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pomt-03431 | Says 97 percent of food stamp benefits "are paid in the proper amounts to people who are really eligible." | true | /texas/statements/2013/jun/25/pete-gallego/pete-gallego-says-97-percent-food-stamp-benefits-r/ | Opposing Republican-proposed cuts in food stamps, U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego suggested the program doesn’t waste money. After airing qualms about cutting "things that work well" during a May 15, 2013, meeting of the House Agriculture Committee, the Alpine Democrat said some government programs have high error rates, but error rates for food stamps, meaning the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, "are only 3 percent... Ninety seven percent of SNAP benefits are paid in the proper amounts to people who are really eligible." Food stamps, which help beneficiaries buy groceries, often stir strong claims. In March 2013, PolitiFact in Washington rated Pants on Fire the declaration that 70 percent of the program’s funding went to its employees. The broadest calculation of SNAP administrative costs topped out at 5 percent of its costs. In December 2012, PolitiFact Ohio rated as True a claim that growth in food stamp participation had trailed increases in unemployment, while in August 2012, we rated as True a claim that one in seven American families is on food stamps. According to the Agriculture Department, a record 46.6 million residents participated in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2012, up from 44.7 million the year before and 40.3 million in fiscal 2010. As of March 2013, more than 1.6 million Texas households were enrolled. Fraud concerns Food stamp fraud occasionally draws attention, too. A Feb. 6, 2012, Reuters news story quoted Kevin Concannon, U.S. Department of Agriculture undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, as saying that fraud at that time accounted for 1 percent of food stamp benefits, while costing the government $750 million a year. "This is $750 million that isn't being used to provide food to individuals and families, and that issue isn't lost on us," Concannon said. The story said the program's "biggest step forward in fraud prevention came in 2004, when the government replaced paper coupons with plastic cards that are loaded electronically like debit cards." Concannon also said the program was adding high-tech strategies to its enforcement quiver, the story said, among them plans to work with social media firms and a data mining company to root out abuse. The agency has a website to solicit food-stamp fraud tips. "While administrators work to reduce payment errors," the story said, "the USDA is collaborating with state agencies to investigate recipients suspected of committing fraud or misusing benefits. It also will seek tougher penalties for stores engaged in trafficking. Trafficking generally takes the form of users ‘selling’ their benefits for roughly 50 cents on the dollar to brick-and-mortar retailers or to individuals found via websites like eBay or Facebook." Basis of claim Gallego’s claim did not speak directly to trafficking scams. But are 97 percent of food stamp benefits paid in proper amounts to eligible residents, as he said? By email, Gallego spokeswoman Rebecca Acuña attributed the percentage to research by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal, Washington, D.C.-based think tank. In a blog post revised May 16, 2013, the center said the House committee-approved version of the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013, which Gallego and committee members were discussing when he spoke, would cut SNAP by almost $21 billion over the next decade, eliminating food assistance to nearly 2 million low-income people, mostly working families with children and senior citizens. The center said in a May 10, 2013, blog post: "Only 3 percent of SNAP benefits represent overpayments, meaning they either went to ineligible households or went to eligible households but in excessive amounts. SNAP achieved its lowest error rate on record in fiscal year 2011, with a national overpayment rate of just 2.99 percent (see graph). The underpayment rate that year was 0.81 percent. Thus, the net loss to the federal government — the amounts lost through overpayments minus those saved by underpayments — was only 2.2 percent." An accompanying graph, which we show below, was headlined: "SNAP Error Rates Are at an All-Time Low." Also, the center said, relatively "few payment errors reflect dishonesty or fraud. The overwhelming majority result from honest mistakes by recipients, eligibility workers, data entry clerks, or computer programmers. States report that almost 60 percent of the dollar value of overpayments and almost 90 percent of the dollar value of underpayments were their fault, not recipients’. Much of the rest of the overpayments resulted from innocent errors by households that had trouble navigating SNAP’s complex rules." Government data Information posted online by the Agriculture Department tracks with the center’s blog post, stating that in the fiscal year that ran through September 2011, 2.99 percent of SNAP benefits were overpayments and 0.81 percent were underpayments. Wyoming had the highest share of overpayments that year, at 7.63 percent, and Alaska had the lowest, 0.53 percent, while 2.63 percent of SNAP payments in Texas were overpayments, according to the information. Overpayments were more prevalent in previous years, annual department reports indicate, though the incidence dropped each year after fiscal 2006, when overpayments accounted for 4.82 percent of benefits. In fiscal 2000, in contrast, SNAP overpayments accounted for 6.51 percent of its benefits. By email, Agriculture Department spokeswoman Elena Gaona told us information on overpayments of SNAP benefits in fiscal 2012 are due to be released by the end of June 2013. An independent analysis Separately, we contacted Kay Brown, an analyst who has studied the food stamp program for the General Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Brown said by telephone that she has "no problem" with Gallego’s wording in that the government does assess whether the proper amounts are paid to eligible recipients. Brown also said told us improper payments caused by participants’ failures to report required, complete or correct information, such as household income and composition, don’t necessarily indicate attempts to cheat, though for a May 5, 2005 GAO report, "we could not determine the percentage of payment errors that involve participants intentionally withholding information." Nationally in 2003, the report said, "about 5 percent of all payment errors were referred for fraud investigation. Data are not available, however, to determine what percentage of these error cases resulted in disqualifying participants because of fraud." The report said that almost two-thirds of food stamp payment errors were caused by government caseworkers, usually when they failed to keep up with reported changes or make mistakes applying program rules. Some one-third of payment errors were caused by participants’ failures to report required, complete or correct information, such as household income and composition, the report said. Our ruling Gallego said 97 percent of food stamp benefits "are paid in the proper amounts to people who are really eligible." We are mindful this claim did not speak to misdeeds that can occur once someone receives food stamps. Setting that aside, nearly 3 percent of such payments were overpayments in fiscal 2011, the latest year of available data, and nearly 1 percent were underpayments, according to the government. That’s a total of about 96 percent. Gallego’s statement comes close enough. We rate it as True. | null | Pete Gallego | null | null | null | 2013-06-25T10:00:00 | 2013-05-15 | ['None'] |
chct-00072 | Here's How Much Food The US Wastes Each Year | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/08/24/fact-check-40-percent-food-waste/ | null | null | null | Emily Larsen | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 5:33 PM 08/24/2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-06274 | Says Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that "if he has a nuclear weapon he will use it to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. He will use it against the United States of America." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/nov/23/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-says-iran-has-threatended-launch-/ | Responding to a hypothetical question about whether the United States should support an attack against Iran by Middle East-ally Israel, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann noted that Iran already has announced plans to strike Israel. "They've stated, as recently as August just before President (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad came ... to the U.N. General Assembly. He said that he wanted to eradicate Israel from the face of the Earth," Bachmann said during the Nov. 22, 2011, CNN debate. "He has said that if he has a nuclear weapon he will use it to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. He will use it against the United States of America." The claim from Bachmann isn’t new -- she said something similar during an Iowa campaign event in October. But is it correct? The genesis appears to be an hourlong August interview Ahmadinejad gave to Al-Manar TV, a network based in Lebanon. This is a link to the interview. Ahmadinejad’s comments appear to be translated from Persian into Arabic. We could not find a copy of the entire interview that had been translated in English, but there are a few English-language news reports that translate selected comments from the Iranian leader. We reached out to Bachmann’s campaign but did not hear back. The website Haaretz.com, an online edition of an Israeli newspaper, quoted Ahmadinejad as saying Iran was determined to eradicate Israel. The website wrote: "Iran believes that whoever is for humanity should also be for eradicating the Zionist regime (Israel) as symbol of suppression and discrimination," Ahmadinejad said in an interview with a Lebanese television network, carried by ISNA. "Iran follows this issue (the eradication of Israel) with determination and decisiveness and will never ever withdraw from this standpoint and policy," the Iranian president added in the interview with the Al-Manar network. In both quotes Israel is included in parentheses, which means Ahmadinejad never said the word. The "ISNA" the report refers to is likely the Iranian Student's News Agency. We should also note that there has been some concern over how Ahmadinejad’s statements have been translated into English. In 2005, several sources reported Ahmadinejad as saying Israel should "be wiped off the map." However, several experts believed Ahmadinejad’s actual comments to be inflated. "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to wipe Israel off the map because no such idiom exists in Persian," Juan Cole, a Middle East specialist at the University of Michigan told the New York Times. "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse." For this fact-check, we’re not saying these most recent comments are translated accurately, or inaccurately. We’re simply saying you should read them with a note of caution. However, where Bachmann misstepped was by accusing Ahmadinejad of saying he planned to use a nuclear weapon against Israel or the United States. Iran and Ahmadinejad have maintained that they are not pursuing nuclear weapons, and that they are only pursuing nuclear energy. Here’s how Ahmadinejad put it during an October interview with CNN. "We have already expressed our views about nuclear bombs. We said those who are seeking to build nuclear bombs or those who stockpile, they are politically and mentally retarded. We think they are stupid because the era of nuclear bombs is over," he said. "Iran, for example, should continue its efforts and tolerate all international treasures only to build a nuclear bomb or a few nuclear bombs that are useless? They can never be used? And is not capable of confronting with the U.S. nuclear arsenals? The overall budget of our national atomic energy agency is $250 million, and the whole budget is aimed at peaceful activities. "But the government of the United States only allocated $80 million for rebuilding the nuclear bombs. I think Iranians are clever enough to see that with this limited amount of money, $250 million, we are not able to be at war with the other side." Many westerners, and most Republicans, think Ahmadinejad is lying. Ahmadinejad has said that he believes the U.S. government orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to "reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order also to save the Zionist regime." He also has criticized the United States abducting Africans and turning them into slaves, has said some European countries are still using the Holocaust to "pay ransom" to Jews living in Israel and said the United States economy relies on waging wars and selling weapons. But we’re focusing on Bachmann’s actual statement during the Nov. 22 debate. She paraphrased Ahmadinejad as saying, "He has said that if he has a nuclear weapon he will use it to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. He will use it against the United States of America." Ahmadinejad has said some tough things about the United States and Israel, but we find no evidence that he has said he would use a nuclear weapon against either country. In fact, he has maintained Iran has no interest in building one. We rate this claim False. | null | Michele Bachmann | null | null | null | 2011-11-23T14:57:57 | 2011-11-22 | ['United_States', 'Israel', 'Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad'] |
goop-00168 | Celine Dion In Romance With Young Hunk? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/celine-dion-dating-boyfriend-dancer-pepe-munoz/ | null | null | null | Gossip Cop Staff | null | Celine Dion In Romance With Young Hunk? | 3:15 pm, October 6, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01499 | Jared Kushner scrubbed his Twitter account shortly after Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III revealed charges against three former Trump campaign officials in October 2017. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-jared-kushner-scrub-his-twitter-account-after-manafort-indictment/ | null | Politics | null | Dan Evon | null | Did Jared Kushner Scrub His Twitter Account After Manafort Indictment? | 30 October 2017 | null | ['Robert_Mueller', 'Jared_Kushner'] |
pomt-00534 | On timing of announcement for president. | full flop | /wisconsin/statements/2015/jun/19/scott-walker/scott-walker-changes-marker-when-hell-announce-201/ | For months, Gov. Scott Walker has said enacting a new state budget is so important that he would not announce whether he will run for president until one is in place. Along the way, Walker has expressed confidence -- with fellow Republicans in control of both chambers of the Legislature -- that the two-year budget will be adopted by June 30, 2015. That’s the end of the state’s fiscal year, though if lawmakers miss the deadline, spending simply continues at current levels. Unlike the federal government, there is no shutdown. But in recent days, GOP lawmakers have struggled to reach agreement over transportation funding, a proposed new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks and other matters -- putting the June 30, 2015 deadline in jeopardy. Walker, meanwhile, is eyeing July 13, 2015 as a potential presidential announcement date, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has reported. And now Walker is saying his marking point is -- and has long been -- the end of the fiscal year, not the date work on the budget is completed. What gives? Time to roll out the Flip-O-Meter, which tests whether a politician has changed position on an issue. Our requisite reminder: It does not measure whether any change is good or bad policy or politics, only whether the candidate has been consistent. A recent chronology of Walker’s statements on the budget and a presidential announcement show he has repeatedly said any presidential announcement would only come after work on the budget is completed -- that is, the Legislature approves a budget and he signs it: April 22, 2015: Walker says while visiting a business in Grand Chute, Wis.: "I won't make any decision until after the budget's complete." May 7, 2015: The Associated Press reports Walker said he would make no announcement "of any kind" about running for president until after the state budget is signed. May 17, 2015: Walker says on CBS’ "Face the Nation" he’ll announce whether he’s formally jumping into the race after he completes work on the state budget. May 30, 2015: Campaigning in New Hampshire, Walker says: "For us, we have yet to make an announcement. We’ll do that after our budget is done, at the end of June." June 3, 2015: Walker tells "Fox & Friends" about a 2016 presidential bid: "I haven't made an announcement yet and won't until after the budget's done at the end of this month." Contrast that with what Walker told reporters June 18, 2015 in Ripon, Wis. When asked about his 2016 announcement plans, Walker told reporters: "For us, my goal has always been to get through the end of the budget year which ends June 30th. We'll see after that. Sometime in July is a pretty good time." That’s a change -- something immediately picked up on in the media. When we asked Walker campaign spokeswoman AshLee Strong about the change in Walker’s statements, she said by email: "As the governor has said, he is optimistic an agreement will be reached in the coming weeks. When we have a public announcement, we will let you know." Our rating Walker has repeatedly said he would not make an announcement on whether he’ll run for president until after work is complete on the 2015-’17 state budget -- with his hope being that the budget would be in place by June 30, 2015, the end of the state’s fiscal year. Now with that deadline in jeopardy, Walker is changing what he said. He claims he always wanted to merely get past the June 30, 2015 deadline before announcing his plans for 2016. In other words, Walker no longer is saying a budget has to be in place before he’ll make his announcement. For that reversal of position, we give Walker a Full Flop. To comment on this item, go to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s web page. | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2015-06-19T16:05:06 | 2015-06-18 | ['None'] |
goop-02669 | Ben Affleck “Worried” About Jennifer Garner, Chelsea Handler Hanging Out, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ben-affleck-not-worried-jennifer-garner-chelsea-handler-hanging-out-friends/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Ben Affleck NOT “Worried” About Jennifer Garner, Chelsea Handler Hanging Out, Despite Claim | 1:15 pm, July 15, 2017 | null | ['Ben_Affleck', 'Jennifer_Garner'] |
snes-02867 | In the first 45 days of 2017, 179 children went missing in the state of Indiana. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/179-kids-missing-indiana-2017/ | null | Crime | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Did 179 Children Go Missing in Indiana in the First 47 Days of 2017? | 28 February 2017 | null | ['Indiana'] |
snes-01326 | A 2006 photograph shows 'The View' host Joy Behar grabbing Robin Williams' crotch. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/joy-behar-grabbed-robin-williams-by-the-crotch/ | null | Politics | null | Bethania Palma | null | Did ‘View’ Host Joy Behar Grab Robin Williams by the Crotch? | 15 December 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05274 | Mexican citizens are required to have government-issued photo ID cards in order to vote in federal elections. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mexico-voter-id/ | null | Politics | null | David Mikkelson | null | How to Vote in Mexico | 11 August 2015 | null | ['Mexico'] |
pomt-04563 | Says that "you can’t destroy the guns purchased in a (gun) buyback program as the city (of Memphis) wants to do." | false | /tennessee/statements/2012/sep/26/stacey-campfield/campfield-claimed-memphis-destroy-guns-buy-back/ | Colorful State Sen. Stacey Campfield seems to court controversy, particularly in his blog, Camp4u. So it was no real surprise when he took a reproachful tone in blog posts on Sept. 11 about the "gas for guns" program announced the day before by the City of Memphis and the Memphis Police Department. The city held a press conference on Sept. 10 to announce that on Sept. 15, it would conduct an event in which it would give people a $50 Mapco gas card plus two tickets to a Memphis Grizzlies basketball game for turning in a gun. The idea was to get guns off the streets, and 497 guns were exchanged for the cards and tickets at the event. The city said most of the guns would be "destroyed." "I don’t think they can do that," Campfield wrote in his first blog post on the gas for guns program, adding that "…the point of this post is that the city is saying they intend on destroying the guns they buy. I may be wrong but didn’t we change the law to say they have to resell the guns now?" The senator cited the Tennessee legislature passing a bill in 2010 regarding what local law enforcement can do with guns but acknowledged he might be wrong with exactly whether it applied to gun "buyback" programs similar to the Memphis initiative. Nearly an hour later, Campfield posted a second item that sounded as if he had verified that the city’s program could not destroy the guns as it intended. Under the headline "Sorry Memphis," the senator wrote: "I was right. The city of Memphis/Memphis PD is wrong (I know, a real shocker). As I recalled, you can’t destroy the guns purchased in a gun buy program as the city wants to do. They have to be re sold (sic) to a licensed gun dealer. Someone should alert them. I would hate to see our law enforcement in violation of the law." Clearly, somebody was firing a dud, so we decided to look into the matter. Campfield was recalling the 2010 law that prohibits local law enforcement from destroying certain guns, but his recollection was a little off on which guns. Tennessee Code Annotated 39-17-1317 governs the disposition of "confiscated weapons" only, and the 2010 amendment to the statute removed destruction of guns as an option for confiscated guns, unless they are certified by local police as "inoperable or unsafe." But otherwise, after a confiscated gun is no longer needed for evidence, local law enforcement may ask a court to declare it contraband. "Any weapon declared contraband shall be sold in a public sale or used for legitimate law enforcement purposes, at the discretion of the court." The law goes on to say how the gun must be sold -- a public auction or through a private gun dealer. When the 2010 amendment was briefly discussed in the legislature, its sponsors said it was sought by the National Rifle Association. The NRA in fact posted on its website an alert encouraging its members to urge then-Gov. Phil Bredesen to sign it into law. He did. Campfield linked to the NRA’s 2010 alert in his blog post, but even the alert made note that the law applies only to confiscated guns: The bill "would prohibit the destruction of confiscated firearms and require them to be auctioned off or sold to a federally licensed firearms dealer," it said. But can guns voluntarily surrendered by people to the police – even if in exchange for cash or gasoline debit cards or pro basketball tickets – be considered "confiscated" under the law? Ultimately, that may be a question for the courts if anyone challenges the legality of the program, but our dictionary says "confiscate" means "appropriated by the government; forfeited; deprived of property by confiscation," and "to seize as forfeited to the public treasury; to seize by authority." Memphis believes its program is within the state law, city spokeswoman Mary Cashiola wrote in an email to The Commercial Appeal: "The firearms collected during Saturday’s Gas for Guns event will be turned in voluntarily by citizens. . . . The Memphis Police Department will take possession of the exchanged weapons and will handle these weapons in accordance with State law." The state attorney general’s office does not appear to have rendered a legal opinion on the statute, so we turned to Nashville lawyer John Harris, a gun advocate who founded the Tennessee Firearms Association. Harris told us in an email hat he doesn’t believe the law prohibits Memphis from destroying guns obtained through the gas for guns initiative. "As I understand it, TCA 39-17-1317 only applies to weapons that were ‘possessed, used or sold in violation of the law’ and, based on that use, ‘confiscated by a law enforcement officer and declared to be contraband by a court of record exercising criminal jurisdiction.’ The prohibition on the destruction of such weapons under this statute (with limited exceptions) thus only applies to those weapons that were specifically ‘confiscated’ and ‘declared to be contraband’. I do not think that the statute would apply on its face to firearms ‘buy back’ programs conduct by state or local agencies." Harris did say, however, that he believes the "intentional destruction of functional weapons violates the spirit of the law" and that he anticipates that the TFA will seek to close the buyback loophole. "While it might appear to be ‘politically correct’ to destroy legal items with material value, it’s foolish and government should not be doing foolish things," he said. Contacted by PolitiFact on Sept. 20, Campfield said he had already changed his mind on his blog post, after speaking with legislative lawyers. "For buybacks, it is different than for guns confiscated. The way it was originally written it would have covered buybacks. But when I had legal look at it, I don’t think it covers buybacks. All the early stuff I had said, no they can’t do it." Our ruling It is PolitiFact policy to take into account when someone later acknowledges an original claim was somehow incorrect. Often, those statements are made during live interviews, but in this case Campfield took the time to write up and post not one but two items onto his blog declaring that it would be illegal for Memphis to destroy guns purchased in a buy-back program. Campfield hadn’t altered his blog post as of this writing. We give him a ruling of False. | null | Stacey Campfield | null | null | null | 2012-09-26T10:59:46 | 2012-09-11 | ['None'] |
snes-04831 | A video shows a 'self-driving bicycle' created by Google. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/google-self-driving-bicycle/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Google’s Self-Driving Bike | 30 April 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13517 | Says Alex Jones "said that the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre were child actors and no one was actually killed there." | true | /texas/statements/2016/sep/01/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-correct-austins-alex-jones-said-no/ | Suggesting connections between right-wing hate groups and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton brought up talk-show host Alex Jones, a Texas-based pro-Trump conspiracy theorist who runs InfoWars.com. Jones, Clinton declared Aug. 25, 2016, "even said, and this really just is so disgusting, he even said the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre were child actors and no one was actually killed there. I don’t know what happens in somebody’s mind or how dark their heart must be to say things like that." The same day, Jones disputed Clinton’s statement, telling viewers of his Austin-based program that Clinton "lied, not only to the U.S. but the world... that I say that no children died at Sandy Hook and they were all actors. I’ve never said any of those things." A moment later, Jones went on: "They can’t find anywhere where I have said that I know the kids killed at Sandy Hook were actors or that it didn’t happen" and furthermore, he said, he’s been criticized by conspiracy theorists who maintain the Sandy Hook events were fake--"because I don’t buy into that." We were curious who was right, so we put Clinton’s statement to the Texas Truth-O-Meter. First, this background: 20 children and six adults died at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Dec. 14, 2012, at the hands of gun-carrying Adam Lanza, 20. Lanza had killed his mother at home before the school shooting, and then killed himself at the school as officers closed in. After her speech, Clinton’s campaign offered as backup to its claim about Jones and Sandy Hook part of its background paper quoting a June 23, 2016, story in the New Yorker magazine. The story said Jones incidentally had Trump on his program hours before the San Bernardino, Calif., shootings and Jones then "praised Trump, claiming that ninety per cent of his listeners were Trump supporters, and Trump had returned the favor, saying, ‘Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down,’" the story said, going on to say Jones had historically insisted various national tragedies were inside jobs and, reporter William Finnegan wrote, "Jones believes that no one was actually hurt at Sandy Hook — those were actors." An embedded link in the story points to a video snippet likely excerpted, we determined, from the second hour of Jones’ Jan. 13, 2015 show in which Jones was asked by a caller if he thinks that after Sandy Hook, there’s a "new level of sophistication" to authorities planting "flimsy evidence" on sites that "get everybody talking, going in the wrong direction" after incidents. Jones replied: "Yeah, when you’re trying to decipher cloak and dagger dirty tricks, it’s pretty hard to do. It’s just that then you learn that they were funded by western funding. Then you learn that it was the same (inaudible) connection, underwear bomber. Then those are big red flags that they were patsy provocateurs. The classic MO has been followed. "And then yeah, it kind of becomes a red herring to say the whole thing was staged--because they have staged events before. But then you learn the school had been closed and reopened, and you’ve got video of the kids going in circles in and out of the building, and they don’t call the rescue choppers for two hours, then they tear the building down and seal it, and they get caught using blue screens and a email by Bloomberg comes out in a lawsuit where he’s telling his people to get ready in the next 24 hours to capitalize on a shooting. "Yeah, so, Sandy Hook is a synthetic completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured. I couldn’t believe it at first. I knew they had actors there, clearly, but I thought they killed some real kids. And it just shows how bold they are, that they clearly used actors. I mean they even ended up using photos of kids killed in mass shootings here in a fake mass shooting in Turkey -- so yeah, or Pakistan. The sky is now the limit. I appreciate your call." Also, a web link below the video excerpt led us to check on Jones’ Dec. 28, 2014, episode in which the host, responding to a caller, called the Sandy Hook incident "a giant hoax." Jones elaborated: "The general public doesn’t know the school was actually closed the year before." Also: "They don’t know they had kids going in and out of the building as a photo opp." And, Jones said on that show: "But it took me about a year with Sandy Hook to come to grips with the fact that the whole thing was fake. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. I knew they jumped on it, used the crisis, hyped it up. But then I did deep research--and my gosh, it just pretty much didn’t happen." We found a little more Jones’ commentary. In a Sept. 24, 2014, episode of the show, Jones cited a story on the InfoWars webpage that day headlined, "FBI says no one killed at Sandy Hook." Jones then said, "According to FBI crime statistics at FBI.gov, no one died in 2012 in Sandy Hook. It shows no homicides in that town." By email, we tried to ask InfoWars staff about Jones’ comments and didn’t hear back. Our ruling Clinton said Jones "said that the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre were child actors and no one was actually killed there." Clinton didn’t nail Jones’ wording. But the Austin broadcaster said quite clearly long before Clinton spoke that the day’s tragic events featured actors and also "pretty much didn’t happen." We find this statement True. TRUE – The statement is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/47f3b1de-2f69-4b1f-b661-fe57069c73bf | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2016-09-01T17:07:04 | 2016-09-01 | ['None'] |
