claimID stringlengths 10 10 | claim stringlengths 4 8.61k ⌀ | label stringclasses 116 values | claimURL stringlengths 10 303 | reason stringlengths 3 31.1k ⌀ | categories stringclasses 611 values | speaker stringlengths 3 168 ⌀ | checker stringclasses 167 values | tags stringlengths 3 315 ⌀ | article title stringlengths 2 226 ⌀ | publish date stringlengths 1 64 ⌀ | climate stringlengths 5 154 ⌀ | entities stringlengths 6 332 ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
pomt-14290 | Millionaires working side by side with George Soros are bankrolling (John Kasich’s) super PAC. | false | /ohio/statements/2016/apr/04/trusted-leadership-pac/no-george-soros-not-bankrolling-john-kasichs-campa/ | There’s a secret, left-wing conspiracy to prop up John Kasich’s presidential candidacy, according to an ad linking the Ohio governor to liberal billionaire and investor George Soros. "Millionaires working side by side with George Soros are bankrolling his super PAC," the ad’s narrator says of Kasich, as images of Kasich and Soros appear above the words "Hundreds of thousands of dollars from George Soros." This idea of Soros controlling a shadowy network of Kasich-backing cronies is also circulating on blogs like DCClothesline.com. The television ads, which were running in Wisconsin ahead of the state’s April 5 primary, are paid for by Trusted Leadership, the super PAC supporting Ted Cruz for president. Could there be any truth to it? The idea that Soros would clandestinely donate to a super PAC is silly based on campaign finance rules, said Tom Sutton, political science professor at Baldwin Wallace University. There is no maximum limit on super PAC donations, and donors are public. "Soros could give a million to New Day for America," said Sutton, referencing the super PAC supporting Kasich. "He doesn’t have to hide it, why would he do that? If he’s artificially manipulating Kasich’s campaign in the name of other people, just look at the list of donors and explain all these other companies that have given more." We looked at the list of donors ourselves. There are donations to the New Day for America PAC from two individuals linked to Soros. Scott Bessent is a former chief investment officer for Soros Fund Management who left to start his own hedge fund company last year, with $2 billion in seed money from Soros. Campaign finance records show that he donated $200,000 to New Day for America, as well as $2,700 to Kasich directly. Bessent has donated to other conservative causes since 2015, including the Right to Rise PAC that supported Jeb Bush ($5,000) and to the Republican National Committee ($39,800). But he's donated to Democrats too; in 2013 he gave $25,000 to the Ready for Hillary PAC. Similarly, Stanley Druckenmiller, who managed assets for Soros from 1988 to 2000, gave $450,000 to New Day for America last year. If Druckenmiller shares any of Soros’ political philosophies, they aren’t apparent in his donor history. He has also consistently given money to Republican candidates’ super PACs and the Republican National Committee. A Trusted Leadership PAC spokeswoman confirmed that Bessent and Druckenmiller are the donors that connect Soros to Kasich. According to OpenSecrets.org, which tracks campaign contributions, Soros has given $7 million this cycle to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC that supports Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. He also gave $25,000 to the pro-Clinton Ready PAC, and $1 million to American Bridge 21st Century, which funds opposition research against Republican candidates and causes. There is a "firewall" between candidates and the super PACs backing them, said Sutton, and while Kasich may not be happy about contributions from people connected to Soros, he can’t tell them to knock it off. Candidates cannot have any contact with PACs or their donors. For these reasons, Sutton said, "If there was a conspiracy, it’s the worst conspiracy ever, because it’s not working." He added: "Kasich’s people would love to have power at this level, because then they might be able to raise enough money to rival anything near what’s going on in other campaigns." The most recent campaign finance filing from the pro-Kasich PAC shows nearly $10 million in contributions from individual donors, and $14 million in expenditures. Connie Wehrkamp, spokeswoman for New Day For America, told PolitiFact Ohio that the organization sent station managers in Wisconsin a letter on March 29, reading, "We demand that your station investigate the false, misleading, and deceptive claims contained in this advertisement and remove it from the air." So far, three television statements in Green Bay and one station in Wausau have pulled the ad, Wehrkamp said. Our ruling A pro-Cruz ad says, "Millionaires working side by side with George Soros are bankrolling his (Kasich’s) super PAC." Donations totalling $650,000 from two guys who once worked with Soros hardly equate to "bankrolling" Kasich. The ad’s on-screen text goes even further to mislead voters with a blatantly false claim that Soros is directly giving to Kasich. Campaign finance records prove otherwise, with Soros donating handsomely to pro-Clinton groups. We rule the claim False. | null | Trusted Leadership PAC | null | null | null | 2016-04-04T16:09:01 | 2016-03-29 | ['George_Soros', 'John_Kasich'] |
pomt-11482 | Says abortion is "the leading cause of death for black Americans and kills as many as 1,000 black children every day." | mostly false | /texas/statements/2018/mar/02/jason-isaac/jason-isaac-makes-mostly-false-claim-abortion-lead/ | A candidate seeking the Republican nomination to succeed Lamar Smith of San Antonio in the U.S. House says more black Americans die from abortion than any other cause. We wondered about that. State Rep. Jason Isaac of Dripping Springs, asked what policies he’d pursue to address safety and inequalities facing women and people of color, opened his reply: "I will work to end abortion, which is the leading cause of death for black Americans and kills as many as 1,000 black children every day." That question and Isaac’s full reply appear in a voters guide published before the March 2018 party primaries by the League of Women Voters of Texas and League of Women Voters Austin Area. Katie Tahuahua of Isaac’s campaign, asked the basis of Isaac’s claim about black deaths, responded by email that according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease caused the deaths of the most U.S. black residents in 2015 (75,249). She noted that the year before, according to CDC figures representing data from 47 states, over 200,000 "black babies were aborted." Upshot: "This is far more than the leading reported cause of death for black Americans," Tahuahua wrote. We’ll unpack those figures. But it’s worth noting for starters that Isaac’s characterization of abortions as killing babies is disputed. Abortion rights advocates, noting the Supreme Court legalized abortion in every state in 1973, typically refer to unborn fetuses. Also, the CDC doesn’t say abortions kill babies; it defines a "legal induced abortion" as "an intervention performed by a licensed clinician (e.g., a physician, nurse-midwife, nurse practitioner, or physician assistant) that is intended to terminate an ongoing pregnancy." In addition, an unknown share of aborted pregnancies wouldn’t have resulted in live children, due to the natural risk of miscarriages and stillbirths. Causes of death We confirmed from a CDC table pointed out by Tahuahua that heart disease killed the most black residents (75,249) in 2015 and also was the leading cause of death for all Americans. Lesser causes of death for black Americans included cancer, stroke and diabetes, the table indicates. The table doesn’t list abortion as a cause. Our own search of CDC-posted statistics led us to a table stating that nationally in 2015, 6,907 black infants died. Among the table’s 15 listed leading causes of death, disorders related to short gestation and birth weight accounted for the most deaths, 1,513, nearly 22 percent of the total. The table lists congenital malformations, deformations and chromosomal abnormalities as the second most-prevalent cause, accounting for 930 deaths, nearly 14 percent of the total. The table doesn’t list abortion as a cause. Abortions by ethnicity Tahuahua said Isaac got to his declaration of more than 1,000 black child deaths a day because the CDC "reports that 35% of aborted babies are black." For our part, we confirmed that the CDC says that in 2014, there were 652,639 legal induced abortions nationally. Apply the 35 percent figure offered by Isaac and it looks like black women obtained 228,423 abortions for a rate of 626 a day. Then again, Tahuahua noted, the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit that promotes reproductive health and abortion rights, separately estimated 926,200 U.S. abortions in 2014 which, if you apply Isaac’s methodology, signals that black women obtained 324,170 abortions for a rate of 888 a day. The Guttmacher count of abortions appears in a January 2018 institute "Fact Sheet" that also says that white patients accounted for 39 percent of U.S. abortion procedures in 2014, blacks for 28 percent, Hispanics for 25 percent and patients of other races and ethnicities for 9 percent, according to an institute survey of abortion patients. Applying the institute’s 28 percent figure to the institute’s abortion count suggests that black women obtained 259,336 abortions for a rate of 711 a day. The institute’s May 2016 recap of its survey results also walks through the proportion of abortion patients in given subgroups (e.g., a particular age-group) relative to the proportion of all U.S. women aged 15–44 who are in that same subgroup--what the authors call an "abortion index." By this metric, the recap says, white "women were slightly underrepresented among abortion patients in 2014, having an abortion index of 0.7, while black women were substantially overrepresented, with a relative abortion rate of 1.9. Hispanic women were slightly overrepresented among abortion patients in 2014 (1.2)." Institute: Black women experience higher rates of unintended pregnancy The institute’s Rebecca Wind, responding to our query about Isaac’s claim, said by email that higher abortion rates among black women reflect higher rates of unintended pregnancy. A 2008 institute paper by Susan A. Cohen states: "These higher unintended pregnancy rates reflect the particular difficulties that many women in minority communities face in accessing high-quality contraceptive services and in using their chosen method of birth control consistently and effectively over long periods of time." As of 2004, Cohen wrote, about one-third of abortions were obtained by white women with 37 percent obtained by black women. Overall, she wrote, "black women are three times as likely as white women to experience an unintended pregnancy; Hispanic women are twice as likely. Because black women experience so many more unintended pregnancies than any other group—sharply disproportionate to their numbers in the general population—they are more likely to seek out and obtain abortion services than any other group," Cohen wrote. "In addition, because black women as a group want the same number of children as white women, but have so many more unintended pregnancies, they are more likely than white women to terminate an unintended pregnancy by abortion to avoid an unwanted birth," Cohen wrote. We circled back to Isaac about our findings. He replied by email: "You're correct that the CDC identifies heart disease as the #1 cause of death for black Americans; however, were abortion considered a cause of death, it would be the #1 cause by far." Our ruling Isaac told the voters guide that abortion is "the leading cause of death for black Americans and kills as many as 1,000 black children every day." Opinions about this claim likely divide over Isaac’s definition of a fetus as a child--and by Isaac’s reasoning, we find this claim has an element of truth in that black women in 2014 accounted for about 711 U.S. abortions a day. In fact, however, heart disease was the leading cause of death for black and other Americans in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency didn’t list the abortion procedure among causes of death. We rate this claim Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com What do you think? PolitiFact Democratic guest columnist former U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire says we should have realized that some disagreements go beyond politics and cannot be solved by facts or statistics. Read his critique here. Read more about our guest columnists here. | null | Jason Isaac | null | null | null | 2018-03-02T14:35:48 | 2018-02-01 | ['United_States'] |
