001. In the spirit of fairness, we should note that just before leaving office, President Bill Clinton pardoned Susan L. Rosenberg who, according to a New York Times story in 2001, was "a onetime member of the Weather Underground terrorist group who was charged in the notorious 1981 Brink's robbery in Rockland County that left a guard and two police officers dead." But as for Clinton's comments about Obama's relationship with Ayers, we rate them True. | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2008-04-16T00:00:00 | 2008-04-16 | ['Bill_Ayers', 'Weather_Underground', 'Barack_Obama'] |
Subsets and Splits
SQL Console for pszemraj/multi_fc
Filters dataset entries containing 'law' in categories, tags, or reason fields, providing basic topic classification but offering limited analytical insight beyond simple keyword matching.
Healthcare Related Entries
Retrieves sample records containing healthcare-related keywords but doesn't provide meaningful analysis or patterns beyond basic filtering.