goop-01673 | Brad Pitt Demanded Angelina Jolie Let Him Take Kids On Vacation? | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/brad-pitt-angelina-jolie-kids-vacation-children-trip/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Brad Pitt Demanded Angelina Jolie Let Him Take Kids On Vacation? | 11:05 am, February 1, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02362 | Julia Roberts, Danny Moder Marriage “On The Rocks,” | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/julia-roberts-marriage-danny-moder-richard-gere-on-rocks/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Julia Roberts, Danny Moder Marriage NOT “On The Rocks,” Despite Report | 11:24 am, October 11, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08667 | Senator Jeff Plale saved my job -- and some 300 others at Bucyrus International. | mostly false | /wisconsin/statements/2010/sep/13/american-federation-children/wisconsin-state-sen-jeff-plale-saved-300-jobs-bucy/ | The race between state Sen. Jeff Plale (D-South Milwaukee) and Milwaukee County Supervisor Chris Larson may be the hottest legislative contest in Sept. 14 primary. And that doesn’t even include what the candidates themselves are saying. The district, which stretches from Milwaukee’s blue-collar south suburbs to the city’s affluent east side, is heavily Democratic. But it has a sharp ideological split and Plale is again facing a challenge from the left, based on his support of private school choice and his role in killing a state global warming bill, among other issues. One outside group is attacking his voting record, another has come to his defense and voters have been buried in a pile of direct mail pieces featuring competing claims. On the pro-Plale side, the American Federation for Children-- a group that supports the Milwaukee private school voucher program -- is touting Plale’s role in retaining jobs at Bucyrus International, a maker of mining equipment and an important employer in his district. Former Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen, a Republican, heads the group’s state operation. One direct-mail piece features a photo of Wynn Sandahl, identified as a 12-year Bucyrus employee, on the cover with this quote: "It’s the honest truth. Senator Jeff Plale saved my job." It says on the back, "Milwaukee County almost lost 300 jobs. Then Senator Jeff Plale stood up for our community," and inside notes as a result "300 workers just like Wynn Sandahl still report for work everyday at Bucyrus." That’s some personalized constituent service. But what role did Plale, a state legislator, have in an issue that turned on the Obama administration and the U.S. Export-Import Bank? Export-Import banks are trade promotion agencies that provide financing for projects that, collectively, generate billions of dollars in business and stimulate economies. In this case, the U.S. Export-Import bank, funded by Congress, initially declined to support a $917 million loan to an India-based power company, which planned to use about $600 million to buy mining machines from Bucyrus. After the rejection, Bucyrus CEO Tim Sullivan started calling a host of local business leaders and elected officials to put pressure on the bank to overturn its decision. At stake, he said, were up to 1,000 company jobs, 300 at the South Milwaukee plant -- work that would go instead to an overseas supplier of the equipment. Among those Sullivan dialed was the state senator who represents South Milwaukee, Jeff Plale. A state legislator, of course, has little -- if any -- influence over a Washington agency that handles international trade matters. But having local officials line up with Bucyrus was important, said Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce. "The list of folks who were helpful includes Sen. Plale," said Sheehy, who also credited U.S. Senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, both Democrats; U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Janesville), and Gov. Jim Doyle and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. As for Plale, Sheehy said: "He did more than his fair share in terms of helping." What did he do? A check of more than a dozen Journal Sentinel stories about the mining equipment deal found no mention of Plale. Plale told PolitiFact Wisconsin he attended a June 30 rally timed to coincide with a visit by Obama to Racine. Plale said he also called a contact in Chicago who he said was "close to (Obama chief of staff Rahm) Emanuel" and told the person -- whom he would not name -- that the Bucyrus matter was an important for his district. He asked that the message be forwarded to Emanuel. "Whether he did that or not, I don’t know," Plale said. The morning of June 30 -- hours before the president arrived in Racine -- the Export-Import Bank indicated that it would reconsider its decision. Although the matter won’t be settled for certain for weeks, the bank took another step in August 2010 that will allow the Bucyrus equipment sale. So, the jobs aren’t yet saved, but it appears they will be. Of course, the job the American Federation for Children is concerned about now is Jeff Plale’s. To support its claim, the only thing the group cites in the literature is a commerce association report on the impact of the deal, which says 1,000 jobs could be affected when suppliers are considered. That report makes no mention of Plale. So did Plale save the job of Bucyrus employee Wynn Sandahl and some 300 others, as the group claims? Plale did what was asked of him as a local lawmaker to pressure the Obama administration and the bank. But so did many, many others. Plale’s role was a bit part in an international drama, but the group gives him sole responsibility. We rate the 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 | American Federation for Children | null | null | null | 2010-09-13T09:00:00 | 2010-09-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-08048 | We are one of only two states to have eight consecutive months of declining unemployment. Twenty-one states had increased unemployment last month. Ours went down. | true | /ohio/statements/2011/jan/03/ted-strickland/gov-ted-strickland-correct-about-improvements-ohio/ | Gov. Ted Strickland said he figures at some point over the next few years voters will compare his leadership with that of incoming governor John Kasich, once Kasich has spent some time in office. "I don’t fear that comparison," Strickland said. Why? Because the Democratic leader insists that while he lost his bid for re-election in November to Kasich, he believes he has laid the foundation for Kasich to reap some success off of Strickland’s work. Take for example, joblessness. Kasich hammered Strickland during the campaign for the state’s double-digit, above-the-national-average unemployment rate. But in an exit interview with The Plain Dealer, Strickland said that his administration had begun to reverse that negative trend just in time for Kasich to now claim the credit. "We are one of only two states to have eight consecutive months of declining unemployment," Strickland said in the interview on Dec. 20. "Twenty-one states had increased unemployment last month. Ours went down." Politifact Ohio wanted to know if the outgoing governor had his facts right, particularly given how hard Kasich and the Republicans hammered him for the economy during the election. As it turns out, the governor is right on both accounts, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at the U.S. Department of Labor. Ohio and Illinois are the only two states that have shown a drop in unemployment — typically by one-tenth of a percentage point, but a drop nonetheless — for every month from April through November. December figures are not yet available. And, indeed, unemployment increased in 21 states in November compared to October, according to the labor statistics seasonally adjusted figures, further highlighting Ohio’s gains. In fact, Ohio’s unemployment rate in November was 9.8 percent, drawing even with instead of hovering above the national average for the first time since December 2002, according Ohio Department of Job & Family Services Director Douglas Lumpkin. The national average increased in November from 9.6 to 9.8 percent. Five other states also have either shown a decline or stagnation since April from month to month but no increases in its unemployment rate: Michigan, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin. But only Ohio and Illinois have produced consistent drops. Strickland said the lower unemployment figures mean more people are finding work, a testament to his leadership. "Its not an accident," he told The Plain Dealer. "It is because I and my administration have managed the affairs of this state carefully and conservatively." Only time will tell whether the trend continues. If it does, will Strickland get the credit for laying the foundation, as he says, or will Kasich get the political clout from an improving jobs picture in Ohio? Either way, we rate Strickland’s statement True. | null | Ted Strickland | null | null | null | 2011-01-03T06:00:00 | 2010-12-20 | ['None'] |
snes-01728 | Planned Parenthood and the Satanic Temple have worked together to oppose laws restricting abortion rights in Missouri. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/planned-parenthood-satanists/ | null | Religion | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Did Planned Parenthood ‘Team Up’ With Satanists to Promote Abortion Rights in Missouri? | 14 September 2017 | null | ['Missouri'] |
tron-00697 | The Boy Who Played Chopsticks for the Great Paderewski | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/paderewski/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | The Boy Who Played Chopsticks for the Great Paderewski | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10055 | To give the proposed economic stimulus plan some perspective, "if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion." | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/feb/03/mitch-mcconnell/stimulus-plan-more-million-day-jesus-christ-was-bo/ | In a CBS Face the Nation interview on Feb. 1, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell , R-Ky, sought to put the proposed economic stimulus bill into some sobering perspective. "You know, this is huge money," McConnell said. "This is — someone said the other day that, if you started the day Jesus Christ was born and spent $1 million every day since then, you still wouldn’t have spent $1 trillion.” The bill isn't that expensive yet — the House version is estimated at $819 billion — but the Senate is expected to add new programs and additional tax cuts that could increase the cost significantly. Both chambers are expected to keep the total pricetag under $1 trillion. We'll save you from counting zeros on your online calculator and give you our quick and dirty assessment of whether his analogy is right. First, a starting point. Biblical scholars may quibble about the actual birth date of Jesus Christ, but we're going to go with the fairly commonly accepted theory that it was around 4 B.C. That's right, it would mean Christ was actually born "Before Christ." Add that to Anno Domini time, and you come to 2012 years since the birth of Christ. So here goes our math: 2,012 times 365 (yes, we are aware there are leap years ... don't be like that) times $1,000,000. A: $734 billion (give or take a few hundred million). The stimulus package is actually short of $1 trillion too, $819 billion. But that's still more than a million bucks a day since the day Jesus was born. We find McConnell's staggering stat to be True. | null | Mitch McConnell | null | null | null | 2009-02-03T16:17:25 | 2009-02-01 | ['Jesus'] |
tron-00761 | Oprah Winfrey and A Course in Miracles | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/oprah-miracles/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Oprah Winfrey and A Course in Miracles | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Oprah_Winfrey'] |
pomt-07739 | The stimulus bill "promised to keep unemployment under 8%." | mostly false | /virginia/statements/2011/feb/28/george-allen/george-allen-says-barack-obama-promised-stimulus-w/ | Republican U.S. Senate candidate George Allen doesn’t like President Barack Obama’s economic record or the stimulus bill. "Two years ago today, President Obama signed into law a $800 billion jobless stimulus bill that promised to keep unemployment under 8 percent," said Allen in a Feb. 17 statement. "Instead the American people have endured 21 consecutive months of 9 percent or higher unemployment, 2.6 million jobs have been lost, and our nation’s debt has hit a record-setting $14 trillion." On Monday we checked Allen’s claims about unemployment and job losses, rating them True. This piece examines his assertion that the stimulus "promised to keep unemployment under 8 percent." Allen, a former governor and U.S. senator, is not the only Republican peddling the claim. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and conservative pundit George Will have made similar statements. So did Virginia’s Eric Cantor, now House Majority Leader, back in July 2009. PolitiFact has ruled that they had their facts wrong. Allen’s are wrong, too. Obama warned upon taking office that if "dramatic action" were not taken, "the unemployment rate could reach double digits," with the recession lasting years. But neither we, nor our colleagues at PolitiFact’s Washington, D.C. bureau, could find evidence of anyone in the administration making a public pledge along the lines of "if we pass the stimulus, we promise unemployment will stay below 8 percent." We asked Allen’s campaign for the source of the candidate’s claim that that it was "promised" the stimulus bill would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent. Katie Wright, Allen’s director of communications, pointed us to a Jan. 9, 2009, report called "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" from Christina Romer, then chairwoman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, the vice president's top economic adviser. Other Republicans have also cited this as their source for past claims. Their report projected that the stimulus plan proposed by Obama would create 3 million to 4 million jobs by the end of 2010. The study included a chart predicting unemployment rates with and without the stimulus. Without the stimulus, unemployment was projected to hit about 8.5 percent in 2009 and then continue rising to a peak of about 9 percent in 2010. With the stimulus, they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at just under 8 percent in 2009. As we all know now, the unemployment rate went higher. It peaked at just over 10 percent in early 2010 and was at 9.4 percent in December. It fell to 9.0 percent in January. But what we saw from the administration in January 2009 was a projection, not a promise. And it was a projection that came with heavy disclaimers. "It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error," the report states. "There is the more fundamental uncertainty that comes with any estimate of the effects of a program. Our estimates of economic relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly in any given episode. Furthermore, the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity." There's also a footnote that goes with the chart that states: "Forecasts of the unemployment rate without the recovery plan vary substantially. Some private forecasters anticipate unemployment rates as high as 11% in the absence of action." That’s not a promise. It is an estimate and an admission that these predictions may not be accurate. And the administration has acknowledged its projections were wrong. In a July 2, 2009, interview, Romer said on Fox: "None of us had a crystal ball back in December and January. I think almost every private forecaster realized that there were other things going on in the economy. It was worse than we anticipated." In January 2009 the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected the unemployment rate would climb to 8.3 percent in 2009 and peak at 9 percent in 2010. By February, the prediction was even higher — 9 percent in 2009 without the stimulus, and 7.7 to 8.5 percent with a stimulus. So, is the fact that unemployment rose, even as the stimulus unfolded, proof that it has failed? President Barack Obama has said, and many independent economists agree, that the stimulus has created more than a million jobs and kept the unemployment rate from going even higher than it has. In fairness, not every economist agrees with that. But there is an inherent uncertainty in economic forecasting. And how can you ever prove that if the unemployment rate got to X percent, it would or would not have gotten a point or two higher if not for the stimulus? The implication of Allen's comment is that a rising unemployment rate in 2009 proves the stimulus didn't work. Many economists don't agree -- and argue that without the stimulus, unemployment would have been worse -- but it's difficult to empirically prove one way or the other. The White House claimed the stimulus would improve the employment picture and applied that to the baseline for projected unemployment going forward. Allen and other Republicans argue Obama was offering some sort of guarantee the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent. The administration never characterized it that way. True, it’s projections were off, but the report contained plenty of disclaimers saying the predictions had "significant margins of error" and a higher degree of uncertainty due to a recession that is "unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity." In short, it was an economic projection with warnings of a high margin for error, not a guarantee on an upper limit on unemployment. Allen is recycling a claim that should go to the dump. We rate his statement 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 Allen | null | null | null | 2011-02-28T17:36:34 | 2011-02-17 | ['None'] |
snes-06377 | The nursery rhyme 'Ring Around the Rosie' is a coded reference to the Black Plague. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ring-around-rosie/ | null | Language | null | David Mikkelson | null | Is ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ About the Black Plague? | 17 November 2000 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07688 | In the past decade, K-12 funding has grown six times faster than the rate of enrollment. | half-true | /virginia/statements/2011/mar/08/bob-mcdonnell/gov-bob-mcdonnell-says-education-funding-grew-six-/ | On Feb. 24, PolitiFact Virginia rated as True a statement by Gov. Bob McDonnell that public education funding over the last decade grew six times faster than enrollment. We based that ruling on raw state budget and K-12 enrollment numbers. Subsequently, several readers pointed out that we did not factor in inflation. They were right, inflation accounted for most of the imbalance between increases in education and gains in enrollment. So we are changing our rating to Half True because there is some validity to McDonnell’s claim but his numbers are out of context. And we are providing a new analysis, which appears below. In the closing days of this winter’s General Assembly session, Gov. Bob McDonnell unsuccessfully tried to build support for a $50 million cut in public education funding. The governor told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, in a story that ran Feb. 20, that K-12 education funding has grown six times faster than enrollment over the last decade. We graded McDonnell’s math. His data was compiled by Dan Timberlake, Director of Virginia’s Department of Planning and Budget. Timberlake told us he decided to compare budget levels from the 2002 fiscal year with those currently allocated for the 2012 fiscal year, which will begin July 1. Timberlake said he measured three major, state-generated sources of education dollars: Virginia’s general fund, lottery proceeds and the Literary Fund. His figures did not include federal money and a few very small funding sources. General fund revenue primarily comes from income taxes on individuals, though it also includes some sales tax revenue, contract fees, and profits from the state-run liquor stores. The money pays for general services such as schools, public safety and health. Lottery funds, which were pulled from the general fund fund in 2007 and siphoned directly to education, provided $430.2 million to education last school year. The Literary Fund gets revenue from criminal fines, fees, and forfeitures, unclaimed property; unclaimed lottery winnings and interest on low-cost loans that are used for school construction projects. State funding from these three sources was $4.01 billion in the 2002 fiscal year and is slated to be $5.47 billion in the 2012 fiscal year. That’s an increase of 36.2 percent. Next Timberlake tracked student enrollment in the state’s public schools, and so did we. Enrollment grew from 1,147,673 in the fall of 2001 (which is in the 2002 fiscal year) to a projected level of 1,220,523 in the fall of 2011. That’s an increase of 6.3 percent. So education spending grew 36.2 percent while student numbers grew 6.3 percent. That would make the spending increase just shy of six times larger than the enrollment increase. But there’s a catch to these numbers: inflation accounted for most of the increase and McDonnell did not factor it into his equation. When your stir in the 22.5 percent rise in the national consumer price index over the last decade, you end up with a 13.7 percent inflation-adjusted increase to education spending. That’s slightly more than double the rate of enrollment growth. You get a similar result when consider the 23 percent inflation rate over the decade in Southern states, where the Bureau of Labor Statistics includes Virginia in its regional calculations. Unfortunately, BLS does not measure inflation in individual states. Why did new funding outpace enrollment over the last decade? Charles Pyle, director of communications for the Virginia Department of Education, said much of the money was needed to pay for Standards of Learning mandates the state set for public schools, including an algebra readiness initiative and early-reading program. Pyle said funding has also increased for pre-school initiatives that serve children not covered by the Head Start program. And he said major investments have been made to upgrade technology in schools. Additional funding has also been directed towards resource teachers in elementary schools and English-proficiency instructors. A closing note: The General Assembly ended up approving a $75 million increase for public schools before adjourning on Feb. 27. Let’s review. The governor claimed state K-12 funding grew six times faster than student enrollment during the past decade. According to the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget, education spending from state sources has climbed 36.2 percent in the past 10 years. During that period, the number of K-12 students in Virginia has climbed 6.3 percent. So McDonnell is technically right, but his claim is misleading. When you consider inflation over the last decade -- which the governor did not -- new spending slightly more doubled growth in enrollment. Much of that increase came from new Standards of Learning requirements that McDonnell strongly supported as a legislator. We rate his claim Half True. | null | Bob McDonnell | null | null | null | 2011-03-08T13:23:13 | 2011-02-20 | ['None'] |
pomt-08678 | I’m the only one who's fought against developers draining the Everglades! | false | /florida/statements/2010/sep/10/kendrick-meek/kendrick-meek-not-lone-defender-everglades/ | In his first television ad of the general election, released on Sept. 7, 2010, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek tries to distinguish himself from his fellow Senate hopefuls, Republican Marco Rubio and the independent candidate, Gov. Charlie Crist. The clip opens with Meek stepping into an airboat and zipping around the Everglades – an image that screams Florida. In his first claim on the 33-second video "Only One," Meek boasts of being "the only one who's fought against developers draining the Everglades!" The ad goes on through a litany of claims: "The only one against drilling before and after the BP spill. The only one against privatizing Social Security. The only one who's pro-choice, who took on George Bush, who's fought for middle-class tax cuts, against high credit card fees, and to raise the minimum wage." Such a wealth of fact-checking opportunities! We decided to start at the top, saving the Everglades. It seemed like such a bold claim that it warranted a closer look. We asked the Meek campaign to show us the proof that its candidate could lay claim to such bragging rights. Meek spokesman Adam Sharon noted that the Democratic contender had voted in favor of a 2007 bill that set aside funding for water resource construction and improvement projects, including $687.07 million for Everglades restoration. The Meek campaign also cited $135 million that Meek helped secure for Everglades Restoration in fiscal years 2009. These measures are clearly pro-Everglades but do they do much to keep developers out of the Everglades? We didn't see anything in the bills, and neither do others. "It has nothing to do with any restrictions on development in Florida," said Kirk Fordham, chief executive officer of the Everglades Foundation in Washington, D.C. Clearly, Meek is referring to his actions on federal legislation, and it isn't exactly a fair comparison. Former House Speaker Rubio and Gov. Crist aren't in the same position to vote; after all, they aren't federal lawmakers. "They didn't vote in the same body so you can't compare their voting records," said Fordham. Just as we had asked the Meek campaign to show us how he single-handedly stopped developers from draining the Everglades, we asked Crist and Rubio whether they've done anything to help the Everglades. Crist spokesman Danny Kanner quickly pointed to the governor's 2009 bid to buy out U.S. Sugar Corp. and convert its 180,000-plus acres to reservoirs and pollution-treatment marshes. The original plan with its $1.75 billion price tag has since been scaled back to $197 million and 26,800 acres, but a new deal gives the South Florida Water Management District options to buy all or part of the land for up to 10 years. Everglades advocates such as Fordham and Thom Rumberger, chairman of the Everglades Trust in Tallahassee, also point out that Crist has made key appointments favorable to the environment. Fordham noted how Crist -- compared to his developer-friendly predecessor, Jeb Bush -- appointed pro-environment types to the governing board of the South Florida Water Management District including Shannon Estenoz, Sandy Batchelor and Kevin Powers. Crist has also received some green recognition, including a "Champion of the Everglades" award in 2008 from Audubon of Florida. As the Meek campaign was quick to point out, Crist signed Senate Bill 2080 in 2009, which stripped the water board's authority over issuing consumptive use permits and gave it to the board’s directors, a move that prevented the public from making decisions on who gets water, how much and from where. "Everglades restoration depends on reducing the quantity of water taken from the environment," Audubon of Florida said in a statement May 21, 2009, that urged Crist to veto the bill. Still, "It would be hard to argue that Meek has a superior record to the governor," said Fordham, a major backer of the U.S. Sugar deal. "I know Crist has a pretty solid record on protecting and restoring the Everglades." For his part, Rubio voted when he was in the House in favor of a 2008 bill that authorized issuing bonds for Everglades restoration. It also doubled the maximum annual issuance amount from $100 million to $200 million. "The real work on the Everglades was being done at that time on the Senate side," said Eric Draper, executive director of the Audubon of Florida. "The House was more in a position of going along. I would characterize (Rubio) as going along, not as providing leadership." For Meek to claim he is the only one among the three to stop developers from draining the Everglades is decidedly not true. The Meek campaign cited bills he backed as evidence that he was pro-Everglades, but neither of the two bills stopped developers from draining the Everglades. Similarly, Crist and Rubio have also taken steps to back measures that support Everglades restoration. So we rate Meek's statement False. | null | Kendrick Meek | null | null | null | 2010-09-10T12:24:09 | 2010-09-10 | ['None'] |