goop-00732 | Donald Glover Refuses To Sign On For ‘Star Wars’ Lando Spinoff? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/donald-glover-star-wars-lando-spinoff-refusing-sign-on/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Donald Glover Refuses To Sign On For ‘Star Wars’ Lando Spinoff? | 12:50 pm, June 28, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02996 | Hillary Clinton Leaked Classified Nuclear Window | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/hillary-clinton-leaked-classified-nuclear-window/ | null | politics | null | null | ['2016 election', 'hillary clinton', 'national security'] | Hillary Clinton Leaked Classified Nuclear Window | Oct 20, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14080 | Says "Mike Coffman is with Trump." | mostly false | /colorado/statements/2016/may/18/colorados-voice/group-says-mike-coffman-trump-he-says-billionaire-/ | It’s the Democrats’ favorite game this election season: Pin the Trump on the down-ballot Republican candidate. One of the bigger targets is Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman, a four-term Republican incumbent in the 6th Congressional District, a crescent-shaped swath of Denver suburbs considered one of the country’s most competitive swing districts. Coffman is in a fierce contest with Democratic state Sen. Morgan Carroll. Since last year, Democratic groups and Carroll have been working hard to shackle Coffman to the now-presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his controversial comments about immigrants, minorities and women. The latest broadside came from Colorado’s Voice -- the state chapter of America’s Voice, an immigration reform group. It issued an email news release headlined, "Mike Coffman Is With Trump." So is he? February statement, subsequent remarks Colorado's Voice is using a statement Coffman’s spokeswoman gave to the Colorado Statesman as evidence he’s "with Trump." But the statement, from Kristin Strohm, also clearly said Coffman supported Marco Rubio. Here it is. "Will Mike Coffman support the Republican nominee over Bernie or Hillary?" Strohm said in a story published Feb. 2. "The answer is obviously yes. And he believes strongly it is going to be Marco Rubio." At the time, Trump was one of 11 Republicans still in the race. However, Coffman political director JD Key suggested to PolitiFact that Coffman might be having second thoughts about automatically supporting the GOP nominee. "Rep. Coffman has not endorsed or voiced support for Donald Trump," Key said. In fact, Coffman has issued blistering criticisms of his party’s de facto presidential nominee. When Trump blasted the Colorado GOP’s caucus system as "rigged," Coffman, a Marine Corps combat veteran, fired back with this April 18 Facebook post: "If there is anyone who knows what a rigged system looks like it’s Donald Trump who was able to evade the draft during the height of the Vietnam War when the U.S. was losing, on average, 1,000 troops every month. That system was clearly rigged in favor of young men from politically influential families but Donald Trump never complained about that." And on May 4, Coffman said in a statement that Trump has yet to earn Coffman’s support. "Both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have tapped into a legitimate anger about the failures of Washington but instead of running a campaign built on a positive vision for overcoming these failures, Donald Trump has conducted a polarizing and divisive campaign," Coffman said. "Hillary Clinton is a non-starter and lacks the integrity to lead this nation but Trump has a long way to go to earn the support of many – me included." Coffman isn't alone in walking back previous comments. House Speaker Paul Ryan had said he would back whoever won the Republican nomination, only to hold back on endorsing Trump. And former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush broke a pledge to support the GOP nominee no matter who it was. A May 6 Politico story headlined, "Which Republicans have endorsed Donald Trump?" listed both Coffman and Ryan under "Not there yet." Lining up on positions So Coffman certainly is hedging on his campaign’s previous statement that he would support the GOP nominee, who is now almost certainly Trump. But do the two candidates line up issue-wise? The Colorado’s Voice news release pointed to Coffman’s position on immigration legislation. "Colorado already knows Coffman supports the Trump agenda on immigration. He voted … multiple times to deport DREAMers by ending the DACA program. He opposes DAPA, the policy that offers a modest but critical step forward for the parents of U.S. citizens." DACA is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which President Barack Obama created by executive order in 2012. It allows undocumented immigrants brought to the country unlawfully as children a two-year reprieve from deportation along with the opportunity to receive a renewable work permit and a driver's license. DAPA is short for Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents. Obama used a 2014 executive order to create the program that would shield parents of children who are citizens or are living in the country legally from deportation and make them eligible to work in the United States. The fate of DAPA and an expanded DACA is being deliberated on by the U.S. Supreme Court after Texas and 25 other states led by Republicans sued over the programs, saying the Obama administration had usurped power that belongs to Congress. Here, too, Coffman’s position isn’t cut and dried. Coffman voted against the DREAM Act in 2010, a bipartisan bill to allow children brought into the country unlawfully a path to citizenship if they attended college or served in the military. (DACA was in many ways Obama’s response.) "The Dream Act will be a nightmare for the American people," Coffman said at the time. "No doubt, we need immigration reform but the Dream Act is written far too broadly and it will only encourage more illegal immigration, promote chain migration, and will be a magnet for fraud." But Coffman's immigration positions softened in 2011, when his district was redrawn and its population became 20 percent Hispanic. He began taking Spanish lessons to better communicate with his constituents, and in January 2013, he introduced the Military Enlistment Opportunity Act, which sought to provide immigrant children an opportunity to serve in the U.S. military and gain a path to citizenship. During the 2014 election, Coffman and his Democratic opponent, former state House speaker, Andrew Romanoff, debated in Spanish. "There’s a narrative out there about Republicans being not just anti-illegal immigrant, but anti-immigrant," Coffman told the Wall Street Journal in January. "It was very important to me to break the narrative." Colorado’s Voice director Alvina Vasquez said while Coffman "makes sweeping and broad statements about immigration reform, his actions show his true beliefs." Critics cite Coffman’s June 2013 vote to defund DACA and his March 17 vote supporting the House filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court "opposing the Obama administration's executive overreach" on immigration reform programs. Yet, in 2014, Coffman broke with the GOP to vote against efforts to end the DACA program for young "Dreamers." Our ruling Colorado’s Voice says "Mike Coffman is with Trump." That’s hardly clear. In February, Coffman’s spokeswoman said he would "support the Republican nominee," while hoping that person would be Marco Rubio. Since then, Coffman has criticized Trump’s "divisive campaign" and said the billionaire has a long way to go to earn his support. The group also says Coffman "supports the Trump agenda on immigration" as evidence. Yet the congressman’s views have moderated, and Coffman has at times broken with hardline GOP positions on immigration. Claims that Coffman is in lockstep with Trump go too far. We rate it Mostly False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/2f833b02-1b7c-4634-bd9e-09f51d5f7dc1 | null | Colorado's Voice | null | null | null | 2016-05-18T17:07:05 | 2016-05-05 | ['None'] |
faly-00005 | Claim: 31.52 crore Jan Dhan accounts have been opened, equivalent to the population of USA. | true | https://factly.in/fact-checking-government-claims-on-jan-suraksha/ | Fact: A total of 32.99 crore accounts have been opened under PMJDY till date. The latest population of the USA is 32.88 crores. Hence, the claim is TRUE. | null | null | null | null | Fact Checking Government claims on Jan Suraksha | null | null | ['United_States'] |
pomt-12833 | I have already saved more than $700 million when I got involved in the negotiation on the F-35. | mostly false | /florida/statements/2017/feb/07/donald-trump/trump-overstates-credit-700-million-savings-f-35s/ | President Donald Trump told military commanders in Tampa that he will deliver new airplanes at a massive savings to taxpayers. "We're going to be loading it up with beautiful new planes and beautiful new equipment," he said at U.S. Central Command at MacDill Air Force Base Feb. 6. "You have been lacking a little equipment. We are going to load it up. You are going to get a lot of equipment. Believe me." Trump then gave himself credit for saving millions of tax dollars during his first two weeks in office: "But we will ensure no taxpayer dollars are wasted. I have already saved more than $700 million when I got involved in the negotiation on the F-35. You know about that." The savings with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are real, but they were in the works before Trump cried foul about the price tag. A Trump spokesman did not reply for this fact-check. (The Washington Post Fact Checker previously looked at a claim that Trump took credit for cutting $600 million and gave it Four Pinocchios.) Trump’s transition tweets about the F-35 program The Defense Department is in the middle of the largest aircraft procurement ever for different versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. The F-35 is built by Lockheed Martin. Plans call for acquiring more than 2,400 aircraft over about 20 years at a cost of around $379 billion. Trump raised concerns about the F-35 program while campaigning. "I’m hearing that our existing planes are better," he told radio show host Hugh Hewitt in October, 2015 questioning why the United States was spending "billions and billions of dollars." He upped his criticism of the cost after he won the election. "The F-35 program and cost is out of control," Trump tweeted Dec. 12. "Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th." Following Trump’s tweet, Lockheed Martin’s stock plummeted, and government officials defended the program. A week later, the F-35 Joint Program Office released the final price for the contract, which showed the airplanes for the Air Force and Marine Corps reduced by $5.9 million and $2.4 million respectively, while the Navy model saw an increase of $3.2 million. Air Force Lt. Gen Chris Bogdan told reporters that he anticipated that costs would "come down in price significantly" and put the savings "somewhere on the order of 6 to 7 percent per airplane, per variant." The Washington Post calculated total savings between $549 million and $630 million for the full lot of 90 planes. During his transition into office, Trump convened top military brass, including Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson, at his estate at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach on Dec. 21 to discuss how to bring costs down for the F-35 program. (Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg was also there. Boeing is the contractor for Air Force One, another project that Trump said was too expensive.) The next day, Trump tweeted: "Based on the tremendous cost and cost overruns of the Lockheed Martin F-35, I have asked Boeing to price-out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet!" A week before Trump’s inauguration, Hewson said her company was close to a deal to significantly lower costs after the Mar-A-Lago meeting. Defense Secretary James Mattis ordered a review of the F-35 program in late January. On Feb. 3, the Defense Department announced it had reached an agreement with Lockheed Martin for a $728 million reduction, leading to the "lowest priced F-35s in program history." Lockheed Martin issued a statement praising Trump’s involvement: "President Trump’s personal involvement in the F-35 program accelerated the negotiations and sharpened our focus on driving down the price." That, however, is not the end of the story. Costs predicted to drop for years Defense and budget experts offered a big caveat to Trump’s claim: Costs had been coming down for years. Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, said that the cost reduction for the Air Force variant of the F-35 had been in the works since before Trump announced his candidacy in June 2015. "The savings are a little higher than was initially projected, but all President Trump did was elevate attention to the issue," Ellis said. "He’s not responsible for the savings, they were already in the pipeline long before he came on the scene." The cost per plane has always been a moving target, The Arizona Republic reported in 2014, and Lockheed Martin officials had said that costs had been coming down. The initial production model delivered in 2010 cost about $220 million, while the projection for 2020 ranged from $75 million-$85 million. The general manager of Lockheed's F-35 program, Lorraine Martin, said in 2015 that costs would drop further, "allowing us to provide our warfighters a fifth-generation F-35 jet at a fourth-generation price by the end of the decade." The savings can be attributed to a normal learning curve, said Todd Harrison, a military budget expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "As you build more copies of an item you naturally get more efficient at the work," he said. "That is a big part of what we are seeing here, and that would have occurred regardless of who won the presidential election." However, Harrison said that Trump can take credit for the fact that the government was able to negotiate a deal with Lockheed so quickly for the next batch of airplanes. "For the previous lot of F-35s, DOD negotiated with Lockheed for about a year and a half and never reached a deal," he said. "DOD ultimately used a somewhat unusual method for finalizing the contract unilaterally in late 2016." Ben Friedman, a military budget expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that the savings have nothing to do with Trump since they were already in the works. "First, there are no savings yet, as they are anticipated, perhaps hopefully," he said. "Second, it is normal for costs to fall as production goes forward and problems are solved. Third, it's not as if no one before Trump was looking to cut F-35 costs. It has been a fixation in the Pentagon for a long time." Our ruling Trump said, "I have already saved more than $700 million when I got involved in the negotiation on the F-35." The Department of Defense announced a $728 million reduction on Feb. 3 for the aircraft. But Trump ignores that the government and Lockheed Martin were working toward reducing the costs for years — long before Trump’s tweets in December criticizing the price tag. We rate this claim Mostly False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/2af530cd-51b2-4002-a026-d4433902373e | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2017-02-07T17:47:15 | 2017-02-06 | ['None'] |