snes-03559 | A Harvard Study showed that Tibetan Monks can significantly raise the temperature of their fingers, toes and other extremities through meditation alone. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harvard-study-confirms-tibetan-monks-can-raise-body-temperature-with-their-minds/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Harvard Study Confirms Tibetan Monks Can Raise Body Temperature With Their Minds | 12 November 2016 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00238 | 6.5 Million People with Social Security Numbers Are Older than 112 | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/6-5-million-people-with-social-security-numbers-are-older-than-112/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | 6.5 Million People with Social Security Numbers Are Older than 112 | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00213 | Ellen DeGeneres Dumped Friend Bethenny Frankel? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ellen-degeneres-bethenny-frankel-friends/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Ellen DeGeneres Dumped Friend Bethenny Frankel? | 3:47 pm, September 26, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02451 | A KGB agent admitted that the Sex Pistols were financed by the USSR to destabilize Western democracy. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kgb-agent-sex-pistols/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Did a KGB Agent Confirm That the Sex Pistols Were Backed by the USSR to Destabilize the West? | 10 May 2017 | null | ['Western_world', 'KGB', 'Soviet_Union'] |
wast-00156 | Is it an act of mercy to throw 24 million people off of health insurance, so Republicans can hand billionaires a massive new tax giveaway? | needs context | ERROR: type should be string, got " https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/03/17/fact-checking-democrats-rhetoric-on-the-gop-health-care-bill/" | null | null | Nancy Pelosi | Michelle Ye Hee Lee | null | Fact-checking Democrats' rhetoric on the GOP health-care bill | March 17, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07773 | The (Wisconsin) governor has proposed tax giveaways to corporations. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/feb/22/donna-brazile/donna-brazile-said-wisconsin-governor-proposes-tax/ | The budget crisis in Wisconsin has spurred a national discussion on spending priorities, including among the commentators on ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour. Amanpour asked her guests if the plans in Wisconsin were "shared sacrifice." "Where is the sacrifice going to be borne the most? And is it equitable?" Amanpour asked. Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist, said it wasn’t. "Just like the tea party went out there and grabbed the microphone, what you have is grassroots people out there saying, ‘No more,’ no more budget cuts on the back of working people," Brazile said. "The governor has proposed tax giveaways to corporations." "We're trying to balance the budgets on the backs of the poor and the middle class, and that's why workers are standing up for their rights," she said a little later in the program. The word "giveaway" is a loaded term for tax cuts, but we feel it’s fair to fact-check whether Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has proposed tax breaks for corporations while advocating budget cuts for public workers. Walker’s budget proposal asks state workers to pay more for their pensions and health insurance, which reduces take-home pay. But it also sets significant limits on collective bargaining power for most public sector unions, which has enraged union members and sparked protests at the state capitol. We next looked to see if Walker has proposed tax cuts for corporations. We found Walker has already signed bills that cut taxes for corporations. Walker signed a law on Jan. 31 that says that companies that relocate to Wisconsin will not have to pay corporate taxes for two years. The law stipulates that the company must move at least 51 percent of the workers on its payroll or at least those who account for $200,000 in wages. Walker also signed into law a bill that gives small tax breaks to companies that create jobs. It’s debatable whether these could fairly be considered "giveaways," since they are intended to reward companies for creating jobs. But Walker proposed additional tax breaks for business during the campaign for governor. PolitiFact Wisconsin documented those promises on PolitiFact’s Walk-O-Meter, a database of Walker’s campaign promises. That includes reducing taxes on employers and repealing the "combined reporting" requirement for business taxes, a measure that increased tax revenues and was approved in 2009. "If you elect me as your next governor, I’ll get government out of the way and lower the tax burden so Wisconsin business owners and factories can create 250,000 jobs and 10,000 businesses in our state by 2015," said Walker during the campaign. We also found that Walker told the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce during the campaign that he supported efforts to repeal the corporate income tax. Though it’s a fine distinction, we should note that we were not able to find statements from Walker proposing a repeal, so it’s not a promise listed in the Walk-O-Meter database. Brazile said, "The (Wisconsin) governor has proposed tax giveaways to corporations." The tax breaks he signed into law were linked to job growth, which means they were not necessarily "giveaways." But he has proposed lower taxes for all businesses. And he’s supported those tax cuts even in the face of a tight budget, saying they would lead to job growth. Because Brazile gets Walker’s basic position on business taxes right -- he wants them lower -- we rate her statement Mostly True. | null | Donna Brazile | null | null | null | 2011-02-22T18:17:56 | 2011-02-20 | ['Wisconsin'] |
snes-04819 | Target's stock price has plummeted due to a boycott over the store's transgender restroom policy. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/target-stock-boycott/ | null | Business | null | Dan Evon | null | Target Stock Plummets After One Million People Boycott Stores? | 3 May 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00781 | Corporate net worth taxes penalize growth and development of wealth in Georgia, and as Governor, Nathan Deal will work to eliminate this duplicative layer of taxation. By doing so, the state will send a strong signal to current and prospective businesses that Georgia is an ideal place to call home and provide an environment in which to grow. Loss of revenue would be minimal to the state and would quickly be replaced by a stronger corporate presence and improved environment within which growth and development will be encouraged. | not yet rated | https://www.politifact.com/georgia/promises/deal-o-meter/promise/811/eliminate-net-worth-tax/ | null | deal-o-meter | Nathan Deal | null | null | Eliminate net worth tax | 2011-01-06T16:27:46 | null | ['Nathan_Deal', 'Georgia_(U.S._state)'] |
chct-00224 | FACT CHECK: Does Trump Have Heart Disease? | verdict: false | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/01/18/does-trump-have-heart-disease/ | null | null | null | Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 10:00 PM 01/18/2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03106 | We’ve used (generally accepted accounting principles) here in this building the last two years. | mostly false | /wisconsin/statements/2013/sep/22/dale-kooyenga/accountant-says-state-using-tougher-accounting-sta/ | Dale Kooyenga is a certified public accountant, though he says if he’s at a party, "accounting is not on my top 10 list of fun things to talk about." But as a Republican member of the Assembly, Kooyenga is plenty happy to discuss the accounting arts as part of the "CPA Caucus." When the group dug into the University of Wisconsin System’s books and publicized what members considered an overly large reserve fund, Gov. Scott Walker and GOP lawmakers wound up reducing the system’s budget increase. As a result, when Kooyenga talks accounting at the Capitol, people listen. Even when -- perhaps especially when -- he’s commenting on something as dry as Wisconsin’s poor national ranking on budget deficits as measured by "generally accepted accounting principles." Those principles, known as GAAP for short, are a core issue when it comes to how state government spends tax dollars. Kooyenga says adopting the principles would rule out "games," "deceptive accounting practices" and "gimmicks" that hold back the state’s credit rating and enable lawmakers to saddle future generations with unsustainable financial obligations. On Sept. 18, 2013, Kooyenga cited GAAP after hearing a state investment board official laud the fully-funded status of the state pension fund in testimony before the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Finance. "Before we applaud ourselves, there’s a reason that Wisconsin has a 100 percent funded pension system but we have the fourth-highest GAAP deficit in the country," Kooyenga said, mentioning a couple of the aforementioned accounting gimmicks. "So I hope we can work on that over time -- which we have." He concluded: "We’ve used GAAP accounting here in this building the last two years." That last phrase is worth checking, because the back-and-forth over budgets is heating up as we approach the 2014 gubernatorial race. Gov. Scott Walker actually campaigned on GAAP as an issue in 2010, contending that then-Gov. Jim Doyle had falsely claimed the state’s budget was balanced. He promised to balance the budget not only by the usual Madison standard, but also under the GAAP scorecard -- and to do it in every budget, just as local units of government do. State lawyers long ago said the constitutional requirement to balance the state budget could be done mostly on a simple cash basis -- not the accrual method called for by GAAP. And that’s been just fine with the political set in Madison. Why? Lawmakers and the governor would have to cut $2 billion to $3 billion more from the budget to fully balance under the more stringent GAAP standards. That $2 billion to $3 billion represents the "GAAP deficit." And it’s been in that range most years since 2002. So, how has GAAP been applied in recent years? Talk of change aside, the fact remains that neither party and no governor -- including Walker -- has balanced the budget without a GAAP deficit since the state started tracking it in 1990. We gave Walker a Promise Broken when his first proposed budget (2011-’13) not only left a GAAP deficit intact, but increased the size of it, to $3 billion. The governor’s second budget (2013-’15) went even further the other way, estimating a 29 percent increase in that deficit. Those facts put Kooyenga’s claim into a hole right off the bat. Neither budget was prepared using GAAP or balanced by those principles. And Kooyenga supported both budgets. Kooyenga’s case We spoke with Kooyenga and checked the long history of GAAP deficits and found an element of truth in his claim, which is vague enough to leave it open to some interpretation. Kooyenga referred to the "last two years," 2011 and 2012. That coincides with his first two years in office and with Walker’s first two-year budget. Looking just at the final adopted version of that budget, it turns out that some tangible GAAP progress was made. That’s mainly because after Walker submitted his spending plan, a new revenue estimate gave lawmakers another $600 million to play with. Lawmakers chose to use a big chunk of the windfall to pay some big bills left behind from Doyle’s days -- a move that cut significantly into the GAAP deficit. We now know, based on actual results, that the first year of that budget (2011-’12) saw nearly an $800 million drop in the size of the GAAP deficit. It was the first drop in eight years, though it still left a long ways to go to be fully balanced under GAAP. As for year two, we won’t know the results until the books are closed on 2013. But experienced forecasters in the independent Legislative Fiscal Bureau and at the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance say the GAAP deficit is very likely to shrink again. Walker and his Republican legislative allies have rejuvenated the state’s rainy day fund, and fund balances are running well into the black, both of which are positive factors in driving down the GAAP number. That, Kooyenga told us, is in part what he was referring to when he said "we’ve used GAAP." The "we" in his statement, he said, refers also to the CPA Caucus. That caucus has publicly tracked and reported how budget decisions look under GAAP. And Kooyenga went door to door in the Assembly to get bipartisan support for a constitutional amendment requiring the use of GAAP principles. That measure passed the Assembly in 2012 but died in the Senate. Still, the state continues to use accounting maneuvers such as manipulating the timing of huge aid payments to local governments and schools into future fiscal years. Such moves help elected officials balance the budget on paper -- but run afoul of GAAP. Those maneuvers were in the final version of the 2011-13 budget. Our rating Kooyenga said "We’ve used (generally accepted accounting principles) here in this building the last two years." State officials, including Kooyenga and his caucus, have partially "used" significant moves to improve the GAAP deficit picture, and they have increased public awareness of it. But those principles certainly haven’t been fully put to use; not even close. Most of the GAAP deficit remained after those two years. And left unmentioned by Kooyenga is that much of the progress in decreasing it is projected to be reversed in fiscal 2014 and 2015. We rate his claim Mostly False. | null | Dale Kooyenga | null | null | null | 2013-09-22T05:00:00 | 2013-09-18 | ['None'] |
pomt-00708 | Says Baltimore police are "trained by Mossad and Shin Bet." | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2015/apr/29/nation-islam-research-group/nation-islam-group-says-israeli-security-trained-b/ | We’ve seen plenty of claims in recent days about the unrest in Baltimore. One that caught our attention was a tweet from an account associated with the Nation of Islam. It read, "#Baltimore police trained by Israel Mossad & Shin Bet. More planned." The Mossad is Israel’s foreign intelligence service and the Shin Bet is its internal counter-intelligence agency. They roughly correspond to the American CIA and FBI. So, are the Mossad and Shin Bet working with Baltimore police? No. Nation of Islam researchers included a link in their tweet that sent us to a page on the Baltimore County Police Department website. While county police were called in to assist during the riots, they are not the city police. The link includes no information or evidence that county police were trained by Mossad and Shin Bet. What that website says is that county police offered optional training for officers interested in a martial art called Krav Maga (pronounce ma-GAA). Krav Maga does have a strong connection with Israel. It was developed by the Israeli Defense Force in the earliest years of the country’s existence. It emphasizes quick and debilitating counter attacks in one-on-one combat. The instructor mentioned on the Baltimore County webpage was Jon Pascal, who had spent 15 years with the Los Angeles County Police Department. There is nothing to suggest that Pascal is a Mossad or Shin Bet agent. Krav Maga combines elements of wrestling, boxing and jiu-jitsu. The introductory sessions focus on stripping a knife or gun from an armed attacker, escaping chokeholds, restraining holds, and delivering blows that incapacitate an attacker. Elementary training in Krav Maga is not uncommon among American police departments. A local news report from Pittsburgh, Pa., featured officers from the Pittsburgh and Mt. Lebanon, Pa., police departments. An instructor with Krav Maga Maryland lists among his clients officers from Baltimore City, Montgomery, Howard and Prince George’s counties, as well as the Maryland State Police and the Capitol Police. According to that Maryland group, over 400 law enforcement agencies have used some level of Krav Maga training since 1981. We tried to reach Nation of Islam Research but no one answered at the phone number listed, nor did we get a reply to a message sent through the Nation of Islam website. Our ruling The Nation of Islam Research group said that police in Baltimore had been trained by Mossad and Shin Bet. The source they cited referred to optional training in Krav Maga for the wrong police department and listed a trainer who gained experience in Los Angeles. There’s no evidence of any training ties to Israel. This claim is utterly unproven. We rate the claim Pants on Fire. | null | Nation of Islam Research Group | null | null | null | 2015-04-29T17:13:19 | 2015-04-26 | ['None'] |
goop-01515 | Brooklyn Beckham Dropping Out Of College? | 3 | https://www.gossipcop.com/brooklyn-beckham-dropping-out-college-leaving-school/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Brooklyn Beckham Dropping Out Of College? | 5:39 am, February 22, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-06429 | A holiday shopping flier included an anti-Semitic message. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/holiday-hate/ | null | Religion | null | David Mikkelson | null | Did a Hanukkah Flier Contain an Anti-Semitic Message? | 6 September 2007 | null | ['None'] |
para-00136 | The 960,000 jobs added under Labor are "a result of the actions of this government". | half-true | http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jun/26/wayne-swan/Jobs-created-result-Labor-actions/index.html | null | ['Economy'] | Wayne Swan | David Humphries, Su-Lin Tan, Peter Fray | null | The 960,000 jobs added under Labor are "a result of the actions of this government". | Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at 6:06 p.m. | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07448 | An Internet sweepstakes cafe is "a legitimate business that has been vetted and found to be completely legal in the state." | half-true | /florida/statements/2011/apr/20/peter-nehr/internet-sweepstakes-cafes-gambling-loophole-or-il/ | A Pinellas County legislator is at odds with his local sheriff over whether an Internet sweepstakes cafe the lawmaker has opened is against the law. State Rep. Peter Nehr's business, Fun City Sweepstakes sells phone cards. But as the St. Petersburg Times reported on April 20, 2011, for every $1 a person spends on a card, they also get 100 sweepstakes points to use at one of the business' 45 desktop computers. The computers can simulate the spinning images of a casino slot machine. You spin, and win, or lose. If you win, you can collect the winnings from the cashier. Pinellas County Sheriff Jim Coats says he believes the sweepstakes businesses constitute gambling. "As far as I'm concerned, they are illegal," Coats said. But Nehr disagrees. "This is a legitimate business that has been vetted and found to be completely legal in the state," he told the Times. "I'm entitled like anyone else to open a legal business to earn money for my family." Nehr sounded so sure about his business -- saying that it "has been vetted and found to be completely legal" -- that we wanted to check it out. Our analysis concludes the law is murkier than Nehr lets on. Let us explain. Gambling is currently illegal in Florida except in places where it is specifically permitted -- dog and horse tracks and on Indian land. Nehr's business, and others like it across the state, operate not as gambling businesses but instead offer promotions for purchasing a service. Nehr says it's like McDonald's restaurants that sell sodas with a scratch-off, or Monopoly tickets. But in the case of Fun City Sweepstakes, Nehr gives customers who purchase a phone card an opportunity to win a casino-style sweepstakes game. In 2007, the police chief of Cedar Grove, near Panama City, wrote to then-Attorney General Bill McCollum about a similar sweepstakes parlor to ask whether the business was violating state gambling laws as set out in state statutes. McCollum responded, basically, that it's not clear. "The machine or device that is the subject of your inquiry may be a gambling device within the scope of section 849.16, Florida Statutes. Moreover, the sweepstakes involved may be a lottery. Both of these enterprises are illegal in the State of Florida. Gambling activities may not be disguised as a 'game promotion' under the terms of section 849.094, Florida Statutes, in an effort to avoid the criminal sanctions attendant to violations of Florida's gambling laws," McCollum wrote. "In sum, it is my opinion that a determination of whether a particular game or contest violates the provisions of Chapter 849, Florida Statutes, is initially a determination that must be made by local law enforcement based on the particular facts of each case. If the Tel-Phone (the game specifically cited in the Cedar Grove case) game does contain an element of chance inherent in the machine which determines the outcome of the game, the game may be characterized as a slot machine within the meaning of section 849.15, Florida Statutes. However, this office recognizes that the ultimate determination of whether Florida's gambling laws may have been violated must be made by local law enforcement agencies." The ambiguity has left law enforcement and prosecutors in a tough spot. The fundamental question: Is it worth the time and effort and resources to prosecute a business that may or may not be breaking the law? So members of the Florida Legislature are considering legislation that would ban the type of business altogether. Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood, has sponsored HB 217 to prohibit the use of simulated gaming for promotional purposes. (His bill is moving through the committee process, while a Senate companion has yet to be heard.) A legislative analysis of the bill provides an excellent overview of the issue. The analysis of the bill says there are questions over the legality of the sweepstakes games, and that different counties have handled them differently. Seminole County, for instance, passed an ordinance to ban all simulated gambling devices -- though that ordinance is being challenged as an unconstitutional limitation on free speech. Other counties, including Baker and Leon, have considered ordinances that ban the games. There have been just a few cases involving Internet sweepstakes cafes brought to court. And no one has been found guilty of gambling charges. In Marion County, the owners of an Internet sweepstakes cafe like Nehr's were found not guilty on gambling charges in October 2010, the Ocala Star-Banner reported on Oct. 18. "We're going to see if the State Attorney gets the message," said Kelly Mathis, the Jacksonville attorney who represented the sweepstakes cafe owner. "They (prosecutors) put on their best case, and they still can't show there was a violation of criminal law." Other cases in Marion and Sumter counties were either dismissed, or prosecutors decided against pursuing a conviction. In an April 2011 case in Brevard County, the state dropped felony gambling charges against an Internet sweepstakes cafe owner in exchange for the business owner agreeing to plead no contest to a misdemeanor count of not properly advertising her sweepstakes promotion. No case has been reviewed by an appellate judge. Where does this leave us? Nehr said his Internet sweepstakes cafe is "a legitimate business that has been vetted and found to be completely legal in the state." Yes, it's true that no one has been found guilty of a crime for running a business like Nehr's, and some in the Legislature are trying to make the games explicitly illegal. But that doesn't mean the games themselves have been found to be completely legal. McCollum, the former attorney general, issued an opinion saying they might be illegal, and many think that, in fact, they are. There's no doubt the business was created in a way to work around existing gambling laws. The question is whether it successfully operates within a loophole, or comes too close to illegal gambling. Either way, it's a stretch for Nehr to say the operation has been vetted and is completely legal. So we rate this statement Half True. | null | Peter Nehr | null | null | null | 2011-04-20T15:07:42 | 2011-04-20 | ['None'] |
tron-03329 | Texas Mosque Burned to the Ground; $900,000 Raised to Rebuild | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/texas-mosque-burned-ground-600000-raised-rebuild/ | null | religious | null | null | ['islam'] | Texas Mosque Burned to the Ground; $900,000 Raised to Rebuild | Jan 30, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pose-01121 | Work to identify unneeded state assets and sell them to reduce costs. Use the proceeds to pay down state debt. | promise broken | https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/promises/walk-o-meter/promise/1207/sell-unneeded-state-assets-state-debt-reduction/ | null | walk-o-meter | Scott Walker | null | null | Sell unneeded state assets for state debt reduction | 2015-01-04T12:26:38 | null | ['None'] |
abbc-00348 | In the days before the 2013 federal election, Tony Abbott and his MPs repeatedly said there would be no cuts to health if a Coalition government was elected. | in-between | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/no-cuts-to-health-promise-check/5512272 | null | ['health', 'abbott-tony', 'hockey-joe', 'liberals', 'federal-government', 'australia'] | null | null | ['health', 'abbott-tony', 'hockey-joe', 'liberals', 'federal-government', 'australia'] | Promise check: No cuts to health | Sun 8 May 2016, 7:37am | null | ['Tony_Abbott', 'Coalition_(Australia)'] |
pose-00656 | Block "funding for implementation" of the health care bill," and block "the issuance of the regulations necessary to implement it." Use "every tool at our disposal to achieve full repeal of ObamaCare." | promise broken | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/gop-pledge-o-meter/promise/686/block-funding-for-implementation-of-health-care-bi/ | null | gop-pledge-o-meter | Eric Cantor | null | null | Block funding for implementation of health care bill | 2010-12-22T09:57:30 | null | ['Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act'] |
pomt-02812 | Republicans have proposed dozens of (health care) solutions designed to help control costs and improve quality. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/nov/26/ron-johnson/johnson-said-republicans-have-proposed-dozens-solu/ | As Republicans continue to score points bashing the early struggles of President Barack Obama’s health care reform law, the common refrain from Democrats is to claim their GOP counterparts lack an alternative. It has fit neatly into their characterization of Republicans as the party of "no." For their part, Republicans have consistently said that’s not the case. "Throughout the health care debate, Republicans have proposed dozens of solutions designed to help control costs and improve quality — without surrendering control of your personal health care decisions to nameless bureaucrats in Washington," said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., during the Republican national address Nov. 17. The question of how Republicans would replace Obamacare has come up before, and it will remain a major part of the argument over the law’s future throughout the 2014 midterms. There’s a big difference between no solutions, as Democrats surmise, and dozens, as Johnson claims. So who is right? We decided to investigate. How we got here We asked Johnson’s office to provide evidence of the "dozens of solutions" Republicans have put forth. His staff sent us a list of 24 Republican proposals released over the years, starting with President George W. Bush’s call for health reforms in 2007. At this point, let’s pause for some important political and parliamentary realities. In 2009 and 2010 when the health care law worked its way through Congress and onto Obama's desk, Republicans were in the minority in both the Senate and House. During the initial debate, Republicans circulated many ideas and put forth many bills. None of them gained enough support within the GOP to become a clear conservative alternative to Obamacare, and even if they had, it was unlikely Democrats would go along. Republicans had even less interest in capitulating with Democrats and working with them on the Affordable Care Act. Not a single Republican voted for the final version Obama signed into law. We reviewed the list of legislation Johnson’s office sent us. With a handful of exceptions, the bills are partial or full retreads of each other and share similar ideas. Some actually include provisions of Obamacare, such as allowing young people to stay on their parents’ plans or making it harder for insurance companies to drop people with pre-existing conditions. Johnson’s camp said the Republican senator doesn’t necessarily support all the proposals, but they show that Republicans have been active players in the debate. We reviewed Johnson’s list of 24 proposals. We found the ideas in them tend to fall along the following six lines: Tax incentives A bevy of proposals provide tax breaks or credits to incentivize the uninsured to purchase coverage on the individual market and make it cheaper for those already with coverage. One put up by the Republican Study Committee with more than 100 cosponsors would give a $7,500 deduction to individuals and $20,000 to families. To pay for the deductions, that bill would also eliminate a long-standing tax break on employer-provided insurance. So while some new faces would get insurance on the individual market, the out-of-pocket expenses would likely go up for many Americans, especially those who get good coverage through work. Another bill from Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., gives a tax credit of $5,000 to families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, about $47,000. Both proposals aim to improve the affordability of insurance for low-income individuals, and while it could shift the cost curve down for some people, it would not dramatically transform the cost of care. Allow insurance companies to sell policies across state lines Right now, insurance companies may not sell a policy in multiple states. Republicans want to open up the borders, saying it would increase competition and allow market forces to push down prices. Opponents caution that insurance companies will flock to states with the loosest regulations and sell policies from there. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted savings of about $12 billion from 2007-15, but most experts did not believe it would dramatically impact the cost of insurance or entice more people to sign up. The CBO predicts it would mean cheaper premiums for healthier individuals and more costly insurance for those who have health issues and are already paying a lot. That’s the opposite goal of health care reform. Tort reform Tort reform would change statutes regarding medical malpractice lawsuits, which Republicans say lead to frivolous claims and legal costs. It saves money, but it’s nothing to write home about. In 2010, the CBO said modest reforms, such as capping noneconomic damages at $250,000 and punitive damages at $500,000, would save $54 billion in federal spending over the next 10 years. Such a move would also reduce medical liability insurance and eliminate some threat of lawsuits that push doctors to prescribe unnecessary medical tests, decreasing overall health care costs by 0.5 percent. Health savings accounts Health savings accounts allow individuals to set aside money from each paycheck, before taxes, for future medical care. Republicans hope health savings accounts encourage individuals to be frugal and conscientious spenders on their health care, which would drive down the overall costs. But an expansion would cost the federal government $4.7 billion in lost revenue. Creation of high-risk pools Republican plans have called for about $25 billion to support states that create high-risk pools for sicker patients who have a hard time getting coverage on the individual markets. We’ve talked to experts in the past who have said that’s probably not enough to make it a viable option for the states or the consumers, since the insurance would have to be heavily subsidized to make it cost-effective. Allow trade associations and small business to purchase insurance as a group Since at least 2000, Republicans have pushed for something called Association Health Plans, which allow some small businesses to pool together and buy insurance as a group. However, this would impact a small portion of the population and just 600,000 of the 47 million uninsured people would gain coverage, according to the CBO. A larger pool would lower rates for small business employees already purchasing coverage and healthy individuals. But it would also mean higher premiums for most other insured individuals "because a disproportionate share of enrollees with lower-than-expected health care costs would leave the regulated market to obtain insurance through an AHP, thereby increasing the average expected health care costs of those remaining in the regulated market," the CBO said. About quality While some of these proposals could shift the cost curve down, nothing we came across would directly impact quality of care, as Johnson claimed. We ran the list by a panel of experts as well, and many of them agreed. "Johnson may be exaggerating a bit numerically, but the more important point is that the Republican plans would do next to nothing to improve quality, extend coverage, or control spending growth," said Henry Aaron, a health policy expert at the Brookings Institute. William Dow, a professor of health care economics and head of the University of California Berkeley Division of Health Policy and Management, largely agreed. "There is little here that would improve quality," he said. "Some could have minor effects on controlling costs." Our ruling Johnson said, "Republicans have proposed dozens of solutions designed to help control costs and improve quality" of health care in the United States. Republicans have circulated quite a few bills and ideas over the years, but there is almost nothing in most of the GOP proposals that directly addresses quality of care. As far as costs, most of the proposals have winners and losers. Some of the bills would make health care more affordable for certain individuals, and tort reform and the expansion of health savings accounts could bend the cost curve down slightly. Elements of Johnson’s claim are at least partially accurate, but in the aggregate, the plans are far from substantial. We rate his statement Half True. | null | Ron Johnson | null | null | null | 2013-11-26T16:41:55 | 2013-11-17 | ['None'] |
pomt-07777 | Hitler "abolished unions and that’s what" Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is "doing today." | pants on fire! | /wisconsin/statements/2011/feb/22/lena-taylor/wisconsin-state-sen-lena-taylor-d-milwaukee-says-h/ | Some explosive rhetoric followed the political grenade that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker lobbed Feb. 11, 2011, when he proposed rolling back collective-bargaining rights for public employees as part of a budget-repair bill. Much of it, we have found, missed the mark. Wisconsin doesn’t have a budget deficit, it’s on track for a surplus: False. Walker’s proposal would leave collective bargaining for public employees "fully intact": Pants on Fire. Madison protests against the plan have led to riots: Pants on Fire. Now comes a statement comparing the Republican governor to one of history’s most evil despots. "The history of Hitler," Wisconsin state Sen. Lena Taylor told a reporter on Feb. 15, 2011, "in 1933, he abolished unions, and that’s what our governor’s doing today." The Wisconsin Republican Party said it videotaped the Milwaukee Democrat’s statement and a similar one she made the same day at one of the many Madison rallies called to protest Walker’s plan. Signs at some of those demonstrations compared Walker to Hitler, but Taylor’s claims stand out. The eight-year state lawmaker, who lost a bid to unseat Walker as Milwaukee County executive in 2008, also wrote Feb. 17, 2011, on the Twitter social networking website: "LIKE HITLER in 1933, WALKER is busting unions." So, is Walker trying to abolish unions in the manner Hitler did? We asked Taylor for evidence. In an e-mail, she cited several points that she said show Walker has a "legislative goal of union busting in the coming years, if not in this (legislative) session." Taylor pointed out that Walker’s budget-repair bill -- which contains the collective bargaining changes -- limits public employee unions to negotiating wages, not fringe benefits and other matters, and requires them to be re-certified each year through employee votes. Taylor also pointed out that as a state lawmaker, Walker supported right-to-work legislation, which prohibits unions from negotiating contracts with employers that require employees to pay union dues or fees. To be sure, the bill curtails collective-bargaining rights, and many opponents say it would effectively cripple unions that represent state, local government and public school employees. It does not, however, "abolish" unions as Taylor claims. Indeed, some public employee unions -- those covering public safety -- are exempt. And it does not affect private-sector unions, which are created under federal law. In defending her statement about Walker, the only reference Taylor made to Hitler’s actions was that he abolished German unions on May 2, 1933. Let’s look more closely at what Hitler did that year. Reviewing a transcript of the opening statement of the chief U.S. counsel in the Nuremberg Trials, we found the Nazis: Seized all funds of labor unions and arrested union leaders, sending them to concentration camps. Ordered that no workers organizations, except ones created by Hitler, would exist. Replaced collective bargaining with Hitler-appointed "trustees" to regulate the conditions of all labor contracts. So, Hitler abolished all unions and collective bargaining by decree, not with legislation. And he used force to liquidate the unions that did exist. The sheer scope of all of Hitler’s actions, not just those affecting unions, led the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation to condemn "the hyperbolic use of Nazi and Holocaust references" by protesters in the budget repair bill debate. While some protesters outside the Wisconsin Capitol have used images of the German dictator, the more pervasive cry has been chants of: "This is what democracy looks like." Indeed, the changes in Madison are the direct result of Wisconsin voters making a historic change in who controls state government -- turning over the governor’s office, as well as control of the Senate and Assembly, to Republicans. In response to Walker’s targeting of collective bargaining, groups are considering recalling some of the GOP senators, while other groups are eyeing a recall of Democratic senators. That, too, is part of the democratic process. And Taylor and the other Democrats who went to Illinois to prevent a Senate vote on the bill have not been brought back to Madison by force. They argue they are simply using a tool available to them in the democracy. Let’s return to the statement. Taylor said Hitler abolished unions "and that’s what our governor’s doing today." Walker has not proposed abolishing any unions. His budget-repair bill would prohibit some government workers from joining unions and it would curtail the collective bargaining rights of most public employees. But Walker cannot order any of the changes; they would have to be approved by the Legislature, put in place by voters in November 2010. Hitler, by fiat, not only ended all collective bargaining, he abolished all unions, seized their funds and sent their leaders to concentration camps. Taylor’s comparison is ridiculously extreme. It deserves our most extreme rating: Pants on Fire. | null | Lena Taylor | null | null | null | 2011-02-22T13:13:59 | 2011-02-15 | ['Wisconsin', 'Scott_Walker_(politician)'] |
snes-02488 | Alabama just brought back racial segregation in schools. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alabama-school-segregation/ | null | Politics | null | Bethania Palma | null | Did Alabama ‘Just Bring Back’ School Segregation? | 4 May 2017 | null | ['Alabama'] |
goop-02195 | Miranda Lambert, Anderson East Wedding Off? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/miranda-lambert-wedding-off-anderson-east/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Miranda Lambert, Anderson East Wedding Off? | 9:48 am, November 16, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10226 | I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/sep/04/john-mccain/obama-cuts-taxes-for-some-though/ | In his acceptance speech to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., presidential nominee John McCain made the case for his candidacy. His speech highlighted personal biography and policy positions. At times it made contrasts between McCain and Democratic nominee Barack Obama. "We believe in a government that unleashes the creativity and initiative of Americans," McCain said. "Government that doesn't make your choices for you, but works to make sure you have more choices to make for yourself. I will keep taxes low and cut them where I can. My opponent will raise them." McCain is partially right that Obama will raise taxes. Obama intends to roll back the Bush administration's tax cuts on people with incomes of $250,000 for couples and $200,000 for singles. McCain, on the other hand, wants to leave the Bush tax cuts in place for all income levels. But Obama's proposals also include a number of tax cuts for people who make less than those amounts. Obama advocates eliminating income taxes for seniors with incomes less than $50,000. He also proposes a $1,000 tax credit on income for working families ($500 for singles), to offset payroll taxes. The Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan research group, has extensively analyzed both candidates tax plans and published a report on their findings. "The Obama plan would reduce taxes for low- and moderate-income families, but raise them significantly for high-bracket taxpayers," the report concluded. "By 2012, middle-income taxpayers would see their after-tax income rise by about 5 percent, or nearly $2,200 annually. Those in the top 1 percent would face a $19,000 average tax increase — a 1.5 percent reduction in after-tax income." Given this analysis, McCain abbreviates Obama's plan too much. Obama's tax plan includes tax cuts for many. We rate McCain's statement that Obama will raise taxes to be Half True. | null | John McCain | null | null | null | 2008-09-04T00:00:00 | 2008-09-04 | ['None'] |
pomt-14871 | The Democrats plan "to raise your tax rates to 70 or 80 percent." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/12/chris-christie/chris-christies-false-claim-democrats-are-going-ra/ | New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie may have gotten bumped to undercard debate, but that didn’t deter him from aiming above the GOP field and targeting the other side instead. Don’t worry about his fellow Republican rivals, Christie said, worry about the Democrats and Hillary Clinton, who is "coming for your wallet." "If anybody believes the stuff they heard from that Democratic debate a few weeks ago, there’s nothing for free," Christie said. "What they forgot to tell was that they’re going to raise your tax rates to 70 or 80 percent in order to provide all of that stuff." Several of you asked us to look into whether Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley want to hike up taxes to 70 or 80 percent. The Christie camp told us that it’s been widely reported that Sanders "doesn’t flinch" over returning to a 90 percent top marginal tax rate. But that’s not the same thing as a tax increase of 70 or 80 percent for the average taxpayer (Christie earned a Pants on Fire for his statement last debate that Sanders wants a 90 percent rate for ordinary Americans). Nor does that prove that Clinton and O’Malley also want a tax rate, top marginal or otherwise, of 70, 80 or 90 percent. None of the three Democrats have released formal tax plans, but spokespeople for Clinton and Sanders said Christie’s statement is "ridiculous" and "completely false." Tax analysts also told us that there’s nothing in what Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley have said so far that suggest rates that high. The tax plans Here’s what each candidate has proposed so far, according to analysis by the free market-oriented Tax Foundation and the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, as well as our own research: Clinton’s tax plan Sanders’ tax plan O’Malley’s tax plan • Makes the higher education tax credit permanent and creates a credit for out-of-pocket health care costs • Repeals the Cadillac tax in the Affordable Care Act • Creates medium-term capital gains rates between 24 and 39.6 percent (current short-term rate is 39.6 percent and long-term rate is 20 percent) • Creates a 15 percent tax credit for companies that share profits with workers • Creates a high-frequency trading tax • Eliminates carried interest loopholes • Raises the top marginal income tax rate from 39.6 percent to above 50 percent • Creates a net investment income surtax of 10 percent • Raises capital gains and dividends tax rates to the level of income taxes • Raises the top estate tax rate from 40 percent to 65 percent (estates under $3.5 million would be exempt) • Repeals the Cadillac tax in the Affordable Care Act • Raises the payroll tax of 12.4 percent to 12.8 percent • Eliminates deferral on foreign income • Creates a $20 per ton carbon tax • Creates a financial transaction tax • Creates a Wall Street speculation tax • Eliminates the cap on Social Security taxes • Repeals the Cadillac tax in the Affordable Care Act • Creates a financial transaction tax Compared to the Republicans’ tax plans, the Democrats’ proposals are less detailed and make minor changes to the current system, said the Tax Policy Center’s Roberton Williams. He and other experts emphasized that no Democrat has offered a detailed tax plan with specific rates, let alone rates as high as Christie says. "It does not seem likely that the Democratic candidates intend to levy very high rates on the median American household," said Scott Greenberg, an analyst with the Tax Foundation. "Christie’s claim is more of a statement of ‘there’s no such thing as free lunch,’ " observed Bill Smith, the managing director of the tax consulting firm CBIZ MHM, adding, "But I don’t think any of one of (the Democrats) in their wildest dreams would raise taxes to 70 or 80 percent across the board." Not exactly ‘your tax rates’ Both Greenberg and the Williams pointed out that it’s plausible that the Democratic candidates would increase the rate on top earners. But that’s not the same thing as raising "your tax rates to 70 or 80 percent." "It may be necessary to raise top individual tax rates to levels such as 70 or 80 percent to fund Democratic candidates’ spending proposals without increasing the deficit or taxing middle- and low-income Americans," he said, referring us to a Wall Street Journal analysis of the price tag of Sanders’ proposals. As we’ve previously noted, Sanders has said he doesn’t think a top marginal tax rate of 90 percent would be too high. And he’s specifically proposed to raise the top rate from its current rate of 39.6 percent to above 50 percent. In other words, for individuals making more than $400,000 a year (roughly the threshold for the top 1 percent of incomes), any amount they make above $400,000 would be taxed at 50 percent. The income earned below $400,000 is taxed at lower rates. Sanders has also proposed to raise the top estate tax to 65 percent, which would affect estates worth more than $1 billion (there are 537 individuals with that much wealth in the United States today). Again, both of those top rates would affect just a tiny fraction of Americans. Sanders’ proposal to increase the federal payroll tax from 12.4 to 12.8 percent would hit everyone — but that’s nowhere near 70 or 80 percent. Clinton and O’Malley, for their parts, haven’t said anything specific about raising income or estate tax rates. But like Sanders, their proposals would mostly affect the wealthy and still not at the levels Christie is suggesting. Take for example, Clinton’s proposal to raise taxes on capital gains, the profits that come from selling an asset like a stock or property. In 2014, 42 percent of these investments, about $305 billion out of $722 billion, came from the top 0.1 percent, reported PolitiFact Virginia. Currently, the short-term rate is 39.6 percent (the same as income), but it decreases to 20 percent once you’ve held on to that stock for longer than a year. Clinton’s plans adds four additional brackets for investments held between one and six years. The highest rate proposed by Clinton, 39.6 percent, still doesn’t come close to Christie’s purported 70 or 80 percent. Our ruling Christie said the Democrats plan "to raise your tax rates to 70 to 80 percent." We understand the spirit of Christie’s statement, but that doesn’t make it accurate. None of the three Democrats running have proposed raising rates to 70 or 80 percent for the average taxpayer or is it likely that they will. Christie is exaggerating the rate hikes proposed by the Democrats, the amount of people they’ll affect or both. We rate Christie’s claim False. | null | Chris Christie | null | null | null | 2015-11-12T11:25:43 | 2015-11-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-13755 | Says Ted Cruz "never denied" his father was photographed with Lee Harvey Oswald. | pants on fire! | /texas/statements/2016/jul/22/donald-trump/pants-fire-claim-ted-cruz-never-denied-father-phot/ | Donald Trump, fresh off triumphantly accepting the Republican presidential nomination in Cleveland, surprisingly revived an explosive unfounded tale related to someone with no chance of beating him in November. The day after the 2016 Republican National Convention, Trump said his vanquished Republican rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, had never denied that his father was in a 1963 photo with Lee Harvey Oswald, who went on to assassinate President John F. Kennedy that November. At a rally, Trump initially told supporters he doesn’t want the backing of Cruz, whose convention speech two days earlier drew boos for not including a Trump endorsement; the Texan did offer congratulations. Next, Trump resurrected his unconfirmed claim about Oswald and Rafael Cruz, the senator’s father, possibly knowing one another. Trump said: "All I did is point out the fact that on the cover of the National Enquirer there was a picture of him and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast. Now, Ted never denied that it was his father. Instead he said, ‘Donald Trump.’ I had nothing to do with it. This was a magazine that frankly, in many respects, should be very respected." In May 2016, PolitiFact found incorrect and ridiculous--Pants on Fire--Trump’s claim that Cruz’s father was with Oswald before Kennedy’s assassination. There was no evidence the man next to Oswald in the black-and-white photo published in the Enquirer was the elder Cruz. Notably, facial recognition experts advised that no such match could be made; meantime, historians found no corroborating records. The Enquirer never said how it determined the man in the photo with Oswald was Rafael Cruz. Could it still be that Sen. Cruz never denied his father was in the photo? To our inquiry on this point, Cruz spokeswoman Catherine Frazier pointed out a statement the Cruz campaign gave to the McClatchy News Service in April 2016 at the time the photo in question was printed on the Enquirer’s cover. The Cruz campaign’s communications director, Alice Stewart, said then: "The story is false; that is not Rafael in the picture,"according to the Miami Herald’s April 22, 2016 news story. Stewart’s "not Rafael" declaration appears to have gotten play. We found it in stories or web posts on the McClatchy website and for the conservative web network The Blaze plus in the International Business Times, on the FactCheck.org fact-checking site and on sites for Yahoo! News, The Hill, Gawker, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal. Trump first cited the Enquirer article during a May 3, 2016, telephone interview with the Fox News program, Fox and Friends. Later that day, at an Indiana campaign event, Cruz spoke to reporters, saying: "This morning Donald Trump went on national television and attacked my father. Donald Trump alleges that my dad was involved in assassinating JFK. Let’s be clear, this is nuts. This is not a reasonable position, this is just kooky." Cruz said the Enquirer "just spread lies, blatant lies" and described the article as "this idiotic story about JFK." Also, on May 3, 2016, Ben Jacobs, political reporter for the Guardian, tweeted a statement regarding the claim that Jacobs generally attributed to the Cruz campaign. It said: "It’s embarrassing that anyone would enable Trump to discuss this. It’s a garbage story and clearly Donald wants to talk about garbage." The same day, Rafael Cruz told ABC News in a TV interview that the links insinuated between him and Oswald were "ludicrous." "I was never in New Orleans at that time," he said. Our ruling Trump said the day after the Republican convention that Cruz "never denied" his father was pictured with Oswald before Kennedy’s assassination. This spring, Cruz called the National Enquirer story "lies." Earlier, a Cruz camp spokeswoman said outright the elder Cruz wasn’t in the published photo. That's far enough from "never denied," it makes Trump's claim incorrect and ridiculous. Pants on Fire! PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/71e05452-f360-4bcc-99aa-64c54477a3ec | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-07-22T16:15:55 | 2016-06-22 | ['Ted_Cruz', 'Lee_Harvey_Oswald'] |
goop-00880 | Jennifer Lawrence Regrets Turning Down ‘Ocean’s 8’ Role? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-lawrence-oceans-8-role/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Jennifer Lawrence Regrets Turning Down ‘Ocean’s 8’ Role? | 12:47 pm, June 5, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02400 | Claim Karrueche Tran “Laughing At Chris Brown’s New Song” Is Tru | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/karrueche-tran-laughing-chris-brown-new-song-reaction-not-true/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Claim Karrueche Tran “Laughing At Chris Brown’s New Song” Is NOT True | 12:50 pm, September 30, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01498 | Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth Fighting Over Where To Live? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/liam-hemsworth-miley-cyrus-fight-where-live-california-australia/ | null | null | null | Holly Nicol | null | Miley Cyrus, Liam Hemsworth Fighting Over Where To Live? | 2:24 pm, February 25, 2018 | null | ['Miley_Cyrus', 'Liam_Hemsworth'] |
obry-00046 | Republican Patrick Testin ran against Democratic incumbent Julie Lassa for Wisconsin State Senate in District 24 and won the election by just over 4,000 votes. Testin released a video advertisement on November 2 entitled “Raise the Bar” where he stated the following: “We’ve been weighed down by 18 years of the same failed leadership, but together we can lift our communities back up.” This advertisement employs broad and ambiguous terms, such as “we,” “failed” and “communities” without context for what those terms are defined as in relation to the campaign. While unspecified terms can potentially appeal to a wider audience, it also doesn’t answer any real policy issue questions or explain what Testin would do as a candidate if elected to public office. | unobservable | https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2016/11/16/testin-addresses-same-failed-leadershipin-video-advertisement/ | null | null | null | Kerry Huth | null | Testin addresses “same failed leadership”in video advertisement | December 16, 2016 | null | ['Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'Wisconsin_State_Senate', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
snes-02541 | A group of lions intervened and saved Christian missionaries from being stoned to death by Islamic militants in Asia. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lions-save-christians-from-islamic-militants/ | null | Religion | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Did a Group of Lions Save Christians from Islamic Militants? | 26 April 2017 | null | ['Asia', 'Islam'] |
snes-00722 | Swedish-born producer DJ Avicii died under suspicious circumstances while he was trying to use music videos to expose a pedophile ring | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dj-avicii-expose-pedophile-ring/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | Did DJ Avicii Try to Expose a Pedophile Ring Before He Died? | 24 April 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04751 | A woman's obituary said that she chose death over the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obituary-trump-clinton/ | null | Humor | null | Dan Evon | null | Woman Chooses Death Over Trump or Clinton | 18 May 2016 | null | ['Donald_Trump', 'Hillary_Rodham_Clinton'] |
farg-00372 | Christine Blasey Ford "Sent Feinstein Same Letter Last Year" About Gorsuch | false | https://www.factcheck.org/2018/09/baseless-claim-tells-of-gorsuch-accusation/ | null | fake-news | FactCheck.org | Angelo Fichera | ['Supreme Court confirmation'] | Baseless Claim Tells of Gorsuch Accusation | September 24, 2018 | 2018-09-24 20:33:14 UTC | ['None'] |
snes-04923 | A woman ate her grandchild after smoking bath salts. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/grandma-eats-baby-bath-salts/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Grandma Eats Her Daughter’s New Born Baby After Smoking Bath Salts | 14 April 2016 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02136 | Type “BFF” on Facebook to See If Your Account is Secure | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/type-bff-on-facebook-to-see-if-your-account-is-secure-fiction/ | null | internet | null | null | ['cyberattacks', 'facebook', 'warnings'] | Type “BFF” on Facebook to See If Your Account is Secure | Mar 29, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00286 | Rep. Jason Lewis (R-Minnesota) called for women to have a "demure and fully-covered" dress code. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jason-lewis-dress-code/ | null | Politics | null | Bethania Palma | null | Did Congressman Jason Lewis Call for a Dress Code for American Women? | 30 July 2018 | null | ['None'] |
farg-00197 | Claimed Vice President Mike "Pence used a private server when he was governor of Indiana" for government business. | false | https://www.factcheck.org/2017/07/hoyer-revisits-mike-pences-emails/ | null | the-factcheck-wire | Rep. Steny Hoyer | Eugene Kiely | ['Clinton emails'] | Hoyer Revisits Mike Pence’s Emails | July 26, 2017 | [' CNN\'s "New Day" – Tuesday, July 25, 2017 '] | ['Indiana'] |