pomt-13883 | When he served as governor, Schwarzenegger preserved more land than any other gubernatorial administration in California’s history. | mostly true | /california/statements/2016/jul/01/bonnie-reiss/did-arnold-schwarzenegger-protect-more-land-any-ca/ | Arnold Schwarzenegger’s achievements are many: Body builder. Movie star. Governator. Honorary Forest Ranger. Yes, he was named an Honorary Forest Ranger by the federal government. But was he California’s environmental champion, its greenest governor in history, in terms of protecting the state’s natural beauty through land conservation? That’s what a top official with the USC Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy, Bonnie Reiss, claimed in a recent opinion column. "When he served as governor, Schwarzenegger preserved more land than any other gubernatorial administration in California’s history," Reiss, the institute’s global director, wrote in the Malibu Times on June 8, 2016. She continued: "He established the Sierra Nevada Conservancy that oversees more than 25 million acres of land in Northern California, reached an agreement to preserve Hearst Ranch with its 13 miles of pristine coastline in Central California and brokered the Tejon Ranch Conservation Agreement that permanently preserved 90 percent of the 270,000-acre ranch in Southern California." Schwarzenegger’s publicist made the same claim about protecting "more land" than any other California governor recently on Twitter. Reiss, who served as a senior advisor to then Gov. Schwarzenegger, also highlighted the recent completion of the National Park Service’s Backbone Trail project near Malibu, to which Schwarzenegger donated 40 acres of his personal property. On the big screen, the Hollywood icon regularly saves the day. So we decided to fact-check whether he’s saved "more land" than any governor "in California’s history." Our research Environmentalists and state officials said they are not aware of records that track land conservation by a governor. Reiss told us she knows of no official rankings. To back up her claim about Schwarzenegger, she pointed to articles by Wikipedia and an environmental nonprofit that describe the Sierra Nevada Conservancy as the largest of its kind in California and the nation. It operates across a huge swath: 25 million acres stretching from the Oregon border to Kern County. But that’s the boundary inside which land can be protected. The total acreage conserved by the agency is much less -- about 58,000 acres over the past decade, according to a conservancy spokeswoman. That is still a large patchwork of protected land. But Reiss’ emphasis on the 25 million acre boundary muddies the water. "It’s not like they created a new park," said Bill Magavern, who was director of Sierra Club California at the same time Schwarzenegger was governor. "They established a new government entity." Schwarzenegger did not originate plans for the conservancy -- he signed a bill into law in 2004 creating it. The state agency administers grants to local governments and trusts seeking to preserve land. Also in response to our questions, Reiss pointed to the conservation of Hearst Ranch along the Central Coast and Tejon Ranch north of Los Angeles, two mammoth conservation deals, both completed during Schwarzenegger’s tenure. Those protected 80,000 acres and 240,000 acres, respectively, according to websites for each. Environmentalists say Schwarzenegger deserves credit, not as the architect of the deals, but as a significant player in both. The Tejon Ranch Company describes its agreement as the largest private conservation deal in California history. Then California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks in May 2008 at Tejon Ranch. State officials we spoke with, including researchers at the California State Library, said they are not aware of any other governor whose administration protected larger collections of land. Conservation money While it’s difficult to track governors by acreage protected, there’s another way to measure their green works: Money raised for land conservation. During the early and mid-2000s, California voters approved nearly $20 billion for conservation through six bond measures. This was "a huge influx of money," dwarfing amounts raised in previous decades, said Bryan Cash, who serves as deputy assistant secretary of the California Natural Resources Agency under current Gov. Jerry Brown and also worked for the agency under Gov. Schwarzenegger. Four of the bond measures were approved under Gov. Gray Davis, but later implemented by Schwarzenegger. The voter-approved bond money led to the preservation of 1.5 million acres across California from 2000 to 2011, Cash said. "The statement," about Schwarzenegger protecting more land than any California governor, "is probably true," Cash added. Cash said money still flows to conservation under the Brown Administration, but significantly less than in the 2000s. The USDA named Schwarzengger an 'Honorary Forest Ranger' in 2013. Our ruling Bonnie Reiss of the USC Schwarzenegger Institute said: "When he served as governor, Schwarzenegger preserved more land than any other gubernatorial administration in California’s history." State officials and environmentalists agree Schwarzenegger helped protect vast tracks of California’s hills, forests and coastline. No other governor, they said, compares in this category. They also said Schwarzenegger benefitted from conservation efforts initiated before he took office, including plans for the Sierra Nevada Conservancy and state bond measures that helped fund much of the land protected under his watch. Also, Reiss’ emphasis on Schwarzenegger’s establishment of the "25 million acre" Sierra Nevada Conservancy needs the clarification that only a small fraction of that acreage has been preserved over the last decade. We rate the claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Bonnie Reiss | null | null | null | 2016-07-01T06:00:00 | 2016-06-08 | ['California', 'Arnold_Schwarzenegger'] |
pomt-02118 | State Rep. Elena Parent "supported Governor Nathan Deal’s plan to slash the HOPE scholarship." | false | /georgia/statements/2014/may/13/kyle-williams/can-candidate-be-too-conservative/ | A Democrat vying for a Georgia Senate seat is trying to convince voters his opponent is too far to the right for this left-leaning area. "Elena Parent. A Disturbing Record: Too Conservative for Us," read a flier from Friends of Kyle Williams. One claim about Parent, a Democrat who served in the Georgia House of Representatives, seemed ripe for a fact check. "Supported Governor Nathan Deal’s plan to slash the HOPE Scholarship," it said. "The HOPE Scholarship has allowed a generation of Georgians the opportunity to afford college. There’s no excuse for Parent’s vote to limit these opportunities and hurt our children’s futures." One PolitiFact Georgia reader said she received a robocall from Roy Barnes, the last Democrat to serve as Georgia’s governor, who claimed the ad was full of inaccurate information about Parent. The reader wanted to know which candidate is correct here. So did we. Parent and Williams are running to represent District 42 in the Georgia Senate, which includes several west-central DeKalb County communities such as Decatur, North Druid Hills and Avondale Estates. The current officeholder, Jason Carter, a Democrat, is running for governor. Parent served one term in the House and is the executive director of Georgia Watch, a consumer rights nonprofit. Williams is an attorney based in Decatur and involved in several community organizations. During one recent debate, Williams defended himself against Parent’s complaint that the flier distorted her record on HOPE. "You don’t cut HOPE to save it," Williams said. The flier contained a footnote concerning a bill passed by the Georgia Legislature in 2011 that altered the HOPE program. The Williams campaign forwarded us two documents that show Parent voted in favor of a bill Deal and other Republicans proposed to make changes to HOPE, but those items did not include a key element. Let’s explain. HOPE, for those of you unfamiliar with it, once covered all tuition costs if the student maintained a grade-point average of 3.0 or better. Since being created in 1993, HOPE had paid for more than 1 million students to attend college. By 2010, about one-third of students enrolled in public colleges relied on the award. In January 2011, Nathan Deal, a Republican, took office as governor and shortly thereafter announced plans to revamp the state’s popular HOPE Scholarship program to prevent it from going broke. HOPE is funded by the Georgia Lottery, but the lottery wasn’t raising enough revenue to keep up with rising enrollment and tuition. The state dipped into reserves to cover costs, but that well was running dry. On March 1, 2011, the House voted overwhelmingly in favor of a bill that made some changes to HOPE. The changes included: Varying the amount students receive annually, depending on lottery revenue. Dropping the HOPE award private students will see from $4,000 to $3,600. Limiting the awards for full tuition at public colleges to students who graduate from high school with at least a 3.7 GPA and 1200 SAT score under a new Zell Miller Scholarship. These students will have to maintain a 3.3 GPA in college to keep the full scholarship Parent voted for the bill. That version of the House bill had the support of several key Democrats, such as Minority Leader Stacey Abrams of Atlanta and Calvin Smyre of Columbus, the House’s longest-serving Democrat. Many Democrats supported the bill as part of a strategy to negotiate with Deal to make some changes they believed would make the changes less drastic to low-income students, said state Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Smyrna. One week later, on March 8, the Senate passed a revised version of the House bill. All four Republican amendments were added to the bill, but none of the amendments proposed by Democrats were included in the revised bill. The Senate revisions included allowing only the top two graduates from each high school to get a Zell Miller Scholarship and offering low-interest loans to cover the difference between tuition and the amount of the HOPE award. When the bill came back to the House, with those changes, on March 10, Parent voted no. "Elena didn’t feel like it was up to her standards, so she voted against the revised version," said Matt Weyandt, a senior adviser to the campaign. Evans, who previously endorsed Parent, said she was upset and disappointed by the Williams flier. Evans called Williams a friend and said she would have supported him if he were running against anyone but Parent. Evans voted against both versions of the House bill. Barnes also vouched for Parent’s role in the 2011 HOPE debate in the robocall, saying she "led the fight to preserve the HOPE Scholarship." Beth Cope, a spokeswoman for Williams, stressed that Parent should not have voted for the bill the first time. Williams has complained that Parent was too willing to compromise with Republicans. "We don’t always get a chance to get it right the second time," Cope said. To sum up, Williams said Parent supported the governor’s plan to "slash the HOPE Scholarship." Parent voted for one version of the bill. But she voted against the final version of the legislation, which contained Republican revisions. There are a lot of problems with Williams’ claim. First, Deal, with the support of key Democrats, was trying to prevent HOPE from going broke. To accuse Parent of conspiring with a Republican governor to "slash" the popular program is way off base. And to say Parent supported a plan that she ultimately voted against seems to be a significant distortion of her record. We rate Williams’ claim False. | null | Kyle Williams | null | null | null | 2014-05-13T00:00:00 | 2014-05-06 | ['Nathan_Deal'] |
tron-03512 | Prayer Request for 30 Navy Seals Shot Down in Helicopter | outdated! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/prayer-request-30-navy-seals-killed/ | null | terrorism | null | null | ['Afghanistan', 'seal team 6', 'terrorism', 'war on terror'] | Prayer Request for 30 Navy SEALs Shot Down in Helicopter | Sep 25, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02011 | Meghan Markle Sad About Giving Up Acting, Losing Friends To Marry Prince Harry? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/meghan-markle-giving-up-acting-losing-friends-marry-prince-harry/ | null | null | null | Holly Nicol | null | Meghan Markle Sad About Giving Up Acting, Losing Friends To Marry Prince Harry? | 2:51 am, December 19, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02919 | Rep. Jason Chaffetz is investigating a PBS show instead of President Donald Trump's alleged Russian connections | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chaffetz-trump-probe/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Arturo Garcia | null | Is Jason Chaffetz Avoiding a Trump Probe to Investigate a Children’s Show? | 17 February 2017 | null | ['Russia', 'Donald_Trump', 'PBS'] |
snes-03060 | Babies Schmabies | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/women-carry-anti-baby-signs-womens-march-washington/ | null | Politics | null | Bethania Palma | null | Women Carry Anti-Baby Signs at the Women’s March on Washington? | 26 January 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07534 | Franklin Roosevelt (was) the last president to come to the Congress to ask for permission to engage into war. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/05/charles-rangel/charlie-rangel-says-last-president-seek-congressio/ | During an April 4, 2011, interview with the Fox Business network, Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., discussed the recent U.S. intervention in Libya with host Andrew Napolitano. Napolitano introduced Rangel to viewers as "an intellectually honest, progressive member of Congress who believes that we have not followed the law and the moral rules of engagement in Libya." During the interview, Napolitano asked Rangel, "Have you received a request from the president for authorization to use the military? Have you received a request for the president to bring about regime change? Have you received a request from the president for a declaration of war in Libya?" Rangel replied, "No. It is true that he did send his Cabinet to brief us as to the reasoning that he made it, but you know, it's three things, the Constitution, the constitution, the constitution. And ever since Franklin Roosevelt, the last president to come to the Congress to ask for permission to engage into war, what I really don't understand … is that when you talk about -- you use the word put our young people in harm's way, what a sacrifice." Was Franklin Roosevelt really the "last president to come to the Congress to ask for permission to engage into war"? The answer is -- sort of. First, some background on presidential and congressional war powers. The Constitution (Article I, Section 8) assigns the right to declare war to Congress. But the last time that actually happened was at the beginning of World War II, when Roosevelt was president. Since then, presidents have generally initiated military activities using their constitutionally granted powers as commander in chief without having an official declaration of war in support of their actions. Most controversially, in August 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress to back his effort to widen the U.S. role in Vietnam. He received it with enactment of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which passed both chambers of Congress, including the Senate with only two dissenting votes. As the Vietnam War turned sour, lawmakers became increasingly frustrated at their seemingly secondary role in sending of U.S. troops abroad. So in 1973, Congress passed the War Powers Resolution, which was enacted over a veto by President Richard Nixon. The resolution required that, in the absence of a declaration of war, the president must report to Congress within 48 hours of introducing armed forces into hostilities and must terminate the use of U.S. armed forces within 60 days unless Congress permits otherwise. Since its enactment, the War Powers Resolution has triggered consultations and official communications about foreign interventions more than 100 times, according to the Congressional Research Service. (All of them occurred while Rangel was a Member of Congress.) We’ve pored over the full list and have whittled it down to a half-dozen examples in which presidents have actively sought legislative support -- rather than just informing lawmakers of a military fait-accompli. In several cases, votes were held and authorizing resolutions were passed. President Gerald Ford: On April 10, 1975, three weeks before the fall of Saigon, Ford asked Congress, in the words of the CRS, "to clarify its limitation on the use of forces in Vietnam to insure evacuation of U.S. citizens and to cover some Vietnamese nationals, but legislation to this effect was not completed." Ford went ahead and used helicopters, Marines and fighter aircraft to evacuate U.S. citizens and others from South Vietnam. President Ronald Reagan: Shortly before the expected signing of an agreement initiating a peacekeeping force to oversee the Israeli handover of the the Sinai to Egypt, Reagan asked for congressional authorization for the U.S. military to take part. Congress passed such a resolution, and Reagan signed it on Dec. 29, 1981. Two years later, with U.S. Marines participating in a multinational force in Lebanon, Congress passed a resolution, signed by Reagan on Oct. 12, 1983, that authorized forces to remain for 18 months. Less than two weeks later, a pair of trucks packed with explosives rammed into a barracks compound in Beirut, killing 241 American service members and 58 others. The suicide attack prompted Reagan to withdraw U.S. forces. President George H.W. Bush: After Iraq’s Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990, Bush ordered troops to the region to protect Kuwait’s neighbors and prepare for a possible counterattack against Hussein. After pressure from lawmakers who wanted a voice in the military buildup, Bush, in a Jan. 8, 1991, letter, requested support from Congress to act -- militarily if necessary -- to enforce United Nations Security Council resolutions related to the conflict. The resolution would not be an official declaration of war but rather an "authorization for use of military force." Both chambers passed the resolution on Jan. 12, 1991, and the U.S. and its allies began an offensive less than a week later. President Bill Clinton: Amid a a civil war and humanitarian crisis in Somalia, Bush sent forces to the east African nation in late 1992 in advance of a U.N. deployment. Shortly after Bush left office, his successor, Clinton, set about securing congressional backing for the mission. The Senate passed a resolution on Feb. 4, 1993, and the House followed on May 25, 1993. But the two resolutions were different, and they were never passed by both chambers in reconciled form. After a difficult deployment, Clinton withdrew U.S. troops by March 1994. President George W. Bush: Within a week after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush secured an Authorization for Use of Military Force resolution that provided support for, among other things, U.S. entry into Afghanistan, where al-Qaida terrorists had set up bases. The resolution said that "the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons." Attacks on Afghanistan commenced within weeks of enactment. Bush’s second, and more controversial, Authorization for Use of Military Force resolution was passed in advance of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which aimed to oust Hussein from power. Enacted Oct. 16, 2002, the resolution authorized the president to "use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to (1) defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq; and (2) enforce all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq." The invasion began in March 2003. All told, then, at least six of the 12 presidents since Franklin Roosevelt have come to Congress to seek support for military actions. So how does this square with Rangel’s comment? A Rangel spokeswoman told PolitiFact that "the congressman's argument is that presidents have the constitutional obligation to seek congressional authorization before engaging our country in a military conflict, not through resolutions afterward. The last official war declared by Congress was World War II. Subsequent conflicts were initiated by the executive branch." But we see the evidence as more mixed. • Rangel is correct that no president has sought a formal declaration of war since Roosevelt. • Each president has been careful about the phrasing of his request to Congress. Even as presidents ask for Congress’ support -- something seen as politically useful, even necessary -- they always take pains to note that they are doing so voluntarily, without ceding any presidential prerogatives. So when Rangel says that "Franklin Roosevelt (was) the last president to come to the Congress to ask for permission" to go to war, he has a point. No president since Roosevelt has come to seek "permission" from Congress for military action. However, presidents have repeatedly come to Congress to seek "support" for military action. • What is the definition of "war"? Of the seven post-War Powers Resolution examples listed above, one came at the end of a genuine war (the fall of Saigon) and three involved more limited peacekeeping or humanitarian missions (Sinai, Lebanon and Somalia). None of these would be solid examples of a president seeking congressional backing to engage in "war" by its strictest definition. However, we think most people would consider the other three cases -- the Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq -- genuine wars. And in each of those cases, the president sought congressional support (reluctantly or otherwise) before initiating hostilities and ultimately received it (with varying degrees of unanimity). So where does this leave us? Rangel is right that Roosevelt is the last president, strictly speaking, "to come to the Congress to ask for permission to engage into war." But at least two presidents -- both George Bushes -- have waited to launch wars until they had an official vote from Congress backing them up. On balance, we rate Rangel’s statement Half True. | null | Charles Rangel | null | null | null | 2011-04-05T16:38:13 | 2011-04-04 | ['United_States_Congress', 'Franklin_D._Roosevelt'] |
pomt-00054 | Veterans should vote Republican "because the damn Democrats blocked the VA Healthcare bill again." | pants on fire! | /facebook-fact-checks/statements/2018/nov/03/blog-posting/facebook-meme-miscounts-votes-claim-democrats-bloc/ | One of Donald Trump's campaign pledges was to improve healthcare for veterans. The problem has long been recognized, although we rated Trump's claim that thousands of veterans were dying because they couldn't get treatment fast enough as Half True. Now a meme is making the rounds on Facebook, shared more than 187,000 times, accusing the Democrats of trying to thwart improvements to medical care through the Veterans Affairs system. "I urge all veterans to vote Republican this November because the damn Democrats blocked the VA healthcare bill again," James Hauser asserts in an all-caps message posted Oct. 4. This meme was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) We sent a Facebook message to Hauser asking for specifics, but didn't hear back. In fact, legislation to improve the system passed Congress last spring with bipartisan support, contrary to the meme's assertion. In May, the U.S. Senate gave final passage to a major overall of the health care system and sent it to Trump for his signature. The measure, S-2372 known as the VA MISSION Act, was designed to make it easier for veterans to get care from private physicians who are not in the VA system and, in theory, speed the delivery of care. It passed the House 347 to 70 on May 16, 2018. Democrats made up 116 of those 347 winning votes. All of the opponents were Democrats. It passed the Senate 92 to 5 on May 23, 2018. Democrats made nearly half the winning votes. The "Nay" votes were cast by two Democrats, two Republicans and one Independent. In short, precisely two thirds of the Democrats in Congress voted for the bill. To make the claim that "Democrats blocked the VA healthcare bill" strikes us a meme malpractice. We rate that claim Pants on Fire! See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2018-11-03T11:20:06 | 2018-10-04 | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Democratic_Party_(United_States)'] |
pomt-00361 | White House ‘Resistance’ mole a fake – NY Times admits they were trolled | pants on fire! | /facebook-fact-checks/statements/2018/sep/12/blog-posting/new-york-times-anonymous-op-ed-author-isnt-liberal/ | We still don’t know who wrote the anonymous New York Times op-ed, but we do know it wasn’t Art Tubolls — an anagram for "Busta Troll" and a regular fictitious character on a popular false news blog. On Sept. 5, the New York Times Opinion desk published the op-ed, authored by an unnamed top official in the Trump administration. The author says he or she is one of many top officials "working diligently from within to frustrate parts of (Trump’s) agenda and his worst inclinations." People inside and outside the White House continue to speculate on the writer’s identity, and some bloggers have jumped on the opportunity to spread misinformation. One example comes from TheLibertyNews.us with this headline: "BREAKING: White House ‘Resistance’ mole a fake – NY Times admits they were trolled." This story was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) The story was copied word-for-word from one of America’s Last Line of Defense websites, and it attributes the op-ed to Art Tubolls, "an infamous liberal troll on the Soros payroll." Art Tubolls’ anagram Busta Troll is a pen name for Christopher Blair — the man who runs those sites, which are among the biggest sources of false news online. In addition to the fake author, the false article quotes a fake source: "senior editor John Pragerski." The New York Times does not have an editor with that name. While the America’s Last Line of Defense websites call themselves satire, TheLibertyNews.us did not include a disclaimer on its home page or on the story. We’ve fact-checked other stories featuring Art Tubolls — recently he’s appeared as Michael Jordan’s spokesman and as the CEO of Comedy Central. He’s neither, and he’s not the author of the op-ed, either. We rate this claim Pants on Fire! See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2018-09-12T16:13:05 | 2018-09-07 | ['The_New_York_Times', 'White_House'] |