pomt-03308 | I was filibustered. | mostly true | /ohio/statements/2013/jul/29/rob-portman/sen-rob-portman-ohio-says-he-was-once-filibustered/ | Whew. We almost lost the filibuster. We’re being facetious, of course, because most Americans go through life happily without knowing -- or necessarily needing to know -- the rules of the United States Senate. But for those who care about the art of blocking nominees or killing legislation, today’s fact-check is for you. "I was filibustered." That statement comes not from Richard Cordray, the newly confirmed director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after a long filibuster (hang on, we’ll get to the definition), but from one of the U.S. senators who helped block him: Ohio’s Rob Portman. Portman, a Republican, made the statement to reporters during a conference call on July 11, when Cordray’s inability to get an up-or-down confirmation vote was coming to a head and Senate Democrats threatened to change the filibuster rules. As the Cordray matter came up, Portman reminded reporters, "I was filibustered." Really? We knew that Portman, then a House of Representatives member representing the Cincinnati area, had some difficulty when President George W. Bush nominated him to be the United States trade representative in 2005. But we did not recall anyone standing in the Senate well reading a phone book or "War and Peace" or speaking for hours to block Portman’s confirmation vote. Nor did we recall a long cloture fight -- a battle to win 60 votes, or a three-fifths majority, to end debate. These are what generally come to mind when the word "filibuster" (which comes from a Dutch word meaning "pirate," according to the Senate) is used. In Portman’s case, there was no floor battle. Rather, several weeks after Portman’s March 17, 2005, nomination, a single Democratic senator, Evan Bayh of Indiana, told the chamber’s leaders that he thought Bush was way too lax with China’s trade abuses and so he was placing a "hold" on Portman’s nomination as Bush’s trade ambassador. Bayh said at the time that before he could let the nomination move forward, he wanted a vote on a bipartisan bill to impose duties on subsidized imports from China. He and other senators, including Republicans, saw China’s practices as a violation of international trade laws. "I decided to take this step because I cannot sit idly by while American workers and companies continue to be victimized by foreign countries who violate our trade agreements with impunity," Bayh said at the time. A hold is one of the informal, gentlemanly traditions of the Senate. It works like this: Senator A says he will not confirm Nominee So-and-So because he is displeased with the nominee’s agency, has a problem with the president’s plans for that agency or thinks the nominee is ill-suited for the job. So he informs the majority leader that he is placing a hold on the nomination. And just like that, the Senate puts the nomination aside, like some unpleasant piece of business it just isn’t going to deal with. Sometimes members of the president’s own party will place holds, like when Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown put one on the nominee to head the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. because of concern over how Delphi Corp. retiree pensions were handled during the 2009 General Motors bankruptcy. President Obama ultimately used a recess appointment to get the nominee, Joshua Gotbaum, in office, and then the Senate agreed to confirm him with a regular vote. But in the case of Portman, it was a Democrat protesting a Republican. You might ask why senators from the Republican Party, who at the time comprised a majority, didn’t just demand a vote and override Bayh’s objection. But that’s just not the way the Senate normally does things. Besides, that would have almost certainly led to public debate and a cloture fight, which senators often have tried to avoid on cabinet nominations (present Senate climate excepted) because it takes up valuable floor time. Furthermore, Republicans had 55 seats in that particular Senate, and failure to get the 60 votes for cloture can be embarrassing to the nominee and the president, potentially weakening both politically. A hold can avoid all that while having the same effect of blocking the nominee -- and often doing so a lot more quietly. And that is exactly what happened in the case of Portman. The hold lasted barely two weeks. Portman, Bayh and others talked throughout this period and came to an understanding. Senate leaders agreed to hold a hearing on the China trade bill Bayh wanted. And Portman agreed that as trade ambassador, he would conduct a top-to-bottom review of China’s practices. Bayh dropped his hold. In the end, Portman was confirmed on a "voice vote," in which senators said "yea" or "nay" without their individual votes being recorded.. So had Portman been filibustered? We went to the Congressional Research Service for a definition of filibuster, and this is what one of its recent reports (May 31, 2013) said: "Filibustering includes any use of dilatory or obstructive tactics to block a measure by preventing it from coming to a vote." In a report the next month (June 26, 2013), the Congressional Research Service said, "Although a ‘hold’ has no formal procedural force under Senate Rules, it may represent an implicit threat to filibuster that may discourage the majority leader from bringing the matter to the floor." That seemed broader than the Hollywood version of a filibuster. Take, for example, "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," in which Jimmy Stewart’s character, the idealistic Sen. Jefferson Smith, held the floor by talking for 23 hours to halt Senate action. Bayh’s hold certainly was unlike Wendy Davis’s recent filibuster in Texas over that state’s abortion laws. The Texas state senator spoke for 11 straight hours, although she was ultimately unsuccessful in keeping Texas from passing tougher abortion restrictions. But Bayh’s hold and what are thought of as more traditional filibusters had one thing in common. That is, the Bayh-Portman standoff officially ended not only as a result of negotiations but also because Majority Leader Bill Frist soon said it was time to put this to a vote and move on. Frist filed a petition for cloture, which started the clock toward a 60-threshold vote. Portman’s Senate staff pointed this out to us, as did Sarah Binder, a Brookings Institution senior scholar and George Washington University political science professor. Binder has written extensively about filibusters and Senate stalling tactics. With a cloture vote looming to end the standoff, Bayh settled on the terms he wanted and dropped his opposition. A cloture vote, and the attendant debate leading up to it, was avoided. "That filing of the cloture motion is decent evidence in this case of the majority leader treating Bayh's hold as a threatened filibuster," Binder said in an email. Just to make sure we understood the nuance of all this, we contacted another expert, University of Miami political scientist Gregory Koger. Koger is the author of "Filibustering: A Political History of Obstruction in the House and Senate," and, like Binder, one of the nation’s experts on the filibuster and Senate rules. "The short answer is yes," Koger said. "I would consider a hold tantamount to a filibuster if it’s a threat of delay for strategic purposes." That is, he would consider it a filibuster if the senator placing the hold wanted something -- in this case, tougher trade enforcement. "If you’re using it so you can extract concessions, that to me is the same thing as a filibuster," Koger said. Bayh got concessions. He dropped the hold. So with all this in mind, how does Portman’s claim rate on the Truth-O-Meter? The hold on Portman got nowhere near the attention of the Cordray nomination, or of Wendy Davis’ efforts in Texas. And although Koger said a hold is tantamount to a filibuster when used to extract concessions, CRS described it as "an implicit threat to filibuster." Binder similarly said that "we often call Portman-like episodes a threatened filibuster: ‘If you go forward, I will block it.’" This additional information clarifies a generally accurate claim, so we’ll stop filibustering and follow the rules of PolitiFact: If a claim is generally accurate but needs additional information, it is Mostly True. | null | Rob Portman | null | null | null | 2013-07-29T15:50:34 | 2013-07-11 | ['None'] |
pomt-04826 | Says Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan "want to turn Medicare into a voucher system." | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/16/barack-obama/does-paul-ryan-want-turn-medicare-voucher-program/ | In their attacks against Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney's running mate, the Obama campaign and Democratic allies have been repeating a familiar word: vouchers. During a campaign event in Davenport, Iowa, on Aug. 15, 2012, President Barack Obama said, "I’ve strengthened Medicare. I've made reforms that save millions of seniors with Medicare hundreds of dollars on their prescription drugs. We're closing the doughnut hole. I've proposed reforms that will save Medicare money by getting rid of wasteful spending in the health care system. Reforms that will not touch your Medicare benefits. "And Gov. Romney and his running mate have a different plan. They want to turn Medicare into a voucher system. That means seniors would no longer have the guarantee of Medicare -- they’d get a voucher to buy private insurance. And if it doesn’t keep up with costs, well, that’s the seniors' problem. It was estimated that Gov. Romney's running mate, his original plan would force seniors to pay an extra $6,400 a year." We wondered whether Romney and Ryan really "want to turn Medicare into a voucher system." "Voucher" is a word Democrats have used over the years to criticize a variety of Republican privatization proposals, such as efforts to help private schools. Republicans don't like the word and try to avoid it. Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant specializing in "message creation and image management," boasts on his website that he "moved the public debate from ‘school vouchers’ to ‘opportunity scholarships.’" In the context of Medicare, Republicans prefer to call it "premium support" -- the one Ryan himself has used from day one when talking about his own proposals. A Romney-Ryan spokesman told us the campaign considers it a "premium support" plan, not a voucher plan. Both sides are acting in self-interest, said Ben Zimmer, executive producer of the Visual Thesaurus and Vocabulary.com and language columnist for The Boston Globe. "I can understand Republican willingness to embrace this alternative term, just as I can understand Democratic eagerness to remind voters of the dreaded ‘v-word’ at every turn," Zimmer said. In this item, we will sort through the claims and see whether it’s reasonable for Obama to call the Romney-Ryan plan for Medicare a "voucher system." We'll start with the dictionary. Merriam-Webster defines a voucher as "a written affidavit or authorization … a form or check indicating a credit against future purchases or expenditures; a coupon issued by government to a parent or guardian to be used to fund a child's education in either a public or private school." Ryan’s plans The initial Ryan plan that used "premium supports" was released in early 2011 and was approved by the GOP-controlled House before dying in the Senate, where Democrats called it radical and argued that it shifted too much of Medicare’s financial burden to beneficiaries. Under Ryan’s original plan, Medicare would have changed from a program that pays doctors and hospitals fees for particular services to one in which beneficiaries would be paid an amount by the government that they could use toward private insurance premiums. This would have affected people who today are under 55 only. The private plans would comply with standards set by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which administers the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Ryan has since offered updated versions of the plan, the first in conjunction with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and then as part of his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal. Ryan’s most recent plan is similar to his original one, with one key difference. The newer version allows beneficiaries under 55 a choice -- they can use their payment to buy private insurance or for a plan that acts like traditional Medicare. The amount a beneficiary receives would be based in part on the second least-expensive plan available on the exchange. But note that Obama said, "Gov. Romney and his running mate have a different plan." Is the most recent Ryan plan also official policy for the Romney campaign? In an interview with a Green Bay, Wis., television station on Aug. 15, Romney said, "Paul Ryan and my plan for Medicare, I think, is the same, if not identical -- it's probably close to identical." Based on this, we’ll evaluate Obama’s claim based on the most recent Ryan plan. A history of ‘premium support’ When Ryan unveiled his plan, Democrats poked fun at him for avoiding the term "voucher." At a hearing on the plan, Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., said, "My Republican colleagues don't like the sound of ‘voucher’ to describe their plan, so they've made up a new term called ‘premium support.’" Actually, that term has been around since a 1995 paper co-authored by two health policy experts, Henry Aaron, of the Brookings Institution, and Robert Reischauer, a former Congressional Budget Office director who was then at Brookings. "Premium support" also was used in a Medicare overhaul proposed by the bipartisan Breaux-Thomas commission in 1999 and in the 2010 Rivlin-Domenici proposal from the Bipartisan Policy Center. Each of these proposals had somewhat different details, but what they broadly shared is changing Medicare from a program in which the government pays the bills directly to one in which the government gives money to the beneficiary, who spends it on an insurance plan. In their 1995 paper, Aaron and Reischauer proposed that Medicare "pay a defined sum toward the purchase of an insurance policy that provided a defined set of services" -- an approach they billed as a "middle ground" between a separate national health care system for the aged and a "pure voucher system" within a "lightly regulated marketplace." Aaron -- who no longer supports the idea of premium support, saying the cost-control provisions of President Barack Obama’s health care law serve the purpose he intended -- reiterated in a blog post earlier this year that there are several key differences between a voucher program and premium support. For a proposal to qualify as premium support, Aaron wrote, it’s crucial to peg the beneficiaries’ payment to the actual rise in health care costs so people don't end up having to pay more because of inflation. Voucher plans that don’t do this "are virtually guaranteed to become increasingly inadequate," he wrote. So does the Ryan plan meet the definition of premium support? While his original plan was pegged to overall consumer prices, the most recent Ryan plan is pegged to the lower end of health care premiums. That’s closer to the Aaron-Reischauer definition than his first plan was, though the fact that it’s tied to the low end rather than average costs suggests that payment size could still lag typical health care prices. The notion that there’s a substantive difference between "premium support" and "vouchers" receives some support from free-market supporters. Michael Tanner, a health care analyst for the libertarian Cato Institute, said that the original Ryan plan, "leaned more toward a voucher," whereas Ryan’s second plan was "clearly premium support." Robert Moffit, a health policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, agrees with Aaron that there’s a distinction between "voucher" and "premium support," though he draws the opposite conclusion, arguing that the Obama campaign’s use of the term "voucher" is not justified, since the Ryan plan includes more regulation than for, say, airline vouchers for food and drink. Looking at linguistics The differences between vouchers and premium support may matter to health-policy professionals, but not necessarily to a general audience. And while the 1995 Aaron-Reischauer paper may have offered a detailed definition for "premium support," language tends to evolve over nearly two decades. In recent years, the definitions of "premium support" and "vouchers" have become almost indistinguishable, with plans such as Breaux-Thomas and Rivlin-Domenici using "premium support" to describe policies that weren’t identical to those from the 1995 paper. Reischauer made this argument when he told PolitiFact that he thinks the Obama campaign "is on firm ground" using the term "voucher." Even more convincingly, the 1995 paper didn’t say that premium support wasn’t a voucher -- it said that it wasn’t a "pure" voucher. This means that "premium support" may be seen as just one type of voucher, not the opposite of a voucher. Aaron told us he agreed with that reasoning. Take away the requirements listed in the 1995 paper, he said, "and you have a bare-bones voucher." Adhere to these requirements, he said, "and you have premium support. That means, I think, that premium support is a type of voucher." Our ruling We agree that in the world of policy wonks, there are distinctions between "vouchers" and "premium support," having to do with the type of inflation adjustment used and the degree of marketplace regulation imposed. Compared with his original plan, Ryan’s most recent plan does move closer to fitting the definition of pure premium support. But substantively, it’s still somewhere in between the two approaches. But the Romney-Ryan approach pretty much matches the dictionary definition of "a form or check indicating a credit against future purchases or expenditures." We think that describes the general way Ryan's plan would work. For a political discussion aimed at voters rather than policy wonks, we think Obama’s use of the term "voucher" is close enough to earn it a rating of Mostly True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2012-08-16T13:58:23 | 2012-08-15 | ['None'] |
pomt-14923 | Says a question about his financial skills at the CNBC debate included "discredited attacks from Democrats and my political opponents." | false | /florida/statements/2015/oct/30/marco-rubio/debate-rubio-calls-tally-financial-mishaps-pack-di/ | U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio waved off a question about his economic smarts during the latest Republican presidential debate, saying stories about his personal financial decisions weren’t worth discussing. At the Oct. 28, 2015, debate in Boulder, Colo., CNBC moderator Becky Quick asked Rubio how qualified he felt to guide national fiscal policy when he’d had so many money problems himself. "Sen. Rubio, you yourself have said that you've had issues. You have a lack of bookkeeping skills," Quick said, quoting Rubio’s 2012 book An American Son before listing several examples. "You accidentally inter-mingled campaign money with your personal money. You faced foreclosure on a second home that you bought. And just last year, you liquidated a $68,000 retirement fund. That's something that cost you thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties. "In terms of all of that, it raises the question whether you have the maturity and the wisdom to lead this $17 trillion economy. What do you say?" she asked. Rubio’s response was to dismiss all of Quick’s examples as partisan smear tactics. "Well, you just listed a litany of discredited attacks from Democrats and my political opponents, and I'm not gonna waste 60 seconds detailing them all," he said. He then went on to detail his blue-collar upbringing with immigrant parents. The response made us pause, because we wondered what had been "discredited" about Rubio’s widely reported financial mishaps. In this context, "discredited" means the things Quick said are not true or accurate. Rubio’s campaign did not respond to our requests for comment, but we’ll take them one at a time and explain what happened: "You accidentally inter-mingled campaign money with your personal money." Years before Rubio became speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in 2006, he created two political committees to pay for travel and other expenses. A 2010 Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald investigation found he failed to disclose paying $34,000 in expenses, including $7,000 to himself. He paid his wife Jeanette, who was treasurer of one of the committees, $5,700 for "gas and meals." Rubio also gave relatives another $14,000 and charged $51,000 in travel expenses to his own credit cards. Speaking of credit cards: In 2005, the Republican Party of Florida gave him an American Express for expenses. Rubio charged thousands of dollars’ worth of restaurant meals while his meals in Tallahassee were being covered by taxpayers as part of being in the state House. Rubio routinely used the party’s card to pay personal expenses, which he later repaid. Those included a rental car, repairs to his personal vehicle, flights to Tallahassee, a family reunion trip and paver work to his home. In all, he spent more than $100,000 between November 2006 and November 2008. He didn’t release disclosures prior to that. The Florida Commission on Ethics in 2012 dismissed a citizen complaint that had been filed during Rubio’s 2010 Senate campaign. Rubio wrote in his book that the expenses were the result of simple mix-ups. "For example, I pulled the wrong card from my wallet to pay for pavers," he wrote. Another time, "my travel agent mistakenly used the card to pay for a family reunion in Georgia." "Each time, I identified the charges and paid the costs myself, directly to American Express. The Republican Party of Florida didn't pay a single one of them. Nevertheless, in hindsight, I wish that none of them had ever been charged." Quick’s description of these events is accurate. "You faced foreclosure on a second home that you bought." In 2005, Rubio bought a house in Tallahassee with then-state Rep. David Rivera for $135,000. The pair used the home while in town on state business. Foreclosure proceedings on the Tallahassee house were started in 2010 when Rivera, then Florida House budget chairman and running for Congress in Miami, failed to make mortgage payments for five months. The loan had been structured for interest-only payments on an adjustable rate mortgage until April 2010. Rubio and Rivera stopped paying the loan in February because of a dispute over how much the payments would be after April. In June 2010, Deutsche Bank filed a lawsuit for $136,000, prompting Rivera to make a hasty payment for the missing months. Foreclosure proceedings were stopped. Rivera later became entangled in ethics investigations and Rubio has kept some distance from him. They sold the house in June 2015 for $117,000. It’s worth noting that the foreclosure proceedings didn’t proceed, but Rubio did "face" them on a second home. "And just last year, you liquidated a $68,000 retirement fund. That's something that cost you thousands of dollars in taxes and penalties." Rubio disclosed in May 2015 he had cashed out a tax-advantaged retirement account on Sept. 1, 2014, closing an American Bar Association account for the cash infusion. "It was just one specific account that we wanted to have access to cash in the coming year, both because I'm running for president, but, also, you know, my refrigerator broke down. That was $3,000. I had to replace the air conditioning unit in our home," Rubio told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. "My kids all go to school, and they're getting closer to college and school is getting more expensive. And then when you're running for president, we just wanted to access the sum of that cash." Because of the way most traditional IRAs are structured, Rubio was able to put money into the account without paying taxes. When he closed the account, by law he would have likely had to pay both income taxes and a 10 percent penalty, a move financial advisers usually do not recommend. Taxes and penalties could have ranged from about $24,000 to as high as $30,000, but it’s unclear how much he paid. Quick’s description here, too, is accurate. Our ruling Rubio said the premise of questions about his financial skills are "discredited attacks from Democrats and my political opponents." He was responding to examples Quick gave when asking if he was prepared to oversee the nation’s economy as president. She listed troubles Rubio had experienced with campaign bookkeeping, foreclosure proceedings and liquidating an IRA at severe tax penalties. All of these events happened and have been well-documented. It’s not accurate for Rubio to refer to the issues as "discredited," whether his opponents have used them to attack him or not. Quick was not making things up nor shading the facts. We rate Rubio’s statement False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/6a595865-463d-4975-981a-4e8332b0611d | null | Marco Rubio | null | null | null | 2015-10-30T14:55:07 | 2015-10-28 | ['CNBC', 'Democratic_Party_(United_States)'] |
pomt-09261 | A letter from BP to the Minerals Management Service "actually recommends improvements and specific recommendations around safety regulations should they choose to change them." | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/may/02/lamar-mckay/bp-letter-mms-urges-reduced-regulation/ | The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig continued to spew oil into the Gulf of Mexico as Lamar McKay, chairman and president of BP America, appeared on ABC News' This Week to answer questions. McKay said BP was doing everything it could to plug the well and mitigate the impact of the oil slick as it moved toward land. He also said he believed equipment failure was the likely cause of the explosion and subsequent spill. This Week host Jake Tapper asked McKay about BP's safety record and its response to the Minerals Management Service's recent efforts to increase regulations on oil rigs. "Just a few months ago, a BP executive protested proposed new safety regulations for oil rigs, writing to the government that quote, 'while BP is supportive of companies having a system in place to reduce risks, accidents, injuries and spills, we are not supportive of extensive proscriptive regulations.' Will BP continue to fight and lobby against safety regulations?" Tapper asked. "Well, I would characterize the letter you're talking about slightly differently," McKay said. "That letter was in response to the government's request for input on safety regulations that the MMS was looking at. The rest of the letter actually recommends improvements and specific recommendations around safety regulations should they choose to change them. So we're not fighting anything about safety. Safety is the number one priority. We're going to figure out what happened here, and that is going to help the MMS and help ourselves and help the industry get safer, so we're not fighting anything about safety." We wanted to fact-check McKay's description that "the rest of the letter actually recommends improvements and specific recommendations around safety regulations should they choose to change them." On June 17, 2009, the Minerals Management Service proposed rules to require oil and gas operators to develop and implement "safety and environmental management systems" for offshore drilling. In essence, the new regulations would require oil companies to create more documentation about their safety procedures and share them with workers and inspectors. The agency said it had reviewed the incident reports for offshore accidents and determined that four areas contributed the most to accidents: • Hazards Analysis, which means minimizing "the consequences of uncontrolled releases of oil and gas and other safety or environmental incidents"; • Management of Change, which means documenting and analyzing new procedures such as the addition of new equipment or modifications to existing equipment; • Operating Procedures, requiring written safety procedures; • Mechanical Integrity, to ensure that equipment is "designed, fabricated, installed, tested, inspected, monitored, and maintained in a manner consistent with appropriate service requirements, manufacturer's recommendations, and industry standards." BP responded to the proposed regulations in a letter dated Sept. 14, 2009, the day before the commenting period closed. The company said the new rules were unnecessary because "the industry's current safety and environmental statistics demonstrate that the voluntary programs ... have been and continue to be very successful." McKay is right that after BP gives its opinion that the new rules aren't needed, it then offered a number of changes to proposed rules. But on This Week, McKay gave the impression that BP was seeking additional, safer regulations. In fact, the letter is a plea for the company to have less regulation. We compared BP's suggestions for changes to the MMS regulations. Some of the suggestions are for language changes or technical fixes. But we found that in many cases, BP was suggesting changes that would give the company fewer responsibilities or more flexibility under the proposed rules. Here are a few examples: On Hazards Analysis, BP suggested language to make it clear that BP doesn't have to develop procedures for third-party companies. It also said it shouldn't have to develop analyses for property damage if the damage doesn't affect worker safety or the environment. For Operating Procedures, BP suggested language so that all employees would not have access to all safety procedures, but only to documentation that specifically apply to their jobs. On Mechanical Integrity, BP objected to language that required equipment to meet manufacturer's recommendations or specifications. A company's own specifications should be sufficient, the letter said. "Many of our inspection and testing requirements, while meeting regulations, are risk based in approach," the letter said. On regular safety audits, BP said that audits should occur based on "performance and risk rather than a prescribed schedule." Overall, the ideas in BP's letter point toward limiting the impact of new rules and making them apply to more narrow circumstances. McKay told Tapper that, "The rest of the letter actually recommends improvements and specific recommendations around safety regulations should they choose to change them." This gives the impression that BP was trying to work with regulators to make the safety regulations better, to make conditions safer. But most of what the letter suggests are ways to make the regulations less of a burden for BP. Certainly this is an "improvement" from BP's perspective, but we don't see how it makes safety "the number one priority." So we rate his statement 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 | Lamar McKay | null | null | null | 2010-05-02T17:51:49 | 2010-05-02 | ['BP', 'Bureau_of_Ocean_Energy_Management,_Regulation_and_Enforcement'] |
pomt-02539 | Says David Jolly "lobbied on a plan" by Rep. Paul Ryan that would turn Medicare into a voucher program. | half-true | /florida/statements/2014/feb/06/alex-sink/david-jolly-lobbied-plan-turn-medicare-costly-vouc/ | Alex Sink’s campaign for Pinellas County’s open U.S. House seat continues to pile on Republican rival David Jolly’s lobbyist past. The latest attack has been that the Dunedin native lobbied on radical changes to Medicare. A campaign commercial released on Jan. 25, 2014, features a voiceover detailing Jolly’s financial windfall from his work in Washington. It goes on to say, "Jolly even lobbied for a group committed to privatizing Social Security and then lobbied on a plan to turn Medicare into a costly voucher program." Did Jolly lobby on Medicare vouchers? This is a significant charge, since the district ranks eighth in the nation for population over 65 -- those eligible for Medicare. It’s also turning into a favored Democratic attack against Jolly, implying that he favored a plan to alter the program. We decided to investigate. The Ryan budget Jolly was a longtime aide and general counsel to the late Rep. C.W. Bill Young, whose death triggered the March 11 special election. Later, Jolly worked as a lobbyist from 2007 to 2012, first for Van Scoyoc Associates Inc., then for his own firm, Three Bridges Advisors. One of his clients at both firms was Free Enterprise Nation, a pro-business, anti-regulation advocacy group founded by Jim MacDougald, who is now Jolly’s campaign finance co-chairman. A Nov. 2009 lobbying disclosure form (with spelling errors) shows Jolly worked on behalf of Free Enterprise Nation for "Health Care reform, Social Security Reform, Paycheck Fairness Act and other labor related issues and initatives; Taxpayer proection, and Small business." His campaign confirmed the disclosure referred to a meeting with Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the former vice presidential running mate for Mitt Romney. Ryan has written several budget proposals that support restructuring Social Security and Medicare. Ryan’s plan was first submitted to the House as "The Roadmap for America’s Future" in 2008 and again in 2010. The proposal called for Medicare to be replaced with a government payment to beneficiaries to buy private insurance instead. These payouts were called subsidies or "premium support" by supporters and "vouchers" by detractors. The plan was reintroduced in 2011, 2012 and 2013, when they were passed by the Republican-led House but not the Democratic-controlled Senate. So the budget proposals have never been enacted. PolitiFact has considered whether the Ryan version of Medicare was a voucher system, and found the claim was Mostly True, though a more expansive version of the Democratic claim -- that proposals like Ryan’s would "end Medicare" -- received PolitiFact’s 2011 Lie of the Year. The Jolly campaign at first said Jolly didn’t actively lobby either way to get Ryan’s budget proposals passed. Then they said he opposed the part of the plan that would change Medicare. Jolly was there to "advocate for transparency of the out-year obligations of Social Security and Medicare" and "transparency and protecting promises made to beneficiaries," said Jolly campaign spokesman Sarah Bascom. On a Dec. 8, 2013, edition of Bay News 9’s Political Connections, Jolly himself said "there was a lot of good in the Ryan budget." But Jolly also said he believed the budget wasn’t the proper approach to some problems. "I think we have to be careful on the Ryan budget for a couple of reasons," he said on the show. "Entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare — we know what that means to the community here. I have said from the very beginning, we have to protect the promises that have been made, to everybody." Vouching for Jolly None of Jolly’s disclosure forms for his work with Free Enterprise Nation list Medicare as a topic. Nonetheless, the Sink campaign inferred that if Jolly was discussing "Health Care reform" with Ryan, and Ryan’s budget proposal was a topic, then Jolly had lobbied on the voucher plan. Experts we spoke to said the term "Health Care reform" was broad enough to include Medicare, since disclosure forms only require topics and not specifics. The caveat is that Sink’s attack would imply, to most reasonable people, that Jolly was in favor of the voucher plan, not against it. Experts on lobbying said that if Jolly was at a meeting where the Ryan budget was discussed, that counts as lobbying. Brett Kappel, an attorney for Washington, D.C., law firm Arent Fox who specializes in lobbying, said that according to the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, being paid for any discussion of a piece of legislation with a covered government official is an act of lobbying. "It doesn’t matter whether you’re for or against it," Kappel said, adding that even though Ryan’s budget proposal was a not technically a piece of legislation -- budget resolutions do not get sent to the president to be signed, as normal bills do -- it qualified as an item covered under disclosure guidelines. "There are a lot of gray areas in the rules," he said. "This isn’t one of them." It also doesn’t matter if Jolly’s sentiments about the budget were his or those of his client, Free Enterprise Nation. "He’s representing his client," Kappel said. "If he didn’t know his client’s position, he shouldn’t have said anything." Finally, Jolly himself said in a Feb. 3, 2014 interview with Tampa Bay TV station WFLA, that he had lobbied on the budget proposal. "A federal lobbying registration filing for a client simply says that this bill was discussed, so yes, I met with Paul Ryan, at the time that he was writing the Ryan budget," Jolly said, again specifying the conversation was about projecting future costs of Social Security and Medicare. "So what I talked to Paul Ryan about was transparency of the out-year debt, and as he’s wrestling with reforms, making sure that’s included. Now, all that appears on the filing is that I Iobbied on the Ryan budget, so they have taken that and they can play with it however they want." Our ruling One of Sink’s campaign commercials claims that Jolly "lobbied on a plan" by Ryan that would turn Medicare into a voucher program. She’s suggesting that a meeting with would-be Medicare reformist Ryan on behalf of Free Enterprise Nation had to be advocating for the congressman’s plan to alter the face of the retiree health insurance program. Jolly’s campaign acknowledged that Jolly had attended a meeting on an overall budget proposal that included changes to Medicare, and under the law, that is enough to count as lobbying. But Jolly’s camp says he didn’t support Ryan’s potential changes to Medicare, and we can’t contradict that. More importantly, neither can Sink. Democrats used vague language that a reasonable person would assume meant Jolly was promoting the voucher portion of the proposal, when Jolly says he was critical of it. There’s a lack of evidence to tie Jolly specifically to that part of the Ryan budget plan, even though he did lobby on the legislation and was discussing Medicare. Sink is leaving out important context as she tries to harness a hot-button issue. We rate her claim Half True. | null | Alex Sink | null | null | null | 2014-02-06T15:38:42 | 2014-01-25 | ['Paul_Ryan', 'Medicare_(United_States)'] |
pomt-13716 | John McCain’s chief economic adviser during the ’08 race … estimated that Trump’s promises would cause America to lose 3.5 million jobs. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/27/tim-kaine/dnc-tim-kaine-says-even-republicans-think-donald-t/ | It’s not just Democrats who think America would suffer under a Donald Trump presidency, said Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine. Take it from "John McCain’s chief economic adviser during the ’08 race who estimated that Trump’s promises would cause America to lose 3.5 million jobs," said Kaine, a senator from Virginia, in a speech on the third night of the Democratic National Convention. Kaine was referring to a blistering analysis of Trump’s economic proposals published by respected financial firm Moody’s Analytics. When the report first came out in June, Hillary Clinton also jumped on the fact that an adviser to a former Republican presidential candidate had produced such a critical report. But Trump responded to say: Not so fast. Mark Zandi, Moody’s chief economist and the report’s lead author, actually supports Clinton and President Barack Obama. So who is this guy? Zandi is a well-respected economist, and politicians and economists on both sides of the aisle like him. His latest report, which is sharply critical of Trump’s policy proposals, is a methodical examination that looks at three possible scenarios: one where Trump’s proposals are adopted in full, one where they are adopted on a smaller scale, and one that envisions a compromise with Congress. (Moody’s says a similar report about Clinton’s proposals is forthcoming.) Assuming that Trump’s proposals are adopted in full, the analysts do, in fact, estimate that the economy will be "significantly weaker," and there will be a 3.5 million drop in jobs, as Kaine said. "Under the scenario in which all his stated policies become law in the manner proposed, the economy suffers a lengthy recession and is smaller at the end of his four-year term than when he took office," the report says. "By the end of his presidency, there are close to 3.5 million fewer jobs, and the unemployment rate rises to as high as 7 percent, compared with below 5 percent today. During Mr. Trump’s presidency, the average American household’s after-inflation income will stagnate, and stock prices and real house values will decline." Though others might take issue with some aspects of his findings, the purpose of this fact-check is not to cast doubt on the quality of Zandi’s Trump report or his work generally. We have quoted him as an expert source on the economy in previous stories. Rather, Kaine is using Zandi’s Republican credentials as a former McCain adviser to make the point that even Republicans think Trump’s proposals would be bad for the economy. But it turns out he is leaving out an important piece of information that leaves a giant hole in that particular line of argument — notably that Zandi has donated the maximum amount of $2,700 to Clinton’s primary campaign. Beyond this presidential cycle, Zandi has donated to a variety of Democrats going back to 2007. Zandi confirmed to PolitiFact that he is a registered Democrat. In the 2008 presidential race, though, he did support Republican candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. He donated more than $2,000 to McCain’s campaign, and he was one of several economists advising McCain in an official capacity. But Zandi definitely wasn’t McCain’s chief adviser, as Kaine said, and has called his role in the campaign "very modest." Zandi was a Democrat back then, too, but he told the Wall Street Journal he is "eclectic" and that he has done work for members of both parties, a point he has since reiterated. After the 2008 election, though, Zandi turned out to be an important asset to the Obama administration. Zandi told us he wasn’t an official adviser to Obama or the White House, but he has produced research concluding the Obama administration’s response to the 2008 financial crisis was a success. And he was on Obama’s short list to regulate the Federal Housing Finance Agency, though he didn’t get the job. We asked Zandi what he would tell people who question whether his report on Trump is neutral, given his sizeable donation to Clinton and past connections with Democrats. "We used the same model of the economy we use for all our studies," he said. "And the study is completely transparent. Moreover, the approach we took is the same approach the (nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office) takes when evaluating similar fiscal policy proposals. I'm very interested in hearing substantive critiques of our work." Our ruling Kaine said "John McCain’s chief economic adviser during the ’08 race … estimated that Trump’s promises would cause america to lose 3.5 million jobs." The Moody’s report concluded that Trump’s economic proposals, if adopted in full, could cost 3.5 million jobs. And Zandi was a donor and economic adviser to the McCain campaign. But he was not the chief adviser, and this isn’t the full picture of his political affiliations. As it turns out, Zandi is a registered Democrat and donated the maximum amount to Clinton’s primary campaign. Zandi is a well-respected economist, and we are not in this fact-check casting doubt on the credibility of his Trump report or his work generally. He has advised and worked on issues for politicians on both sides of the aisle for many years. But to identify Zandi only as a former adviser of McCain leaves out a lot of the story about Zandi’s political affiliations. We rate Kaine’s claim Half True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/097b24d4-9ee7-492a-abbe-ea4ea40bd86f | null | Tim Kaine | null | null | null | 2016-07-27T22:49:48 | 2016-07-27 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-10586 | Every billion dollars we spend on highway construction results in 47,500 jobs. But the fact is the average American is sitting in traffic 38 hours a year. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jan/31/mike-huckabee/his-numbers-are-old-or-just-wrong-/ | Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has sometimes strayed from Republican orthodoxy during his long-shot bid for the GOP nomination, most notably when it comes to economic issues. He often touts his success in Arkansas improving the state's transportation infrastructure, so it was no surprise on Jan. 30, 2008, when he argued that highway spending would be a better means of stimulating the economy than the rebate checks that President Bush and Congress have in mind. "Every billion dollars we spend on highway construction results in 47,500 jobs," he said during the Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. And while Americans may love the thought of a $600 check from the government – as the House passed as part of its economic stimulus bill this week – they also would thank their government for reducing traffic congestion. "The fact is the average American is sitting in traffic 38 hours a year," Huckabee said. Huckabee is on well-trod ground here. But in the first case, he's using data so old that it can't possibly be true anymore. In the second, he misstates the results of a prominent study. Huckabee's not alone in arguing that $1-billion in highway spending equates to 47,500 jobs. The equation has been widely cited in recent years by officials of the U.S. Department of Transportation, members of Congress and transportation advocacy groups. Unfortunately, the study that made the finding is now 12 years old, 13 if you figure the data used was from 1995. The study was published in 1996 by the Federal Highway Administration. And in actuality, the author – economist Thomas P. Keane – found that $1-billion in federal spending created 42,100 jobs – 7,900 in direct highway construction, another 19,700 in related construction industry jobs and another 14,500 in unrelated jobs sparked by the construction, including everything from vendors who sell coffee to the workers to teachers who instruct their children. Advocates of highway spending have used the data to argue that $1-billion in federal spending would typically be matched by $100-million in state matching funds, tacking on the remaining 5,400 jobs cited by Huckabee. But the Transportation Department has never updated its findings and inflation has surely cut into the jobs that $1-billion, or even $1.1-billion, would create, says Frank R. Moretti, director of policy and research at TRIP, a Washington nonprofit group that advocates for policies to reduce traffic congestion. "You would anticipate wages have been impacted over the last 13 years," he says, reducing – potentially significantly – the amount of jobs created. Likewise Huckabee slips up a bit in citing a Texas Transportation Institute study examining the number of hours Americans spend stuck in traffic each year. The institute's September 2007 "Urban Mobility Report" found that congestion causes the average peak period traveler to spend an extra 38 hours in traffic each year. However, the average peak period traveler isn't the same as the "average American" that Huckabee cited. In fact, only about 60 percent of Americans travel during the 8 hours a day that the institute defines as the "peak period" – between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. in the morning and 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. during the evening rush. Senior citizens, stay-at-home parents, small children and the unemployed are among the 40 percent that typically don't. If they were factored in – thereby calculating how much time the average American spends in traffic – the 38-hour figure would likely drop into the 25-hour range, says David Schrank, a co-author of the report. So Huckabee's facts are off, though not egregiously. His first error is in relying on the U.S. Department of Transportation, which continues to cite a 12-year-old statistic. The second misstatement is an exaggeration of a study. We rate both statements, therefore, as 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 | Mike Huckabee | null | null | null | 2008-01-31T00:00:00 | 2008-01-30 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-14951 | Since 2001, higher education in the state has been cut or allowed to erode ... by 35 or 40 percent. | mostly true | /missouri/statements/2015/oct/23/chris-koster/koster-mostly-right-about-erosion-higher-education/ | As Attorney General Chris Koster eyes the 2016 race for Missouri governor, he’s pushing to share the ballot with a political twofer: a ballot proposal that would increase Missouri’s lowest-in-the-nation tobacco tax, which would pay for a boost in the state’s higher education spending. Speaking Aug. 20 at the Missouri State Fair, Koster, a Democrat, reiterated his support for the increasing the cigarette tax, telling the Columbia Daily Tribune: "Since 2001, higher education in the state has been cut or allowed to erode … by 35 or 40 percent." Do those numbers add up? It takes a bit of college-boy math. The top line About three-quarters of the state’s higher education budget comes from the general revenue fund. The rest of the money mostly comes from the 1 cent education sales tax and other state funds. (The federal government also chips in some money — this year it was a little under $3.7 million, or 0.2 percent, of the total higher education budget.) The average annual inflation rate between 2001 and 2015, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, was 1.918 percent for Missouri and Illinois. Inflation rates vary across the country, and the Federal Reserve calculates the inflation rate by region rather than by state. In fiscal year 2002, higher education was allotted $1,153,954,522. After adjusting for inflation — which compounds year over year — that’s equivalent to $1,505,546,464 today. In the most recent budget, for fiscal year 2016, $1,266,819,566 is set for higher education in Missouri. That’s a 15.9 percent decrease, short of what Koster said. The bottom line If you only look at dollars, though, you miss the effect of Missouri’s surging college enrollment, Koster spokesman Andrew Whalen told PolitiFact Missouri. In fall of 2001, Missouri’s public colleges and universities enrolled 143,656 full-time equivalent students. By 2014, enrollment had risen to 184,305 students. That’s a 28.3 percent increase in students. (This year’s totals aren’t in yet, but enrollment peaked in 2013, when Missouri counted 185,514 full-time equivalent students in its public institutions of higher education.) It’s hard to say exactly how much money is spent on each student across the state because each school receives money directly from the General Assembly. That money is counted in the appropriations for the Department of Higher Education — but since the department doesn’t dictate how that money is used, the department doesn’t track how much of it each institution spends, spokeswoman Liz Coleman said. But we can still get a rough per-student funding estimate by dividing the department’s budget by the number of full-time-equivalent students. Here’s the math: In 2001, Missouri spent $10,480.21 per student, adjusting for inflation. Assuming this year’s enrollment totals track near 2014’s (and there’s anecdotal evidence suggesting it’s not too far off), that would mean the state now spends closer to $6,873 per student. That’s a 34.4 percent decrease in higher education funding per student. There are a few caveats here: Students aren’t directly impacted by every dollar spent by the Department of Higher Education. For instance, the department also operates the Missouri State Historical Society, and some money also goes towards operating expenses for the department itself. The department funds scholarships, some of which go to students at private schools. And schools also draw funding from outside the appropriations process, from sources such as tuition, donations and endowments. So, the exact amount of money spent on each college student is a squishy number. But we can still confidently track how much the state contributes — which, in the context of raising the tobacco tax, is the essence of Koster’s statement. Our ruling Koster said that since 2001, higher education funding has been cut or eroded by 35 percent to 40 percent. The legislature hasn’t technically cut higher education funding over this time; nominally, the state has actually spent $100 million more on it. But that’s not enough to keep pace with inflation. And when you factor in skyrocketing enrollment numbers, the amount of money the General Assembly has budgeted to spend on a per student basis has indeed "eroded" by about as much as Koster says it has. Even though Koster’s statement is pretty close, it needs additional information and clarification. We rate it Mostly True. | null | Chris Koster | null | null | null | 2015-10-23T15:42:40 | 2015-08-20 | ['None'] |
tron-01865 | High mark-ups on prices of generic drugs | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/generics/ | null | household | null | null | null | High mark-ups on prices of generic drugs | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00026 | 'Maggie From Sweden Hacker Alert' | bogus warning | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/maggie-from-sweden-hacker-alert-hoax.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | HOAX - 'Maggie From Sweden Hacker Alert' | May 15, 2014 | null | ['None'] |
wast-00101 | We have to break up families. The Democrats gave us that law. It's a horrible thing where you have to break up families. The Democrats gave us that law and they don't want to do anything about it. | false | ERROR: type should be string, got " https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/05/30/fact-checking-immigration-spin-on-separating-families-and-1500-lost-children/" | null | null | Donald Trump | Salvador Rizzo | null | Fact-checking immigration spin on separating families and 1,500 \xe2\x80\x98lost' children | May 30 | null | ['Democratic_Party_(United_States)'] |
pomt-10235 | Sarah Palin "has more experience than Barack Obama." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/sep/02/fred-thompson/palin-does-not-exceed-obama/ | Experience has been a popular issue this campaign season, and we checked many facts during the primaries that hinged on experience, because candidates often touted their own resumes and implied that those of their competitors didn't stack up as well. The experience issue came roaring back to the 2008 campaign after John McCain picked Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to be his running mate. The Sunday after the Palin announcement, Republican Fred Thompson defended the choice on CNN's "Late Edition." "She's been in public service for about 13 years now, state and local government," Thompson said. "She is a reformer. She has experience not only in politics but in life. She's a mother of five children, and from an infant to a young man going into the military. And she has more experience than Barack Obama. So I think as long as we can continue to compare her experience with the presidential nominee of the Democrats, we're going to be in pretty good shape." For comparison purposes, it's interesting to note that Palin and Obama are close to the same age. Palin is 44 and Obama is 47. Palin graduated from University of Idaho in 1987 with a major in journalism and worked as a sport reporter for about two years. She married her husband in 1988 and co-owned small businesses with him (a commercial fishing operation and an snow machine and all-terrain vehicle business). In 1992, her political career began when she won election to the Wasilla (prounounced wah-SIL-uh) city council. In 1996, she ran for the mayor of Wasilla and unseated the incumbent by a vote of 617 to 413, according to press reports. Wasilla has a strong-mayor form of government. The mayor breaks ties on the city council and acts as the city administrator. When Palin took office in 1996, the pay was $68,000. In 2000, Wasilla had a population of 5,469, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. It is located near the city of Anchorage. During her tenure as mayor, Palin focused on increasing funding for basic infrastructure. During her bid for re-election in 1999, the Anchorage Daily News reported that Palin "counts among her successes the recently opened Fred Meyer store, the passage of a $5.5 million road and sewer bond, and the near halving of property taxes from 2 mills to 1.2 mills, the equivalent of an $80-a-year drop in taxes on a $100,000 home." Palin also cut the budget of the city's museum, and all three of the museum's employees quit in protest. Terms limits prevented her from running for mayor again in 2002. Instead, she ran for Alaska lieutenant governor and lost. In 2003, Gov. Frank Murkowski appointed her to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, where she served about a year before leaving the commission and blowing the whistle on fellow Republicans for conflicts of interest and conducting campaign work on public time. In 2006, she ran for governor, defeating the incumbent Murkowski in a primary and then winning the general. She took office on Dec. 4, 2006, and will have held office for two years a month after Election Day. So to summarize Palin's experience: Four years as a city council member, six years as a mayor, one year as a conservation commissioner, and two years as governor. That's 13 years total. Barack Obama, meanwhile, was a state legislator for eight years and will have been a U.S. Senator for four years. He also worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago for four years after graduating from Harvard Law School. That's 16 years. We want to count experience that seems relevant to holding political office, so there are some things we're not counting here that the candidates' supporters might argue we should. We're not counting part-time work. That means we're not counting Palin's small business experience, nor Obama's teaching at the University of Chicago Law School nor his part-time legal work while he was a state senator. We're also not counting the time Obama has spent writing his two books. We're not counting experience that seems tangential to holding higher office, so that excludes Palin's time as a sports reporter and the three years Obama spent in his early 20s as a community organizer (even though Obama often invokes his coomunity organizing as good experience for higher office). We're also not counting the approximately eight months Obama spent organizing a statewide voter registration drive in Illinois in 1992. Finally, we're not differentiateing the years of experience on the basis of size of government. Obama, as a legislator, represented significantly more people than Palin did as Mayor of Wasilla. Obama's state senate district included about 212,000 people compared to Wasilla's approximately 6,000. As a U.S. Senator, Obama represented the Illinois statewide population of about 12.8 million, while Palin as governor represented about 670,000. Keep in mind that back in 1992, opponents derided Bill Clinton as the governor of a small state -- Arkansas, population 2.8 million -- and it didn't dim his vote-getting ability. But getting back to Fred Thompson's statement, we find that Palin is not more experienced than Barack Obama. We rate her having 13 years relevant experience to his sixteen years, and this doesn't consider the difference between municipal and state government, which would work toward Obama's favor. Thompson would probably argue that we should not count Obama's experience as a civil rights attorney, but legal work does seem directly applicable to creating and enforcing the nation's laws, particularly civil rights law. Finally, Thompson might argue that Palin's experience as governor should overrule Obama's experience as senator because it is executive, statewide experience as opposed to legislative experience. But if we granted that, then Palin would also be more qualified than Joe Biden and John McCain, because neither of them have gubernatorial experience, either. We find Thompson's statement that Palin is more qualified than Barack Obama to be False. | null | Fred Thompson | null | null | null | 2008-09-02T00:00:00 | 2008-08-31 | ['Sarah_Palin', 'Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-07328 | (Bill) Nelson voted for billions in wasteful spending earmarks like the Bridge to Nowhere. | mostly true | /florida/statements/2011/may/12/george-lemieux/lemieux-says-nelson-voted-billions-earmarks-such-b/ | A new Web ad from the campaign for former Sen. George LeMieux takes on Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida over the issue of earmarks and specifically ties Nelson to perhaps the most infamous earmark ever, the so-called Bridge to Nowhere. A narrator in the ad, called "The Choice," says, "Nelson voted for billions in wasteful spending earmarks like the Bridge to Nowhere. LeMieux never requested a single earmark and pushed to ban them all." We're going to split this claim into two fact-checks. In this item, we are looking at the first half, about Nelson's record on earmarks. But we encourage you to also look at our companion fact-check on LeMieux's claim that he "never requested a single earmark and pushed to ban them all." (It's not as black-and-white as the ad suggests). The claim that "Nelson voted for billions in wasteful spending earmarks like the Bridge to Nowhere," is backed up in the ad with a reference to Senate Roll Call Vote 264, Oct. 20, 2005. That is the vote on a Highway Reauthorization Bill, which included $225 million for an Alaska bridge to connect the tiny city of Ketchikan to Gravina, an island with just a few dozen residents and an airport. The project was derisively nicknamed the Bridge to Nowhere by a government watchdog group and became a national symbol of federal pork-barrel spending. Nelson voted in favor of the highway bill, which passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, 93-1. To be clear, this was not an up-or-down vote on the Bridge to Nowhere. The bill included $286.5 billion through 2009 for highway, mass transit, safety and research programs. The Alaska bridge was less than a tenth of 1 percent of total spending in the bill. We couldn't find any evidence prior to the vote that Nelson had an opinion about the Alaska bridge one way or the other. In a press release that year, Nelson touted the fact that there was $8.6 billion in the bill for Florida road projects, including widening Interstate 75 from Fort Myers to Naples; constructing the Interstate 4 crosstown connector in the Tampa Bay area; improving I-4 alternate routes in Orlando; and widening the bypass around Tallahassee. However, Nelson did have an opportunity to specifically eliminate funding for the Bridge to Nowhere when U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., proposed an amendment that would have redirected $125 million in funding for the Alaska bridge toward reconstruction of a New Orleans bridge damaged by Hurricane Katrina. That amendment failed 82-15, and Nelson was among those who voted against it. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., criticized then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., for a similar vote. Obama and others said they voted against the Coburn amendment not because they agreed with funding for the Bridge to Nowhere, but because they felt it was wrong to single out one state's pork project without eliminating them for all the states (or, they feared their pork projects might be on the chopping block the next time). Incidentally, the Bridge to Nowhere never did get the money. A congressional committee directed the $225 million earmarked for the Gravina Island bridge to the Alaska Department of Transportation to spend the money as it saw fit. Although Alaska officials still could have decided to spend it on the bridge, ultimately the price tag for the project ballooned and the money was spent elsewhere. But back to LeMieux's claim that Nelson voted for "billions in wasteful spending earmarks like the Bridge to Nowhere." "He did," said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that tracks federal earmarks. "He supported bills, along with many other senators, that had billions of dollars of earmarks in them." According to an analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense, the highway bill in question included more than 6,000 earmarks at a cost of more than $24 billion. "Whether they were 'wasteful' or not all depends on who you talk to," Ellis said. "But along with the the rank and file, he (Nelson) has certainly been someone who actively participated in the earmarking game. I wouldn't put him in the pantheon of earmarkers, but he certainly played the game." We've docked politicians before for stretching the truth by claiming their opponent supported the Bridge to Nowhere simply because they voted for that highway bill in 2005. But this ad paints with a broader brush, criticizing Nelson for voting for billions of dollars worth of earmarks such as the Bridge to Nowhere. Nelson may not have specifically supported the Bridge to Nowhere project, but there's no question he voted in favor of a bill that was known to include billions of dollars worth of road project earmarks, some of which Nelson had requested for Florida. We rate the claim Mostly True. | null | George LeMieux | null | null | null | 2011-05-12T18:43:06 | 2011-05-10 | ['None'] |
farg-00315 | Says the United States has “doubled our use of renewable energy.” | false | https://www.factcheck.org/2012/09/renewable-energy-doubled-not-quite/ | null | the-factcheck-wire | Barack Obama | Lori Robertson | ['energy'] | Renewable Energy ‘Doubled’? | September 14, 2012 | [' Democratic National Convention – Thursday, September 6, 2012 '] | ['United_States'] |
tron-01690 | Obama Authorized Funds for the Immigration of Hamas Refugees From Gaza to the US | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/obama-palestine-refugees/ | null | government | null | null | null | Obama Authorized Funds for the Immigration of Hamas Refugees From Gaza to the US | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05474 | The IKEA furniture chain is selling a swastika-shaped table. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/false-ikea-selling-a-swastika-table/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | IKEA Is Selling a Swastika-Shaped Table | 17 December 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03951 | Says of a failed cloture vote on nominating Chuck Hagel for defense secretary: "This is not a filibuster." | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/feb/18/john-cornyn/john-cornyn-said-move-delay-hagel-nomination-not-f/ | Some Republicans in the U.S. Senate aren’t very happy that their old colleague, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, has now been nominated to be President Barack Obama’s defense secretary. Some don’t like what he said about the Iraq war. Others think he did a bad job at his confirmation hearings. Still others want to use the nomination to get more information out of the Obama administration about last year’s attacks on American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya. So when majority leader Harry Reid of Nevada brought the Hagel nomination to the floor on Feb. 14, 2013, for a procedural vote known as "cloture," he couldn't muster enough votes. Cloture requires 60 votes, and enough Republicans opposed the move so that cloture failed. Reid complained that Republicans were obstructing for political reasons. "We know how the tea party goes after Republicans when they aren’t conservative enough," Reid said. "Is that something they need to have on their resume: I filibustered one of the President’s nominees? Is that what they want?" Not so, Republicans replied. "This is not any attempt to kill this nomination. This is not a filibuster," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said in the floor debate. "I realize it is the headline the majority leader would like the newspapers to write." Rather than trying to kill the nomination, Cornyn said, senators simply wanted more information. "There are reasonable requests being made on this side for additional information," Cornyn said. "I hope and trust information will be provided in the next few days. When we come back from the recess, we will have another vote and another opportunity for senators to express themselves." So Reid said it was a filibuster; Cornyn said it wasn’t. Which is it? Defining the filibuster Our first step was to determine exactly what a filibuster is. It’s not specifically defined in Senate rules. Still, the U.S. Senate’s own website has this to say: "Using the filibuster to delay or block legislative action has a long history. The term filibuster -- from a Dutch word meaning ‘pirate’ -- became popular in the 1850s, when it was applied to efforts to hold the Senate floor in order to prevent a vote on a bill." The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, a widely respected arm of Congress that prepares research for members, recently issued a detailed report on the filibuster. "Filibustering includes any use of dilatory or obstructive tactics to block a measure by preventing it from coming to a vote," said the report published by the service on Nov. 29, 2012. Hollywood’s version of the filibuster -- think Mr. Smith Goes to Washington -- is one senator standing alone on the floor and talking, talking, talking. Actually, a speech isn’t necessary to conduct a filibuster. The hallmark of the filibuster instead is that it forces a requirement for 60 votes rather than 51 to approve or move forward on a measure. Hagel’s confirmation, like most other measures, will require only a simple majority if and when it gets to a vote. Yes, it’s a filibuster Several experts we spoke with said the failed cloture vote does constitute a filibuster. "There's no single formal definition of a filibuster. The simplest version is that a filibuster occurs when a minority blocks a Senate majority from acting," said Sarah Binder, a political scientist and author of Stalemate: Causes and Consequences of Legislative Gridlock. "Probably a more accurate definition involves ‘intent’: A minority blocks a Senate majority from acting with the intent of derailing the measure (or nomination)." Binder said she thought cloture vote on the Hagel nomination was a filibuster: "The GOP actions against Hagel constitute a filibuster because the majority has been prevented from getting to a vote on confirmation." Steven S. Smith, a professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis, agreed. "Jargon gets in the way. Minority obstruction is the key concept. Minority obstruction occurred here," he said. Another filibuster expert, Gregory Koger of the University of Miami, said it was a filibuster: "In the modern Senate, ‘holding’ a nomination and forcing the majority to shut off debate using the cloture process is a filibuster. Under the rules of the Senate, nominations require a simple majority for approval. It is incorrect to suggest that a 60-vote threshold is normal, natural, or common." In Cornyn’s defense Cornyn emphasized that the Hagel cloture vote was an attempt to get more information, not kill the nomination outright. And, it was Reid who chose to schedule the cloture vote when he did, before senators were satisfied, Cornyn said. "This was the majority leader's choice, which was his prerogative, and the White House's choice. We could have done this differently," Cornyn said. Cornyn’s office told us that on the day of the cloture vote, it had been 38 days since Hagel was nominated, not an unusually long time for a nominee to be under consideration. The staff also pointed us to comments from senators saying they expected Hagel would get a vote after the Senate returned from recess. In the book Defending the Filibuster: The Soul of the Senate, Richard A. Arenberg and Robert B. Dove defend the filibuster as a moderating force and a check on executive power. The filibuster, they write, has a historic role "as a protection of minority rights and a force for consensus building." We asked Arenberg whether he thought the Hagel case was a filibuster or not. He said it was a complicated case. "The majority leader clearly wanted to have the vote prior to the impending recess, at least in part for tactical reasons," he said. "Republicans who oppose the nomination want the nomination delayed until the day after the recess in order to seek answers to additional questions, but also to allow opponents time to marshal further opposition. " Traditionally, senators would work out requests for more time among themselves, without needing a cloture vote, he said, but that didn’t happen this time. "It's hard to characterize this as a classic filibuster and in a sense, it does come closer to what is typically termed a ‘hold,’" Arenberg said. "Of course, holds don't exist in the Senate rules and have their roots in senatorial courtesy. There's not too much of that (courtesy) in this circumstance. In the end, answering the questions rests on an analysis of the motivations of those seeking delay and what you believe about the duration of the delay which they seek." Filibustering cabinet nominees In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Sen. Jefferson Smith is looked upon as a hero for conducting a filibuster. But in our review of the news coverage of the Hagel nomination and recent reports on the filibuster, we can’t help but note that "filibuster" has come to have a distinctly negative connotation, synonymous with political obstruction. Adding fuel to the fire here is that presidents usually get their cabinet nominees confirmed. While some nominees withdraw under political pressure before a confirmation vote, it’s rare for a nominee to make it to the floor and lose, much less be filibustered. The Washington Post recently reviewed the history of filibustering cabinet nominees and concluded that no nominations had failed because of an actual filibuster. Our ruling Cornyn said the failed cloture vote on Hagel was "not a filibuster." In fact-checking this statement, we’re swayed by definitions of filibusters that say it’s any move to prevent a measure or nomination from coming to a simple majority vote. The failed vote of Feb. 14 clearly delayed Hagel’s nomination from moving forward. Whether a filibuster itself is a positive assertion of minority rights or a negative instance of obstruction is in the eye of the beholder. Still, the definition of a filibuster is not precise. Making things more complicated is that Cornyn and others have said they intend to allow a vote on Hagel’s nomination in the near future. Overall, we rate Cornyn’s statement Mostly False. | null | John Cornyn | null | null | null | 2013-02-18T12:13:22 | 2013-02-14 | ['None'] |
pomt-02785 | The "priorities" of more than three-quarters of Americans are to increase the minimum wage, create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and require background checks for gun buyers. | mostly false | /punditfact/statements/2013/dec/06/al-sharpton/sharpton-peoples-priorities-raise-minimum-wage/ | Liberals like to claim that Republican policies are out of step with the views of most Americans. The Rev. Al Sharpton drew on some polling results to argue that point on his MSNBC show Politics Nation. Sharpton teed up his attack with an excerpt from a floor speech by House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. Boehner: House Republicans are listening. The Senate, the president continue to stand in the way of the people's priorities. Sharpton: The people's priorities? Let's take a look at some of those priorities. 76 percent want an increase in the minimum wage. How about focusing on that? 77 percent want a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. There's a priority you should focus on. And nearly one year after the Newtown tragedy, 89 percent support background checks. We see two facets to Sharpton’s claim. First, do better than three-quarters of Americans support a higher minimum wage, a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants and enhanced background checks for gun-buyers? And second, are these "the people’s priorities"? On the first question, Sharpton largely has it right. For starters, he’s correct about how the congressional GOP’s stance contrasts with that of Americans as a whole. Republicans, with some help from a few Democrats, stymied a Senate bill to require background checks for sales at gun shows and over the web. Most congressional Republicans oppose raising the minimum wage. The idea of a path to citizenship divides the party, but opposition to it is significant and passionate. And Sharpton also has pretty good support for the notion that three-quarters of Americans back each of the three policy positions he cited. Sharpton had a graphic with the poll results and at the bottom were the sources: Quinnipiac University, Gallup and CBS. We reached out to MSNBC to get the specific polls they used but did not hear back. Here is what our research turned up. Sharpton’s claim Quinnipiac Gallup CBS 76% increase minimum wage NA 76% 69% 77% path to citizenship 57% 87% 77% 89% gun buyer background checks 89% 83% 88% By and large, the polls Sharpton cited back up his claim. On raising the minimum wage and background checks, he chose the highest percentage, but certainly with the latter, all of the results are in the same range. On the matter of citizenship for illegal immigrants, he chose the middle value. There was some variation in the way the polls asked their questions. On the minimum wage, Gallup asked about raising it to $9 an hour, while CBS simply asked if it should be raised and gave no dollar amount. On a pathway to citizenship, Quinnipiac was the outlier because it didn’t include the details of paying fines, waiting 10 years and other conditions before citizenship would be possible. (We’ll get into why that matters below.) On gun background checks, all three asked pretty much the same question. We also looked at other polls to see if they were in line with the ones Sharpton used. The results were mixed, possibly because some polls worded the question differently. We’ve marked those with an asterisk. Claim NBC/WSJ Pew Bloomberg ABC/WP 76% increase minimum wage 58%* 70% 77% path to citizenship 65%* 74% * 58%* 89% gun buyer background checks 81% 67% * What we glean from these polls is that support for raising the minimum wage might not be as strong as Sharpton said, but a healthy chunk of the public is behind it. The question on the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey was relatively complex. Pollsters asked people to assess whether they thought increasing it would be good because it would reduce poverty and spur growth, or bad because it would hurt small businesses and make it harder for low-skilled people to find jobs. That definitely was not as simple as asking whether the minimum wage should go up to $9 an hour, as most of the other polls did. Looking at background checks for gun buyers, we again see broad support. The ABC/Washington Post asked people what they thought about the Senate’s failure to pass a background check bill, a change that makes the responses more difficult to compare. Immigration is the thorniest topic and here’s where how the question was asked seemed to make a big difference. Both Bloomberg and NBC/Wall Street Journal put the question two ways. When they simply asked if people supported a pathway to citizenship, support stood at 46 percent in the Bloomberg poll and 52 percent in the NBC/Wall Street Journal survey. When they added details about applicants paying fines, passing a criminal background check and waiting 10 years, opinions sharply spiked towards approval. With the Bloomberg poll, support jumped to 74 percent. In the other, it went to 65 percent. Adding those policy details matches the question to the language in the Senate immigration bill. Where Sharpton’s summary fails to capture an important dimension is on the second part of our inquiry -- do these positions represent the public’s "priorities"? The reality is that these polls test the public views one issue at a time, and they don’t tell us where voters rank those issues in importance compared to other issues. There is a poll that tackles that question head on. The Pew Research Center for People and the Press has been looking at public’s policy priorities since 1994. The latest findings, from January 2013, show a very different picture than what Sharpton presents. Out of 21 issues, strengthening gun laws and dealing with illegal immigration rank near the bottom at 19 and 18 respectively. Pollsters didn’t ask specifically about the minimum wage. However, improving the job situation ranked second and helping the poor and the needy ranked ninth. It’s possible that raising the minimum wage would fit into those issues but the poll is otherwise silent on this point. Our ruling Sharpton said the "priorities" of more than three-quarters of Americans are to increase the minimum wage, create a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, and require background checks for gun buyers. Polling generally backs up his claim about how Americans view those three issues, though there’s some variation in the polls, often depending on how the question is worded. However, it does not seem that these issues are "priorities" for the American public, as Sharpton claimed. In fact, he used the word three times in the space of a few sentences. So we give that part of the claim significant weight. We rate his claim Mostly False. | null | Al Sharpton | null | null | null | 2013-12-06T15:23:50 | 2013-12-04 | ['United_States'] |
tron-00566 | Saudi Billionaire Buys Buford, Wyoming, to Build Mecca | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/saudi-billionaire-buys-buford-wyoming-to-build-mecca/ | null | business | null | null | null | Saudi Billionaire Buys Buford, Wyoming, to Build Mecca | Jan 27, 2016 | null | ['Wyoming', 'Saudi_Arabia'] |
vees-00087 | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Report on arrested businessman's De Lima 'connection' | misleading | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-report-arrested-businessmans-de-lima-c | null | null | null | null | misleading | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Report on arrested businessman's De Lima 'connection' MISLEADING' | August 29, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03993 | More than 40 percent of sales nationally are made without background checks. | half-true | /rhode-island/statements/2013/feb/10/david-cicilline/us-rep-david-cicilline-says-40-percent-gun-sales-a/ | In the aftermath of the mass killings at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, U.S. Rep. David N. Cicilline, spoke at a Jan. 23 Rhode Island State House rally against gun violence about legislative efforts, including a bill he’s introduced to regulate gun sales. TheFire Sale Loophole Closing Act would prevent gun dealers whose licenses have been revoked from declaring their inventory a "personal collection," which allows them to make private sales without background checks. At the rally, the Rhode Island Democrat said more than 40 percent of sales nationally are made without background checks, according to a story in The Providence Journal. That 40-percent figure is mentioned often. Just two days before the Providence rally, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand cited it in an interview on MSNBC. President Obama also mentioned it when he outlined his gun-control proposals last month. Several PolitiFact affiliates have examined variations of the claim over the past year. PolitiFact National first checked a similar statement in July 2012 from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. PolitiFact National initially rated the claim Mostly True but re-examined it after the Newtown shootings and, based on additional reporting, changed the ruling to Half True. For this item, we will summarize research done by PolitiFact affiliates, supplemented by our own reporting. First, a little background. Since 1994, federally licensed gun dealers have been required to verify that a buyer has not been convicted of a serious crime, declared mentally incompetent or is blocked for any of about 10 reasons. But the law doesn’t apply to private sellers at gun shows, flea markets, or people who post firearms for sale on the Internet. In those sales, there is no requirement for a background check, and no one needs to file any paperwork. So do those private sales account for 40 percent of all gun transactions? The source of that figure is a 1997 National Institute of Justice study, done by professors Philip Cook of Duke University and Jens Ludwig of the University of Chicago, who examined data from a 1994 telephone survey about gun ownership. The survey, which sampled 2,568 homes, asked owners an array of questions, including how many guns were in the house, what they were used for, how they were stored and how they were obtained. Of the 2,568 households surveyed, 251 people answered the question about the origin of their guns. Cook and Ludwig found that 35.7 percent of that group reported obtaining their guns from somewhere other than a licensed dealer. (That has been rounded up to 40 percent.) In addition to the relatively small sample, there were other issues with the survey. Some respondents weren’t entirely sure whether the seller was a licensed dealer. In some cases, when the respondent skipped the question, the researchers made a judgment call. The study, conducted by respected researchers, may have been the most reliable information in its time. What’s less clear is how reliable its findings are today. The National Rifle Association, which opposes tighter gun controls, does not dispute the method or findings of the study but says the 40 percent claim is a misinterpretation by gun control advocates. In January 2013, Politifact National asked Cook, one of the study’s authors, what he thought about the 40 percent figure being referenced so frequently in the current gun-control debate. "I’ve been amazed at how much interest there’s been in it. It’s been lying there dormant for 20 years," he said. So is it still a reliable estimate of secondary market gun sales? "The answer is I have no idea," Cook said. "This survey was done almost 20 years ago. … It’s clear there are a lot of transactions that are not through dealers. How many, we’re not really clear on it. … We would say it’s a very old number." Other scholars had similar views. "I don’t see how anyone could know that number," James Jacobs of the Center for Research in Crime and Justice at New York University School of Law, told PolitiFact National. One expert, David Kopel at the University of Denver law school, said he doesn’t think the figure was ever accurate because of what the survey actually asked. On the other hand, three gun experts contacted by PolitiFact affiliates had different views. "The 40 percent seems about right," said Robert McCrie, of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. University of Central Florida Prof. Jay Corzine, who has attended and studied gun shows in Florida, says that, based on his observation, no more than 15 to 20 percent of sales at gun shows occur without a background check. But when you add in other private sales, the 40 percent figure is "probably accurate" and "a very good figure to use." Gary Kleck, a Florida State University professor whose research has provided the foundation for less restrictive concealed carry laws, said conditions in the gun market haven’t changed much since the 1997 study was done. Kleck says the 40 percent estimate is "probably still reasonably valid today." But he further argues that this fact shouldn’t guide new policy, because the problem is not how legal, background-checked purchasers are obtaining guns, but how criminals are. We e-mailed links of the previous PolitiFact rulings to Cicilline’s office and asked whether the congressman had any new information to budge the Truth-O-Meter. Richard Luchette, Cicilline’s communications director, responded in an e-mail noting that the figure came from the National Institute of Justice. "As I'm sure you know, this is the most commonly cited statistic and most current report used by gun violence prevention advocates because there are a number of restrictions currently written into law that have prevented additional research from being performed on this issue," he said. "We can go back and forth parsing this figure and looking at what other organizations have to say about it but I think you're missing the larger point," Luchette said. "Our country has a serious problem with gun violence, especially with mass shootings." He said, "Cicilline will remain focused on doing everything he can to address this problem." Our ruling U.S. Rep. Cicilline said that more than 40 percent of gun sales nationally are made without background check. Cicilline accurately quoted a figure that comes from a 15-year-old study, based on data that’s almost 20 years old. Clearly, many gun sales are made without background checks. There’s no current, reliable data to estimate what percentage of sales are made that way and experts disagree on whether the 40-percent figure is still valid. We rate Cicilline’s statement Half True. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at politifact@providencejournal.com. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | null | David Cicilline | null | null | null | 2013-02-10T00:01:00 | 2013-01-26 | ['None'] |