pomt-02432 | In 1968, a full-time worker earning minimum wage, could actually support a family of three above the poverty line. Today, that same worker would earn less than the poverty line for a family of two. | mostly true | /virginia/statements/2014/mar/03/virginia-interfaith-center-public-policy/va-interfaith-center-says-minimum-wage-households-/ | Pro and con, about a dozen speakers came forward last month when the House of Delegates Commerce and Labor Committee invited comment on bills to raise Virginia’s minimum wage. Robin Gahan, the director of programs at the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy, urged an increase, saying families can’t get by on the bottom rate of $7.25 an hour, which is also the national floor. "In 1968, a full-time worker earning minimum wage could actually support a family of three above the poverty line," Gahan said. "Today, that same worker would earn less than the poverty line for a family of two." The Republican-controlled committee went on to kill three bills this winter that would have increased the minimum wage, maintaining that raising the rate would force employers to cut jobs. But the issue remains alive in Washington, where the U.S. Senate this spring is expected to vote on legislation that would raise the national minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. So we looked into the Interfaith Center’s claim. Gahan pointed us to a December 2013 report by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that advocates boosting the wage. A graph measures the minimum wage over the years against household poverty levels. In 1968, the minimum wage for most workers was $1.60 an hour. An employee working at that rate for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, would have earned $3,328. That was above the poverty thresholds that year for a three person-household: $2,817 annually for a home headed by a man and $2,516 for a home headed by a woman. The minimum wage was bifurcated back then, however, and a small group of employees -- including workers at schools, public hospitals, laundries, hotels and motels -- could be paid as little as $1.15 an hour. Those employees, working full time every week of the year, would have earned $2,392 annually and fallen below the poverty line for a three-person household. Congress ended the dual minimum wages in 1978. Now, let’s move forward to modern times. The $7.25 hourly minimum was established in 2009. A full-time minimum wage earner makes $15,080 a year. That falls slightly below the average 2013 poverty threshold for a family of two, which is $15,156. There are a few details about all these numbers that should be noted: In the 1960s and 1970s, the yearly earnings for full-time minimum wage workers skirted the poverty line for supporting a family of three. It rose above when the wage was increased and fell below when the new rate languished for a few years. The minimum wage has not supported a family of three above the poverty line since 1980. The minimum wage has supported a household of two above the poverty line only during six years since 1984. The longest run came from 2009 through 2012, after the wage was raised 70 cents an hour to its current rate of $7.25. In 1968, the year cited by the Interfaith Center to begin its comparison, the buying power of most minimum wage workers was at an all-time high, according to the Congressional Research Service. The $1.60 an hour rate paid to most of the earners, when adjusted for inflation, translates to $10.75 an hour today. Our ruling There’s a slight snag in the first part of the Virginia Interfaith Center’s claim that, in 1968, a full- time minimum wage earner could support a household of three above the poverty line. The wage was bifurcated then. The majority earning $1.60 an hour could support a family of three, but a small group of workers qualifying for $1.15 an hour would have lived below the poverty line The second part of the center’s claim -- that a full-time worker today could not raise a family of two on the minimum wage of $7.25 an hour -- holds up. Clearly, the buying power of the minimum wage has decreased in recent decades. The center tried to illustrate that point with a statement that is accurate but needs a little clarification. So we rate its claim Mostly True. | null | Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy | null | null | null | 2014-03-03T00:00:00 | 2014-02-04 | ['None'] |
pomt-11063 | $1 billion—that’s how much Bruce Rauner has wasted with his budget crisis. | mostly false | /illinois/statements/2018/jun/25/jb-pritzker/did-rauner-really-pour-1-billion-down-drain/ | Big, round numbers play well in politics and this election year, "$1 billion" is having its moment in the race for Illinois governor. First there was Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner proclaiming in a commercial that the budget he proposed earlier this year contained a $1 billion tax break for Illinoisans. We rated the same claim Mostly False after he unveiled his budget plan in February. Now, Rauner’s fall challenger, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, is out with an ad skewering the incumbent for squandering the same amount in taxpayer dollars. "$1 billion—that’s how much Bruce Rauner has wasted with his budget crisis," the ad asserts. "Bruce Rauner poured that money down the drain." There’s no doubt Rauner, as the state’s chief executive, played a starring role in the prolonged budget showdown with the legislature that left the state without a spending plan for two years. But he had plenty of co-stars, among them House Speaker Michael Madigan and Senate President John Cullerton, both Chicago Democrats. Pritzker’s attack is as short on detail as it is sharp on condemnation. Where does that $1 billion figure come from and why should Rauner own it? The ad doesn’t say, so we decided to take a look. Adding it all up The answer to the first question is simple. A spokesman for the Pritzker campaign said the number comes from Democratic State Comptroller Susana Mendoza, the keeper of the state’s books and a frequent Rauner critic. Mendoza calculated that the state racked up $1.03 billion in late payment penalties in 2017, largely because the budget standoff led to major delays in paying state vendors for their services. The budget impasse dragged on because the governor and Democrats who run the legislature had very different policy, tax and spending priorities. As a lawyer might put it, there was plenty of contributory negligence—not to mention gamesmanship and plain old stubborness—to go around. In short, the budget became hostage to an ideological debate centered on so-called Turnaround Agenda demands from Rauner that Democrats argued were largely unrelated to a state spending plan. In dispute were issues that included the imposition of term limits for legislators, a freeze on local property taxes, and workers’ compensation cuts. Also fueling the budget crisis and the bill backlog that grew with it was a significant drop in revenue after a temporary state income tax increase expired, reducing the rate from 5 percent to 3.75 percent just days before Rauner was sworn into office in 2015. Rauner had pressed the legislature to let it lapse, and Madigan and Cullerton obliged over the objections of then Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, who lost to the Republican in November 2014. State law mandated the rate reduction at the end of that year, but Quinn urged lawmakers to step in and prevent it. "I warned there would be dire catastrophe in my budget address and I laid out what the catastrophe could look like in an attempt to try and get the legislature to extend it, but no Republicans came forward and many Democrats were leery before November's election," Quinn told us in a phone interview. "They simply did not want to vote on revenue before November—Democrats and Republicans." It’s also worth noting that, even before the 2014 tax cut, the state had been accruing large penalties for tardy bill payments. A report from the Civic Federation, a Chicago-based budget watchdog, shows late payment interest penalties totaled more than $600 million in the three years prior to the budget standoff. David Merriman, an economist who heads the Fiscal Futures Project at the University of Illinois, sees the penalties as evidence of the state’s legacy of poor fiscal management, with government leaders of both parties approving budgets for nearly two decades that balanced out only on paper. "The fiscal situation has been unsustainable, [Rauner] inherited it, it got worse under Rauner because they didn't have a budget for two years and because he didn't control spending," Merriman said. "That’s his fault, but it’s also the legislature's fault." Eventually, after two years of operating on autopilot and jeopardizing a number of critical services in the process, lawmakers last summer did put a budget in place that included an income tax rate hike, which provided a big jump in revenue. Rauner had vetoed that plan, but a handful of Republicans joined Democrats to override his rejection. Our ruling A recent Pritzker campaign ad says Rauner "wasted" $1 billion "with his budget crisis." Pritzker’s ad seeks to blame Rauner for the entirety of a huge tab the state ran up last year on interest penalties for late payment of bills. The problem was significantly aggravated by a two-year budget standoff in Springfield that left many state services running on autopilot but with insufficient revenues to cover the costs. Rauner clearly played a key role in that logjam and it may be smart politics on Pritzker’s part to try to blame the mess entirely on the incumbent. But Rauner hardly acted alone. What’s more, running up an expensive late payment tab isn’t unique to the Rauner era. Chronic fiscal mismanagement over many administrations has made it harder for the state to pay bills in a timely fashion—even when the income tax rate was higher and more revenue was flowing in. Pritzker’s ad has its number straight, but uses it to blame Rauner alone for an unfortunate legacy that is shared by many. We rate it Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | JB Pritzker | null | null | null | 2018-06-25T07:00:00 | 2018-06-07 | ['None'] |
vees-00386 | VERA FILES FACT SHEET: What is presumption of innocence? | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-sheet-what-presumption-innocence | null | null | null | null | Duterte,presumption of innocence,France,Agnes Callamard | VERA FILES FACT SHEET: What is presumption of innocence? | August 30, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14865 | After Sandy Hook, Ted Cruz stopped Obama’s push for new gun control laws. | mostly false | /texas/statements/2015/nov/13/courageous-conservatives-pac/pro-ted-cruz-pac-says-cruz-stopped-obama-push-gun-/ | A group supporting Ted Cruz for president took a jab at another big-state Cuban American hopeful in a video ad that debuted before the Nov. 10, 2015, Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee. The 60-second spot from the Courageous Conservatives PAC suggests that unlike Cruz, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida doesn’t have a record to celebrate. The group is a super PAC, meaning it may raise and spend unlimited amounts of money from sources including corporations and unions to campaign independently for candidates for federal office. We noticed this pro-Cruz claim in its ad: "After Sandy Hook, Ted Cruz stopped Obama’s push for new gun control laws." The ad’s reference to the Dec. 14, 2012, shootings at a Connecticut school drew a rebuke from Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who said the ad made him want to throw up, according to a news story in the Hartford Courant. Murphy said: "If Ted Cruz wants to brandish his pro-gun credentials to Republican primary voters, that's his right. But it's sick that he thinks he'll win votes by specifically pointing out that in the wake of 20 dead first-graders, he was the face of the fight to ensure no action was taken." To be fair, Cruz doesn’t control the Courageous Conservatives PAC; that would be a legal no-no. Still, did Cruz stop Obama’s gun-control plans, as the group says? That seemed unlikely in that the Texan was only elected to the Senate a few weeks before a man entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and killed 20 children and six adults, prompting calls for stiffer gun laws from President Barack Obama and others. We asked a PAC contact for its backup information. In a Facebook message, consultant Rick Shaftan said the ad was based on Cruz's comments in an Oct. 29, 2015, interview with Bret Baier, chief political anchor for Fox News. Cruz told Baier: "Over two years ago, following the tragic shootings in Newtown, Conn., the Democrats came out with a massive raft of new gun control proposals. I led the opposition against it. … We defeated every one of those proposals on the floor of the Senate, defending the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms." Cruz opposed gun-control proposals To get a fix on Cruz’s role in the 2013 debate, we checked news accounts and the Congressional Record, which recaps each speech and floor vote. On Jan. 3, 2013, the day he was sworn in, Cruz hammered his opposition to gun-control proposals, saying the tragic school shootings didn’t justify efforts to curb Second Amendment rights. "I think every parent who saw what happened in Newtown was understandably horrified," Cruz told reporters, but "I also think, predictably and sadly, within minutes of that horrific crime we saw politicians out trying to exploit that tragedy and to push their gun control agenda." About a week later, Cruz responded to Vice President Joe Biden’s vow that Obama would use executive action where he could to