pomt-08330 | We have empowered state insurance commissioners to review the rate hikes that are taking place in states. And in some states like North Carolina, they have already used it and rolled back premium increases by 25 percent. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/oct/28/barack-obama/obama-said-states-have-new-power-review-insurance-/ | In an interview on The Daily Show on Oct. 27, 2010, President Barack Obama took issue with host Jon Stewart's contention that the price control measures of the health care law won't take effect until 2014 when the health care exchanges are created. "But up until that point, there's really nothing in this bill that doesn't allow these insurance companies to raise rates," Stewart said. "Not true," Obama retorted. "In fact, what we have done is we have empowered state insurance commissioners to review the rate hikes that are taking place in states. And some states, like North Carolina, they've already used it and rolled back premium increases by 25 percent." There's a lot packed into the hundreds of pages of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the issue of empowering states to limit rate hikes hasn't gotten much press, so we decided to take a look. First off, not every state's insurance commissioner has the power to regulate rate hikes. And many of those who do lack the resources to provide meaningful oversight. But as Obama said, the health care law seeks to address that. In all, the health care law provides states with $250 million over five years to help "by improving how states review proposed health insurance premium increases and holding insurance companies accountable for unjustified premiums increases." In August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the first allotment of that money: $1 million each in grants to 45 states and the District of Columbia to help states "crack down on unreasonable health insurance premium hikes." According to an Aug. 16, 2010, press release from HHS, "These Affordable Care Act grants will be used to help improve the oversight of proposed health insurance premium increases, take action against insurers seeking unreasonable rate hikes, and ensure consumers receive value for their premium dollars. For too long, insurance companies in many states have increased health insurance premiums with little oversight, transparency, or public accountability. Health insurance premiums have doubled on average during the last 10 years, much faster than wages and inflation, putting health coverage out of reach for millions of Americans and business owners. Today, just 26 states and the District of Columbia have the authority to reject a proposed increase that is excessive, lacks justification or otherwise exceeds state standards. Many states that have the authority lack resources to exercise it meaningfully. This lack of authority and resources for states has unfortunately contributed to unjustified premium increases in some states." While many states used the money to hire personnel -- such as actuaries -- to help them scrutinize proposed rate increases, 15 states used some of the money to pursue additional legislative powers to review and regulate rate hikes. "Will it be enough?" asked Betsy Imholz of the nonprofit Consumers Union. "That remains to be seen." Robert Hunter of the Consumer Federation of America said the health care law doesn't automatically grant regulatory power to states that don't already have it, as Obama's comment implies. The reality, he said, is that most states don't have the authority to regulate proposed premium increases. "It varies from state to state," Hunter said. "Some insurance commissioners don't want to take on the insurance companies. Others don't have the regulatory authority to do it." In the states that don't have regulatory authority, he said, "the most they can do is jawbone." That means they can try to persuade insurance companies to limit rate increases, but they don't have the power to enforce it. Nor is he convinced the measures in the health care law will encourage all states to step up their efforts. "Most of the insurance commissioners are incredibly weak," Hunter said. "We'd be lucky if a third of the states do anything." North Carolina, the state referenced by Obama, is one state that has done something. On Sept. 20, 2010, the North Carolina Department of Insurance announced that it had approved rate adjustments to some Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina plans. The insurer had sought a 6.97 percent increase in premiums for Blue Advantage policies; but the department only approved a 5.37 percent increase (which will save policyholders $14.5 million). That's a 23 percent decrease in the proposed rate hike -- very close to Obama's claim of 25 percent. The North Carolina Department of Insurance noted it was the lowest Blue Advantage rate increase in four years. So Obama was close to the mark with the example he cited in North Carolina. As for the claim that the health care law "empowered state insurance commissioners to review the rate hikes," that's mostly accurate. The law did not expressly empower every state to regulate rate hikes, but it provided resources to states to do more meaningful reviews of proposed rate increases, and it provided money for 15 states to seek regulatory power. And so we rate Obama's claim Mostly True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2010-10-28T19:16:28 | 2010-10-27 | ['North_Carolina'] |
vogo-00093 | Fact Check TV: The Mayor's Changing Tune | none | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/fact-check-tv-the-mayors-changing-tune/ | null | null | null | null | null | Fact Check TV: The Mayor's Changing Tune | July 23, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13892 | If you are a member of union, your median weekly income is roughly $200 more than if you are a nonunion member, and that doesn’t include benefits. | true | /virginia/statements/2016/jun/29/thomas-perez/tom-perez-says-union-members-earn-median-200-week-/ | U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas Perez says a union job is a ticket to the middle class. "If you are a member of a union, your median weekly income is roughly $200 more than if you are a nonunion member, and that doesn’t include benefits," Perez said in an interview with the Richmond Times-Dispatch, prior to headlining the Democratic Party of Virginia’s Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner on June 18. We wondered if Perez’s figure is correct. Mattie Munoz, a spokeswoman for the labor secretary, said the information comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which which tracks the earnings of union and nonunion workers. The bureau examines "median" earnings - the halfway point at which 50 percent of workers make less and 50 percent of workers earn more. In 2015, the median weekly earnings for people who are a member of a union was $980, according to the bureau’s most current figures. For nonunion members, the median weekly pay was $776. That’s a $204 difference and in line with Perez’s claim. Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institution, told our colleagues at PolitiFact National in a 2014 story that unions typically do a better job of raising wages for workers with less-than-average education than they do for those with higher levels of education. Someone who has a doctoral degree, for example, probably wouldn’t get as much of a pay bump from being in a union, but they might have better job security as well as better health and retirement benefits than their nonunion colleagues, Burtless said. Another table from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which further breaks down the pay disparity among specific occupations, shows that unionized workers in some professions earn less than their nonunion colleagues. In the architecture and engineering fields, for example, workers in a union last year had a median weekly pay of $1,393, but that was outpaced by nonunion workers who earned $1,427 each week. Federal employees who are in a union earn a median weekly pay of $1,058, while those not in a union earn more: $1,159 each week. But for other government employees, the story is different, with unions typically leading to larger paychecks. Across the country, state employees in a union earned a $988 median weekly salary, while nonunion workers earned a median $867. Unionized local government workers earned a median weekly salary of $1,043, compared with nonunion local government employees who earned $783 a week. This isn’t the first time Perez has made this claim, although he’s changed the wording. PolitiFact National in 2014 noted that the labor secretary said the "average" union member makes $200 more than a nonunion employee. That was rated Mostly True, since the figures involved instead are a tally of the "median" weekly pay rather than "average" pay. Our ruling Perez said that a union member’s median weekly income is about $200 more than someone who is not in a union. His figure, on the whole, holds up, although there are some professions that are exceptions. But Perez clearly was talking in general terms. So we rate his statement True. | null | Thomas Perez | null | null | null | 2016-06-29T12:00:00 | 2016-06-18 | ['None'] |
snes-06212 | Salvation Army bell-ringers keep a portion of the monies deposited into their kettles. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kettle-chits/ | null | Inboxer Rebellion | null | Snopes Staff | null | Do Salvation Army Bellringers Keep Money They Collect? | 1 December 2006 | null | ['None'] |
vees-00342 | In a radio interview Oct. 31, Roque said: | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-roque-flubs-duterte-survey-ratings | Available data from the Social Weather Stations (SWS) and Pulse Asia, the two research organizations mentioned by Roque, do not support his claim. | null | null | null | Duterte,Harry Roque,surveys | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Roque flubs Duterte survey ratings | November 10, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00279 | Carrie Underwood Saving Marriage To Mike Fisher? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/carrie-underwood-mike-fisher-divorce-marriage/ | null | null | null | Gossip Cop Staff | null | Carrie Underwood Saving Marriage To Mike Fisher? | 4:09 pm, September 12, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12562 | Wisconsin’s economy is in the best shape it’s been since 2000. | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2017/apr/13/scott-walker/possible-re-election-run-looms-scott-walker-says-w/ | A boast Gov. Scott Walker made in his weekly radio address on March 23, 2017 sounded like one he’ll repeat -- if he runs for re-election in 2018, which is widely expected. After his standard, "Hi, Scott Walker here" greeting, the second-term Republican declared: "Wisconsin’s economy is in the best shape it’s been since 2000." It’s a bold, broad claim. Is it right? The measures On the radio, Walker backed his claim with one of his favorite statistics -- the state’s unemployment rate. It had just dropped to 3.7 percent in February 2017, the lowest since November 2000. Though important, the unemployment rate is but a single measure of the economy. When we asked for any other information to support the claim, his staff primarily cited declines in overall tax burden, income taxes and property taxes, saying "a competitive tax environment sets the stage for economic growth and simply allows households to keep more of their own money." But taxes are more a measure of the health and size of government, not how well the economy is doing. Indeed, when we asked six Wisconsin economics professors for advice on how to evaluate Walker’s claim, none cited any tax-related measure. With guidance from the experts and other sources, we settled on these six measures: Unemployment rate Labor participation rate Average weekly wages Average income for top earners vs rest of the population Gross domestic product per capita Poverty rate We’ll address them two at a time. Unemployment and employment See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com Unemployment rate: Percentage of people in the labor force -- the civilian population ages 16 and older -- who are unemployed. Unemployment in Wisconsin was low in 2000 and it’s low again. The rate generally rose from 2000 to 2003, then dipped from 2003 to 2008, before peaking at around 9 percent in the second half of 2009 and early 2010. Since, then has steadily declined. Walker was correct in saying that the 3.7 percent rate in February 2017 was the lowest monthly rate since November 2000. (It was as low as 3.2 percent in January and February of 2000). Labor participation rate: Percentage of the population that is either working or actively seeking work -- excluding people such as college students and retirees. The labor participation rate is important because it takes into account people who are unemployed plus so-called discouraged workers -- those who are unemployed and not looking for work. The figures show labor participation in Wisconsin is declining. During 2000 and into 2001, the rate generally rose a bit, hitting 73.3 percent in March 2001. But since then, it’s been on a downward slope, hitting 68.3 percent in February 2017. That means fewer people are in the workforce. The takeaway: Unemployment backs Walker’s claim; labor participation does not. Wages and income See Figure 3 on PolitiFact.com Real average weekly wage: What a person (in the private sector) is paid for working, adjusted for inflation, including not only regular wages but pay such as bonuses. Wages in Wisconsin have generally been on an upward trend. The figures are reported quarterly, but since they tend to vary by season (summer vs winter, for example), we looked at annual numbers. On that basis, the average weekly wage rose from 2000 to 2004, and then rose and fell until 2011. Since then it’s been on the rise, hitting $896 in 2015, the last year for which annual data are available. That’s higher than any year going back to 2000. Income distribution: How much more income is earned by people near the top of the scale versus the rest of the population. Income includes not only wages, but also money from sources such as investments and welfare benefits. In Wisconsin, the gap between people near the top of the income scale and the rest of the population is growing. We compared the average income of a person in the top 10 percent versus a person in the bottom 90 percent -- in other words, people near the top versus the rest of the population, taking inflation into account. In 2013, the latest data available for this comparison, the annual income for the average person in the top 10 percent was $234,916. That’s 6.7 times more than the average income in the bottom 90 percent, which was $35,102. That ratio has generally increased since 2000, when it was 6.0. The takeaway: Average wages back Walker’s claim, since they’re up; but income distribution doesn’t, given that the gap is growing between the relatively few people on the top end of the scale and everyone else. Productivity and poverty See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com Real GDP per capita: Total value of goods and services produced, divided by the population and adjusted for inflation. Gross domestic product per person in Wisconsin, taking into account inflation, rose from 2000 to 2006, dropped from then until 2009, and has been on the rise since. The latest figure, for 2015, showed real GDP at $46,893 per person -- higher than any previous year going back to 2000, when it was $41,911. Poverty rate: Percentage of people below the official poverty threshold. Poverty is calculated based on a person’s income from sources such as wages, Social Security and child support, as well as from "cash" government benefits such as public assistance and unemployment insurance. The poverty threshold for 2015, the most recent year available for this comparison, was $12,082 for a single person and $24,257 for a family of four. In Wisconsin, the poverty rate has trended upward. The 2015 rate was 11.4 percent. That’s higher than every year going back 2000 except for two (12.4 percent in 2004 and 13.1 percent in 2011). The takeaway: GDP helps Walker’s claim; poverty does not. Summing up As we’ve noted in previous fact checks, governors have some impact on a state’s economy, but many other factors, including national trends, are at work. In this instance, Walker didn’t explicitly take credit for what he says is a better economy, though he implies it. The economists we consulted see some improvements and some declines in how Wisconsin’s economy is now compared to 2000. "The economic portrait of Wisconsin since 2000 is mixed at best," said Lawrence University’s Merton Finkler. "Clearly, the Wisconsin economy is not as dynamic as some others, such as Minnesota's. Part of the reason is that it has done a relatively poor job of encouraging startup enterprises, which tend to grow employment faster than larger and older firms." Said Andrew Reschovsky at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: "A growing economy is characterized by rising real per capita GDP and rising real wages. This growth is to be expected, and reflects increased labor productivity over time. Although Wisconsin’s economy is larger now than it was in 2000, the fact that the poverty rate is higher and that there is growing income inequality indicates that the benefits of our growing economy have gone mainly to those with the highest incomes." Our rating Walker said: "Wisconsin’s economy is in the best shape it’s been since 2000." The latest figures for the unemployment rate, wages and gross domestic product support Walker’s claim. But the figures for labor participation rate, income and poverty do not. For a statement that is partially accurate, our rating is Half True. See Figure 4 on PolitiFact.com | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2017-04-13T16:15:38 | 2017-03-23 | ['None'] |
vogo-00465 | Statement: “Today half the citizens in San Diego routinely vote using a mail ballot,” Richard Rider, chairman of the San Diego Tax Fighters, wrote in an op-ed published Dec. 13 by the San Diego Daily Transcript. | determination: mostly true | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/fact/fact-check-the-vote-by-mail-majority/ | Analysis: In the op-ed, Rider blasted the San Diego City Council for making it harder to build big box stores like Walmart. Though supporters say a new ordinance protects local businesses, Rider argued it instead benefits labor union coffers. | null | null | null | null | Fact Check: The Vote-by-Mail Majority | December 17, 2010 | null | ['San_Diego'] |
pomt-10767 | I brought down crime more than anyone in this country -- maybe in the history of this country -- while I was mayor of New York City. - | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2007/oct/22/rudy-giuliani/updated-the-turn-around-started-before-rudy-did/ | At the Oct. 21, 2007 debate at the Republican Party of Florida's convention in Orlando, Rudolph Giuliani worked a favorite theme, that his record of cutting crime in New York makes him a top choice for president. But as he has before, he overstated his achievement. "I brought down crime more than anyone in this country -- maybe in the history of this country -- while I was mayor of New York City," Giuliani said in Orlando. The statement was similar to another that we checked. In an interview with The New Yorker magazine published Aug. 20, 2007, Giuliani claimed that he reversed New York's crime trend. "I mean, we took a city that nobody believed could be turned around with regard to crime, and really did turn it around. That's not like a political slogan. We really did it," he told the magazine. Both statements have elements of truth, but don't tell the full story. Violent crime in New York actually began falling three years before Giuliani became mayor in 1994, and property crime started falling four years before. He didn't "turn it around." Nor was New York unique in its crime trends. Many big cities enjoyed similar decreases in crime throughout the 1990s. Depending on the type of crime, in fact, other cities had sharper drops than New York. And the major U.S. city with the steepest decline in violent crime? San Francisco, where it fell by 64.5 percent from 1993 to 2001, compared with 55.6 percent in New York. Meanwhile, independent studies generally have failed to link the tactics of the Giuliani administration with the large decrease in crime rates. Rather, many criminologists believe the decline in New York, as in Chicago, Miami, San Francisco and elsewhere, was the result of a complex mix of social and demographic changes, including a break in the crack cocaine epidemic, an improving economy, and longer prison terms for career criminals. Giuiliani's push for better policing tactics and policies were likely part of it, but not to the extent he claims, experts say. His numbers do look good, and the decline in crime rates sure picked up speed when he was in charge: After falling about 12 percent from 1990 to 1993, violent crime dropped 56 percent over the next eight years. But most big cities, and the nation as a whole, followed a similar pattern: A slow fall beginning around 1990 or 1991, followed by a sharp drop over the next decade. 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 | Rudy Giuliani | null | null | null | 2007-10-22T00:00:00 | 2007-10-21 | ['New_York_City'] |
snes-01898 | The United States Department of Justice is attempting to seize the information of every person who ever visited the anti-trump website disruptj20.org. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/department-of-justice-request-disruptj20/ | null | Legal | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Did the Department of Justice Request Detailed Information About All Visitors to an Anti-Trump Website? | 15 August 2017 | null | ['United_States_Department_of_Justice'] |
snes-05071 | UNESCO declared India's national anthem, 'Jana Gana Mana,' to be the world's best. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/unesco-india-national-anthem/ | null | Viral Phenomena | null | Dan Evon | null | Did UNESCO Declare India’s ‘Jana Gana Mana’ the World’s Best National Anthem? | 14 March 2016 | null | ['India'] |
afck-00289 | “According to the South African June 2014 labour force survey, 36.1% of young people between the ages of 15 and 35 are unemployed” | correct | https://africacheck.org/reports/national-youth-policy-unemployment-and-education/ | null | null | null | null | null | National Youth Policy: unemployment and education claims fact-checked | 2015-06-10 01:12 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03526 | Says 13 Texas universities "have announced or implemented a $10,000 degree." | mostly false | /texas/statements/2013/may/31/rick-perry/rick-perry-says-13-texas-universities-have-announc/ | Texas’ governor threw out a challenge in 2011 that some in higher education said was impossible to meet. Two years later, Rick Perry says it’s underway. A May 17, 2013, press release from Perry’s office said, "The governor has renewed his challenge for institutions to offer bachelor's degrees for $10,000 or less, including books. So far, 13 institutions have announced or implemented a $10,000 degree." Perry first called for such degrees in his Feb. 8, 2011, state-of-the-state address. Public skepticism included a claim from the chairman of the Travis County Democratic Party that "nobody in higher education believes that is even possible," which we rated False, finding not only disagreement but existing $10,000 degrees in Texas and elsewhere. In 2012, the Austin American-Statesman reported on nine programs that universities had already announced or identified in response to Perry’s challenge. The Aug. 5, 2012, news story said that most of the programs relied on scholarships, financial aid and students amassing credit hours in advance at a lower-tuition institution or for free in high school. Also, few included the cost of books in the $10,000 price tag, the story said. In 2013-14, the average annual full-time tuition and mandatory fees at a Texas public university are estimated at $7,600, with books and supplies averaging another $1,200, according to Dominic Chavez, a spokesman for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Put another way, the average four-year tab for tuition, fees, books and supplies, provided these estimates do not change, would be $35,200. So, how many institutions have made $10,000 degree programs a reality since 2011? Perry spokesman Josh Havens emailed us a list of 13 universities: University of Texas at Arlington University of Texas of the Permian Basin University of Texas at Brownsville Tarleton State University Texas A&M University-Commerce Texas A&M International University Texas A&M University-San Antonio Texas A&M University-Texarkana Angelo State University Sul Ross State University University of Houston-Clear Lake University of Houston-Downtown University of Houston-Victoria Chavez emailed us descriptions of each program compiled from news reports and schools’ announcements. We verified information with each university’s representatives or website and got more details. While we confirmed that each university has a program that offers a degree or degrees with a price tag of $10,500 or less, here’s the big catch: Seven require students to earn up to 87 college credit hours elsewhere and don’t include those costs in the sticker price. (Two require 75 community college hours but include that cost in their price tag.) The UT-Arlington program, for example, is a partnership with two local school districts in which students earn 24 hours of college credit in high school, move on to get an associate’s degree at Tarrant County College and then finish their bachelor’s degree at UTA. If they manage all that and keep a 3.25 grade point average while getting the associate’s degree, spokeswoman Kristin Sullivan told us, they will get a scholarship that pays all UTA tuition and fees over $10,000. So, only four universities offer programs where students can start with no hours and earn 120 hours at the university for $10,500 or less. And one of those is an online-only degree that can range from $5,000 to $14,000 depending on how many hours a student can get credit for based on work and other experience (at A&M-Commerce). Also, the online A&M-Commerce program is the only one of the 13 that covers the cost of books. Some of the 13 programs offer limited choice or very specific degrees, such as the bachelor’s in information technology with an emphasis on information security at Texas A&M-San Antonio. Others give wider choices -- for example, any degree offered at UT-Arlington. The two programs that require community college but include that tuition in the sticker price: UH-Clear Lake: 75 hours at a community college and 45 hours at the university -- costing a total $10,014 to $10,372, depending on the college attended and including $3,835 in Pell grants -- for a bachelor of applied science in early childhood education, health care services or information technology. UH-Downtown: The same 75/45 split of hours and $3,559 in Pell grants (that’s the average Pell amount awarded to UHD students) yield a cost of $9,116 to $9,801, depending on the college attended, for a bachelor of applied arts and science degree in applied administration or a bachelor of science degree in interdisciplinary studies. The four programs in which students can amass up to 120 hours entirely from the university that will be issuing their diploma: UT-Permian Basin: For bachelor of science degrees in chemistry, computer science, geology, information systems or math, students in the university’s Texas Science Scholar Program pay "$10,000 in tuition and fees for the four-year curriculum," not including books, according to the program’s web page. A&M-Commerce: Up to 120 online hours result in a bachelor of applied science degree in organizational leadership. Students can submit equivalent experience for up to 90 hours of those credits, according to Mary Hendrix, vice president of student access and success. That variability means the cost "will range from $5,000 to $14,000," including books, Hendrix told us by email. Angelo State: Qualifying students can get a $5,000-per-year scholarship that reduces tuition and fees to $9,974 for a bachelor of interdisciplinary studies degree, according to an Oct. 3, 2012, press release. Texas residents with certain scores or better on one of two college admissions tests (27 on the ACT or 1220 on combined SAT) qualify for the program and the scholarship. University spokesman Tom Nurre said the cost does not include books, and noted transfer students can join if they have a 3.5 or better grade point average. UH-Victoria: By getting scholarships and completing college in three years, students can earn a $9,999 bachelor’s degree in English, history, communication, psychology, Spanish or criminal justice, said a Jan. 11, 2013, press release. That assumes a UHV scholarship for $1,845 a year plus "the average Pell grant of $3,593 per year"; other scholarships can "help defer costs of books and living expenses." Our ruling Perry said 13 Texas institutions had announced or implemented a $10,000 degree. That count draws on a state-researched list. By our analysis, however, only four programs offer degrees earned entirely at the university whose name is on the diploma for $10,500 or less. Two more universities expect students to attend community college first but pay a total of $10,372 or less at both institutions. That leaves seven universities that expect students to earn their $10,000 degrees after corraling up to 87 college credits in other ways that presumably cost additional money. Several also require students following the $10,000 degree plans to have income-based Pell grants or to qualify for other scholarships. These realities are more complicated than the governor suggested. We rate his statement, which has an element of truth, as Mostly False. | null | Rick Perry | null | null | null | 2013-05-31T19:47:39 | 2013-05-17 | ['Texas'] |
pose-00301 | Will restore the strength of the Superfund program by requiring polluters to pay for the cleanup of contaminated sites they created. | promise broken | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/318/restore-superfund-program-so-that-polluters-pay-fo/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Restore Superfund program so that polluters pay for clean-ups | 2010-01-07T13:26:54 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01300 | The Trump White House is considering resuming the use of "negro" as a racial category. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-negro-census/ | null | Politics | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Is the Trump Administration Planning to Bring Back Government Use of the Word ‘Negro’? | 26 December 2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00461 | Rattlesnake more than 9 feet long and nearly 100 pounds | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/rattler/ | null | animals | null | null | null | Rattlesnake more than 9 feet long and nearly 100 pounds | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
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
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