help stop gun violence. Cruz said on Facebook: "Let us hope that this is just another one of the vice president's infamous gaffes and not another end-run of Congress and the constitutional balance of powers through unilateral action by the president. I stand ready to defend the Second Amendment and efforts to undermine our God-given rights." Cruz subsequently stuck to his guns. At a Jan. 30, 2013, hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee, for instance, the former solicitor general of Texas urged members to "be vigorous and unrelenting in working to prevent, to deter and to punish violent criminals. I have spent a substantial portion of my professional life working in law enforcement. And the tragedies that are inflicted on innocent Americans every day by criminals are heartbreaking, and we need to do more to prevent them. "At the same time," Cruz said, "I think we should remain vigilant in protecting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. And I think far too often, the approaches that have been suggested by this Congress to the issue of gun violence restricts the liberties of law-abiding citizens rather than targeting the violent criminals that we should be targeting." On April 11, 2013, Cruz was on the losing end of a 68-31 Senate vote to let the body — which then had a Democratic majority — move toward considering a proposal to "ensure that all individuals who should be prohibited from buying a firearm are listed in the national instant criminal background check system and require a background check for every firearm sale." Some 16 Republicans joined Democrats in agreeing to proceed. Six days later, though, the Senate blocked or defeated every major gun-control proposal championed by Obama, The Washington Post reported. A CNN news report said "fierce opposition by the powerful National Rifle Association led a backlash by conservative Republicans and a few Democrats from pro-gun states that doomed key proposals in the gun package, even after they had been watered down to try to satisfy opponents." The failed proposals included attempts to ban certain military-style assault rifles and limit the size of ammunition magazines, the Post story said. "But the biggest setback for the White House was the defeat of a measure to expand background checks to most gun sales," designed to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill, the story said. The described proposal, presented by Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Patrick Toomey, R-Penn., would have expanded criminal background checks to gun shows and Internet sales, but did not require them of family members and friends giving or selling guns to each other. It was seen as a compromise, replacing stricter language from Majority Leader Harry Reid’s Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act of 2013. Senators voted 54-46 to proceed, but that margin still left supporters short of the 60 votes needed to ward off a filibuster. It wasn’t an entirely partisan split; several Republicans voted to proceed, several Democrats voted "no." In other votes that day, the Post said, 40 senators supported a renewal of a federal assault-weapons ban and 46 supported limiting the size of ammunition magazines. In addition, an NRA-backed measure that clarified gun-trafficking laws fell short, with just 58 votes, stunning Democrats, the newspaper said. Afterward, Obama blamed the NRA for stoking unreasonable fears. He also laid the blame on Republicans, the Post reported. "Ninety percent of Democrats in the Senate voted for that idea, but it’s not going to happen because 90 percent of Republicans just voted against it," Obama said. Opponents maintained the Manchin-Toomey background check proposal eventually would have led to a national gun registry, though the proposal outlawed a federal registry. The opponents also said it would do little to prevent mass shootings while creating an imposition for law-abiding citizens, especially those in rural areas. The Post story quoted Cruz telling colleagues: "My biggest concern with the legislation, the Democrat legislation on the floor, is it doesn’t address the problem. It doesn’t target violent criminals. Instead, what it does is, it targets law-abiding citizens." An alternate approach Cruz was among the critical 46 "no" votes. He also separately joined Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, in authoring a substitute proposal, reportedly supported by the NRA. At the substitute’s unveiling, according to a news story in The Hill, a Washington, D.C., newspaper, Cruz said that while the Obama administration was continuing to "politicize a terrible tragedy to push its anti-gun agenda, I am proud to stand beside my fellow senators to present common-sense measures." The Grassley-Cruz alternative did not impose background checks on transactions at gun shows or on sales over the Internet. But it would have provided incentives for states to submit relevant mental health records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and required federal courts to do so. It also would have allocated money for prosecuting violations of the background check requirement. In the Senate, the Grassley-Cruz proposal was favored 52-46, hence stalling out due to the 60-vote hurdle. Our ruling The pro-Cruz PAC said that after the Sandy Hook shootings, "Cruz stopped Obama’s push for new gun control laws." Actually, Cruz had company in stopping the Obama-supported push for new restrictions. Crucially, most Senate Republicans and a few Democrats kept the expansion of background checks favored by Obama from winning further consideration. Still, we see an element of truth here. Despite just joining the Senate, Cruz frequently spoke out on the issue and shared authorship of an unsuccessful alternative to the failed background-check plan. We rate the statement Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Courageous Conservatives PAC | null | null | null | 2015-11-13T14:33:22 | 2015-11-06 | ['Ted_Cruz', 'Barack_Obama', 'Sandy_Hook'] |
pomt-14884 | There’s only one of us who’s actually cut government spending -- not two, there’s one and you’re looking at him. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/10/bobby-jindal/bobby-jindal-says-hes-only-one-whos-cut-spending-c/ | Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal went on the attack during the Nov. 10, 2015, Fox Business debate, at one point offering New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a theoretical blue ribbon and a juice box for talking the conservative talk. But Jindal said only he has been doing the conservative walking. "Here’s the dirty little secret," Jindal said. "You’re gonna hear a lot of Republicans tonight in this debate and the next one talk about cutting government spending. It’s gonna sound great. There’s only one of us who’s actually cut government spending -- not two, there’s one and you’re looking at him." Jindal has previously boasted that he’s the only one to cut government spending. Is it true? The answer: it depends on the analysis. Jindal’s evidence Jindal also makes the claim that he’s "the only candidate to actually cut spending" on his website, citing a report by libertarian think tank the Cato Institute. (When we last looked into this claim in August, a spokesperson for Jindal confirmed that this is what he was referring to.) According to Cato, Jindal is indeed the only governor out of the six running to have cut spending (Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry dropped out after the Cato report was published). During his seven-year tenure as Louisiana's chief, Jindal reduced spending by an average of 1.76 percent every year. Every other governor increased spending, Cato said. Here’s a graph from Jindal’s campaign, which is based off of Cato’s analysis: "Bobby Jindal shows the most fiscal restraint," the Cato report concludes. Much of the reduction, reported the Times-Picayune in 2011, is "explained by waning hurricane recovery appropriations and the end of federal stimulus aid." However, the Cato report is just one way, and something of a simplistic way, to look at the state budget picture. It fails to consider the different per-capita income levels across different states (higher incomes bring more government services and thus spending), different approaches to handling federal money (Ohio Gov. John Kasich, for example, took the Medicaid expansion while Jindal did not), and different time periods, lists Alan Auerbach, a professor of public finance at the University of California at Berkeley. Unlike Jindal and other sitting governors, Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee and George Pataki weren’t leading their states through economic downturns. Auerbach explains: "During recessions, balanced-budget requirements have typically forced states to cut spending, in addition to legislating tax increases." Kasich himself takes issue with Cato’s analysis, arguing that Cato focused on a specific pool of money known as the general revenue fund. Kasich prefers instead to look at the all-funds budget, a much larger pot of federal and state money. (Cato’s response: "Our data is correct, and so is his. Kasich seems to pick the dataset that shed the best light on him.") Chris Edwards, Cato’s director of tax policy, argued that the general fund data is more recent and perhaps more relevant than the all-funds. "Governors have more direct control over the general fund budget," he said. "A lot of the non-general fund budget comes from the federal government, which governors don’t have much control over." Another way to run the numbers Others have looked at this question and come up with different results. If we look at all-funds and adjust for the time differences, four governors actually out-cut Jindal, according to a fact-check by Fox News, which compared each governor’s budgets to their contemporaries (in other words, how Bush stacked up against other governors in the 2000s, and how Jindal is doing compared to sitting governors). The two top spenders by Cato’s count, Bush and Kasich, actually ranked best in Fox News’ analysis. Bush and Kasich slashed spending by 3.66 percent and 1.76 percent respectively. Jindal, meanwhile, came in at No. 5 on the Fox News analysis, with an average reduction of 0.25 percent per year. Here’s Fox’s breakdown: This is still an imperfect way of comparing the budget records of the various governors, but to an extent, it’s fairer, Auerbach said. "Controlling for what other states did at the same time certainly is better than not controlling for time period," he said. "One might do better still by controlling for relative economic conditions in the different states but … the controls are reasonable." Our ruling Jindal said, "There’s only one of us who’s actually cut government spending -- not two, there’s one and you’re looking at him." To his credit, a Cato report backs his claim. However, there’s more than one way of looking at spending cuts. One other approach that an expert said is valid suggests that Jindal was out-cut by four other governors. Jindal’s claim is partially accurate. We rate it Half True. | null | Bobby Jindal | null | null | null | 2015-11-10T22:40:27 | 2015-11-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-07423 | Large majorities of the public "oppose major changes to Medicare" and favor higher taxes on the wealthy. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/25/paul-krugman/paul-krugman-said-large-majorities-favor-higher-ta/ | The debate to balance the federal budget and reduce the nation's debt has raged in recent weeks, with Democrats and Republicans arguing about spending, taxes and entitlements such as Medicare. Paul Krugman wrote recently in his New York Times column that a knock-down, drag-out fight may be inevitable, given that the two parties have such different visions for the country. "So when pundits call on the parties to sit down together and talk, the obvious question is, what are they supposed to talk about? Where’s the common ground?" Krugman wrote. Krugman, who sides with the Democrats over Republicans on budget issues, said the Democrats have a winning case to present to the public. "For what it’s worth, polls suggest that the public’s priorities are nothing like those embodied in the Republican budget," Krugman said. "Large majorities support higher, not lower, taxes on the wealthy. Large majorities — including a majority of Republicans — also oppose major changes to Medicare. Of course, the poll that matters is the one on Election Day. But that’s all the more reason to make the 2012 election a clear choice between visions." We decided to check Krugman’s numbers on the polls after a reader asked us to look into it. Let’s take the issues one at a time. "Large majorities support higher, not lower, taxes on the wealthy." Different polls phrase the question differently, but the bottom line is the same. We found three recent polls that back up Krugman’s point. "In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose raising taxes on Americans with incomes over 250 thousand dollars a year?" Support: 72 percent. Oppose: 27 percent. Unsure: 1 percent. (ABC News/Washington Post Poll. April 14-17, 2011) "Do you support or oppose doing each of the following to deal with the federal budget deficit? … Increase taxes on income over $250,000." Support: 64 percent. Oppose: 33 percent. Unsure: 3 percent. (McClatchy-Marist Poll. April 10-14, 2011.) "Now looking ahead to next year's federal budget, do you think it should or should not include higher taxes for families with household incomes of $250,000 and above?" Should: 59 percent. Should not: 37 percent. Unsure: 4 percent. (USA Today/Gallup Poll. April 11, 2011.) Krugman seems on firm ground here. Large majorities "also oppose major changes to Medicare." Again, we found several recent poll questions addressing this point. "In order to reduce the national debt, would you support or oppose cutting spending on Medicare, which is the government health insurance program for the elderly?" Oppose: 78 percent. Support: 21 percent. Unsure: 1 percent. (ABC News/Washington Post Poll. April 14-17, 2011.) "I'm going to read you two statements about the future of the Medicare program. After I read both statements, please tell me which one comes closer to your own view. Medicare should remain as it is today, with a defined set of benefits for people over 65. OR, Medicare should be changed so that people over 65 would receive a check or voucher from the government each year for a fixed amount they can use to shop for their own private health insurance policy." Should remain as is: 65 percent. Should be changed: 34 percent. Unsure: 2 percent. (Also from the ABC News/Washington Post Poll. April 14-17, 2011.) "Do you think the government should completely overhaul Medicare to control the cost of the program, make major changes to Medicare but not completely overhaul it, make minor changes to Medicare, or should the government not try to control the costs of Medicare?" Not try to control costs: 27 percent. Minor changes: 34 percent. Major changes: 18 percent. Completely overhaul: 13 percent. Unsure: 8 percent. (USA Today/Gallup Poll. April 11, 2011.) "In order to reduce the federal budget deficit, would you be willing or not willing to reduce spending on Medicare, the government health insurance program for seniors?" Not willing: 76 percent. Willing: 22 percent. Don't know/No answer: 2 percent. (CBS News Poll. March 18-21, 2011.) "Do you think it will be necessary to cut spending on Medicare, the federal government health care program for seniors, in order to significantly reduce the federal budget deficit?" No: 54 percent. No opinion: 27 percent. Yes: 18 percent. Not sure: 1 percent. (NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll. Feb. 24-26, 2011.) "For each (government program), please tell me if you think significantly cutting the funding is totally acceptable, mostly acceptable, mostly unacceptable, totally unacceptable: Medicare." Totally unacceptable: 46 percent. Mostly unacceptable: 30 percent. Mostly acceptable: 16 percent. Totally acceptable: 7 percent. Unsure: 1 percent. (Also from NBC News/Wall Street Journal Poll. Feb. 24-26, 2011.) Those numbers express widespread opposition to cutting Medicare. And indeed, when the Wall Street Journal reported its results in February, Republican pollster Bill McInturff said the results were "a huge flashing yellow sign for Republicans on how much preparation will be needed if they propose to change Social Security and Medicare." As we were working on this report, a new poll was released suggesting that the public might not be so opposed to changes in Medicare. We should note that these results were released publicly after Krugman's column appeared. As explained in the Principles of PolitiFact and the Truth-O-Meter, our rulings are based on the information known at the time the person made the remarks. "In order to reduce the budget deficit, it has been proposed that Medicare should be changed from a program in which the government pays doctors and hospitals for treating seniors to a program in which the government helps seniors purchase private health insurance. Would you approve or disapprove of changing Medicare in this way?" Approve: 47 percent. Disapprove: 41 percent. Don't Know/No answer: 12 percent. (New York Times/CBS News Poll. April 15-20, 2011.) The New York Times noted in its story that the response was at odds with other recent polls, and concluded that results may vary depending on how the question was asked. When we contacted Krugman for a comment, he noted that the poll came out after his column was published and that it's at odds with the other previous polls. "I strongly suspect that the Times result is an outlier -- it looks so different from everything else we're hearing," Krugman said via e-mail. We should note that Krugman parenthetically added that a majority of Republicans also opposed major changes to Medicare. We were not able to find party breakdowns for all of these polls, but the ones we did see showed that Republicans opposed changes to Medicare as well. A CBS News Poll from March showed that 67 percent of Republicans were not willing to reduce spending on Medicare. In the USA Today/Gallup poll, 33 percent of Republicans said the government should not try to control the costs of Medicare, with another 28 percent of Republicans said the government should make only minor changes. Our ruling Krugman said that "large majorities" support support higher, not lower, taxes on the wealthy, and recent polls support that point. On Medicare, several polls suggest that large majorities, including a majority of Republicans, oppose major changes to the program. One poll, released after Krugman wrote his column, showed an advantage for the Ryan plan. But the preponderance of evidence at the time Krugman made his statement bears him out. We rate his statement True. | null | Paul Krugman | null | null | null | 2011-04-25T15:30:04 | 2011-04-18 | ['None'] |
pomt-11507 | Gov. Rick Scott made it illegal for a doctor to ask a patient if they owned a gun, even a mental health professional. This law was so dangerous that a court had to strike it down. | mostly true | /florida/statements/2018/feb/22/giffords/florida-gov-rick-scott-made-it-illegal-doctors-tal/ | A TV ad airing in the wake of the Parkland, Fla., school shooting targets Florida Gov. Rick Scott over his support for a controversial gun measure. The ad was produced by Giffords, an organization that fights gun violence and is named for former Arizona U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Giffords was shot in the head in 2011. The ad references three recent Florida shootings, in Parkland, Orlando and Fort Lauderdale, and then goes after Scott. "We need to stop dangerous people from getting guns. But Gov. Rick Scott made it illegal for a doctor to ask a patient if they owned a gun, even a mental health professional. This law was so dangerous that a court had to strike it down." Does the ad cast Scott’s position, and the reaction of the court, correctly? We decided to find out. The law behind the ad, ‘docs vs. glocks’ In 2011, Florida lawmakers crafted a bill to strengthen patient protection related to firearms after hearing a report of a woman in Central Florida who was turned away from her pediatrician. The bill said that health care providers couldn’t ask questions to patients or their families about whether they own a gun, unless the provider "believes that this information is relevant to the patient's medical care or safety, or the safety of others." It also stated that health care providers couldn’t discriminate against patients because they own firearms. The penalties included facing fines up to $10,000 or loss of a medical license. The bill passed the House and Senate, with a few Democrats joining in with Republicans to support the plan. Scott signed the bill into law on June 2, 2011. The ad correctly says the law applied to a "mental health professional" because Florida law defines health care practitioners as including those who are licensed to provide psychological, clinical, counseling, and psychotherapy services. But did the law make it illegal for a doctor to ask a patient if they owned a gun? The 2011 law didn’t expressly state that doctors couldn’t ask patients if they owned a gun. But it did limit their ability to do so by stating that providers "should refrain from making a written inquiry or asking questions concerning the ownership of a firearm" unless in "good faith" they believe "that this information is relevant to the patient's medical care or safety, or the safety of others, may make such a verbal or written inquiry." The law failed to detail what would qualify as meeting that standard. Critics say it created a chilling effect for doctors who stopped asking questions out of fear they would face discipline. Court struck down some provisions as unconstitutional After nearly six years of litigation, in February 2017 the 11th Circuit Federal Appeals Court ruled that some provisions of the law were unconstitutional, including the part that prevented providers from asking patients about guns. The bill’s "record-keeping and inquiry provisions prevent doctors and medical professionals from asking all patients, or all patients with children, whether they own firearms or have firearms in their homes, or from recording answers to such questions." A medical professional, for example, would violate the law "if he or she gives all new patients an intake questionnaire which asks about firearms in the home," the court wrote. "This law was so dangerous that a court had to strike it down." The ruling addressed the danger of the law in a few ways. First, the court addressed the danger of doctors facing a "credible threat of prosecution." The court wrote that when the alleged danger of legislation is self-censorship harm, "can be realized even without an actual prosecution." Second, the court concluded that the legislation did not provide a means by which patients could hear from their doctors about firearms and firearm safety. In the fields of medicine and public health "information can save lives" and doctors, therefore, "must be able to speak frankly and openly to patients," the court wrote. The court wrote that some medical organizations believe that unsecured firearms increase risks of injuries and are a leading cause of death for some age groups. That’s why major medical groups "recommend that doctors and pediatricians routinely ask patients about firearm ownership, and educate them about the dangers posed to children by firearms that are not safely secured." Thomas Julin, a First Amendment lawyer who represented a coalition of medical groups as "friends of the court," told PolitiFact that the court was not attempting to determine whether the law was so dangerous that it had to strike it down. "It was trying to determine whether the state had sufficient evidence to show that the law would advance the interests that it supposedly had been enacted to serve," he wrote. However, the law did create a danger that health care providers would censor their own speech -- which they did do to avoid possible discipline. "When one speaks of the law being dangerous, I think most people would understand that to mean not simply that it created a danger of self-censorship, but that the law deterred health care providers from providing advice to patients that would be used to prevent firearm accidents," Julin said. "I think that is a fair characterization of what the law likely did because it apparently did deter health care providers not only from making inquiries of their patients but also from providing advice to their patients regarding the dangers of firearms and ammunition ownership and how that could be mitigated." We asked Scott’s press office if he had any evidence to refute the claims in the ad, but his spokeswoman did not directly answer our question and said that Scott was "focused on finding real solutions to keep students safe." Scott showed support when the Legislature passed the bills. "I look forward to seeing those bills," Scott said in April 2011. "I believe in the right to bear arms." Our ruling A Giffords TV ad said, "Gov. Rick Scott made it illegal for a doctor to ask a patient if they owned a gun, even a mental health professional. This law was so dangerous that a court had to strike it down." Scott didn’t act alone -- he signed the law after the Legislature passed it in 2011. The bill didn’t flat out prevent doctors from asking patients if they owned a gun, but said they should refrain from asking about guns unless they believed in good faith the information was relevant to the patient’s medical care or safety. That was a vague standard, which effectively silenced some doctors, critics claimed. A federal appeals court ruled in 2017 that the inquiry provisions prevented medical professionals from asking questions about firearms. The ruling also stated that doctors faced the threat of discipline and doctors must be able to speak openly with patients to provide life-saving information. As a result of these caveats, we rate this statement Mostly True. ' See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Giffords | null | null | null | 2018-02-22T15:57:16 | 2018-02-20 | ['None'] |
pomt-07439 | It is a fact that it costs more to run the schools in August. | mostly false | /georgia/statements/2011/apr/22/kathleen-angelucci/school-board-member-claims-later-start-date-says-m/ | School or Six Flags? In Cobb County, home to the famed amusement park, there’s been debate for years about when is the best time to start the school year: the beginning of August or a week or two later? Students would likely choose mid-August so they can have fun at places like Six Flags. The county school board? They’ve had a hard time with this question. In 2009, the board voted to start the school year at the beginning of August. In February, the board, with some new members, voted 4-3 to start the 2011-12 school year on Aug. 15. Kathleen Angelucci, one of the new board members, tried to explain her vote at a March community meeting. Angelucci said she reviewed economic impact studies and concluded it was more cost-effective for Cobb to start classes later. "It is a fact that it costs more to run the schools in August," Angelucci said. A few Cobb parents didn’t buy her claim and asked us to investigate. We called and e-mailed Angelucci several times in recent weeks and didn’t get a reply. We finally caught up to her at an April 13 board meeting. Angelucci said she thought the issue was in the past, explaining why she didn’t get back to us. Angelucci said she would send us some data that backed up her claim by April 15. We didn’t receive a call, e-mail or letter. Cobb, with its 106,000 students and 5,925 teachers, is the second-largest school district in Georgia. Cobb initially planned to use a balanced calendar for three consecutive years, beginning with the 2010-11 school year. Students would start earlier, but get weeklong breaks during Thanksgiving, September and in February. Like other districts, Cobb would still wind up with 180 school days. Balanced school year calendar supporters contend the shorter summer vacation under a balanced calendar makes it easier for students to retain what they learned during the prior school year as opposed to the longer recess under the traditional calendar. Some academics and educators say there’s no significant difference in test scores. Some folks use the term "balanced calendar" to refer to year-round schools, but educators say there is a difference. Year-round schools typically hold classes for nine consecutive weeks and then give students the following three or four weeks off and begin the cycle again. Traditional school year proponents argue there is a financial savings in starting the school year later in August because it costs more to keep schools cool in early August, which are some of the hottest days of the year. Georgia Power spokeswoman Lynn Wallace said customer demand typically rises with the hot August temperatures. She did note that customer use rose 21 percent in February 2010 from the prior February when a cold snap hit the South and President Barack Obama approved emergency home heating funds to several southern states. Local school district officials who use a balanced calendar said they did not have data to determine if there is a cost savings, but they offered some interesting insights. Cherokee County Superintendent Frank Petruzielo told us they’ve seen fewer students dropping out and have noticed other potential financial benefits, such as fewer student and faculty absences. "The [school] days become a little more important" with a balanced calendar, said Petruzielo, offering his reason why there are fewer absences. The Cobb County school communications office provided us a spreadsheet that shows there were 41,148 substitute teacher days through March of this school year, a decline of about 15,000 days from a similar time period in the 2009-10 school year. As a result, the district paid about $1.1 million less to substitute teachers to work those days. Cobb County saw an average of about 56,437 substitute days used the prior three school years. Jack Parish, who was the superintendent of the Henry County school district when it went to a balanced calendar, said he didn’t notice much of any financial difference between starting the school year in early August as opposed to mid-August. "You are still operating your school for the same number of days," said Parish, now a lecturer at the University of Georgia. "You are running your buses the same number of days. You are running your food service operation the same number of days." Nationally, there’s little research over whether there is a cost savings by using a traditional calendar or a balanced calendar. School system officials in Vancouver, Canada, looked into whether balanced calendar school years are more cost-effective, but found much of the analysis in the blogosphere was "inadequate." Some Texas officials conducted research of its schools and concluded it is less expensive to operate on a traditional calendar. A 2004 report called "Saving Summer" by the comptroller of public accounts found electricity, gas and water bills were twice as high in August than in May. Traditional school year proponents point to Tulsa, Okla., where officials found they saved nearly $500,000 by delaying the start of the school year until after Labor Day, according to 2002 newspaper accounts. Sean Beavers, a Cobb parent who contacted PolitiFact Georgia about the Angelucci claim, sent us utility budget information he said came from the Cobb district. Beavers’ numbers show in August 2010, when the district began classes a week earlier than in the past, that utility costs were slightly lower than August 2009. Cobb officials said Thursday those numbers were accurate, but cautioned that utility costs can vary because of weather. Cobb is spending less money this school year from factors associated with the balanced calendar, according to data produced by the district. Some officials, like in Texas, have produced data that shows starting the school year earlier can cost a district more money. Area school officials who have used a balanced calendar for years say there’s not much financial difference either way. There is scant evidence that Angelucci made a valid point, and she failed to provide us anything to back up her statement. We rate her claim 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 | Kathleen Angelucci | null | null | null | 2011-04-22T06:00:00 | 2011-03-09 | ['None'] |
pomt-11974 | The First Amendment’s the First Amendment. It goes start to finish. We can’t say to one football coach you’re fired if you kneel in silent prayer at the end of the game, but to a player, if you kneel in protest to a game, you’re celebrated. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/oct/02/james-lankford/sen-james-lankfords-misleading-comparison-about-nf/ | What’s the difference between a football coach kneeling in prayer and an NFL player taking a knee in protest? A reader asked us to look into this question after Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., suggested the two were being treated differently under the law at a press conference on Sept. 25, 2017. "Now the First Amendment’s the First Amendment. It goes start to finish. We can’t say to one football coach, you’re fired if you kneel in silent prayer at the end of the game, but to a player, if you kneel in protest at a game, you’re celebrated," Lankford said. Is the First Amendment setting a double-standard being set when it comes to kneeling and football games? Not quite. Lankford’s comparison is misleading, as the First Amendment is only applicable to one of these cases. In addition, he doesn’t have all of the facts straight. The football coach Lankford said high school coaches have kneeled in silent prayer and have "been fired." There’s one case that fits the description, though it’s wrong to say the coach in question was fired. Lankford was referring to Joseph Kennedy, an assistant football coach at Bremerton High School in Bremerton, Wash. Kennedy led students in locker-room prayers before and after most games and prayed on the 50-yard line after games. He also gave motivational speeches on the 50-yard line that he said "likely constituted prayers," according to subsequent court documents. "Students, coaches, and other attendees from both teams were invited to participate. During the speeches, the participants kneeled around Kennedy, who raised a helmet from each team and delivered a message containing religious content," according to court documents. The school only let him pray on the 50-yard line after students and parents had left the field, which he did for awhile, but eventually returned to praying before they departed. When it came time for annual review, "the athletic director recommended that Kennedy not be rehired because Kennedy ‘failed to follow district policy’ and ‘failed to supervise student-athletes after games due to his interactions with (the) media and (the) community,’" according to court documents. In the end, Kennedy wasn’t fired. After his contract expired, alongside the five other assistant football coaches’ year-long contracts, the district opened up his position and Kennedy did not reapply. Instead, Kennedy "sought an injunction ordering the district to ‘cease discriminating against him in violation of the First Amendment.’" The district court denied the injunction and the 9th Circuit panel upheld that decision. Lankford, co-chair of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, drafted a challenge to the school district in 2015 on the issue. Lankford’s office did not provide additional examples that fit the description of his claim. The First Amendment The First Amendment protects the expression of private citizens, which the coach would have exercised if praying in the stands or the sidelines, according to Gene Policinski, chief operating officer of the Newseum’s First Amendment Center. Students (in this case comparable to the NFL players) are free to pray silently, but as public employees, coaches are only allowed to do so under circumstances in which they don’t offer an overt endorsement of their religious views. "When Kennedy kneeled and prayed on the 50-yard line immediately after games while in view of students and parents, he spoke as a public employee, not as a private citizen, and his speech therefore was constitutionally unprotected," the 9th Circuit wrote in its opinion denying Kennedy’s injunction claim. The court found that Kennedy "took advantage of his position to press his particular views upon the impressionable and captive minds before him." While there may be disagreements with the court’s ruling (like Lankford’s), the key distinction between the coach’s case and NFL players is that restriction of free speech by the First Amendment only applies to the former, as it constitutes government action. The First Amendment doesn’t apply to a privately owned company like the NFL. When kneeling, NFL players are acting as private individuals, so they enjoy the same free speech and free exercise rights that Kennedy’s players would enjoy. However, the First Amendment isn’t enough to protect them against their employers because their employers aren't the government. Only state laws, and in some cases employment contracts, can rein in the limits set by their employer, experts told us. "It does not violate the First Amendment for a private employer (or for customers/fans) to disapprove of an employee's speech," said Richard Garnett, a law professor at Notre Dame University. So while some fans may celebrate players’ kneeling in protest, it’s up to the NFL whether to take action. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com Our ruling Lankford said, "Now the First Amendment’s the First Amendment. It goes start to finish. We can’t say to one football coach you’re fired if you kneel in silent prayer at the end of the game, but to a player, if you kneel in protest to a game, you’re celebrated." His complaint of the First Amendment’s double standard is misleading because the First Amendment only applies to government action, or the public high school football coach. The First Amendment doesn’t protect NFL players’ speech, which is under the purview of their employer. Additionally, the football coach Lankford discussed wasn’t fired; he failed to reapply once his contract ended. We rate this statement Half True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | James Lankford | null | null | null | 2017-10-02T14:00:00 | 2017-09-25 | ['None'] |
pomt-03067 | For the last decade, Floridians’ salaries have shrunk substantially when adjusted for inflation. | mostly true | /florida/statements/2013/oct/01/dan-gelber/dan-gelber-says-florida-paychecks-arent-going-far-/ | Gov. Rick Scott is using "gimmicks" to take credit for an economic recovery in Florida, Miami attorney and former state Sen. Dan Gelber writes in an article for the online website, ContextFlorida. "Scott’s self-congratulatory claims of success simply don’t comport with the harsh facts that for the last decade, Floridians’ salaries have shrunk substantially while the cost of living has increased," Gelber wrote. We decided to fact-check Gelber’s claim. First, however, we have to clear up some confusion Gelber created with his statement. Taken literally, Gelber argues that salaries in Florida decreased over the past decade, while the cost of living increased. But what Gelber was trying to say is that Floridians’ paychecks don’t go as far today as they did a decade ago. Put another way, salaries "have shrunk substantially" when adjusted for inflation. Inflation is another way of saying cost of living. As evidence to that claim, Gelber pointed to a report produced by economists at Florida International University called the "State of Working Florida 2013." The report looks at the "economic lives" of Floridians, mostly working in the private sector, from periods of time between 2000 and 2012. Using statistics from 2004-12, the report concludes that the median wage of all salary and wage employees fell 4.34 percent when adjusted for inflation. Put another way, people’s paychecks in 2004 went further than they do today. We sought out other economists and studies to see what they had to say on the topic, which produced several caveats. Alan Hodges, an extension scientist the University of Florida’s Food & Resource Economics Department, noted that issues with salaries are not isolated to Florida. Salaries "have been stagnant over the last decade nationally," he said, the result of the economic slowdown following Sept. 11, 2001, and the later global economic recession. Florida’s economy was "interrupted by two pretty severe shocks to the economy," said Sean Snaith, director of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Economic Competitiveness. But saying that salaries have shrunk substantially "is painting a more grim picture than what the reality is as far as wages and income in the state," he said. The U.S. Census Bureau, which collects information from individuals and households, provides figures on median earnings -- that’s the midway point where half of households earn more and half earn less. Many economists prefer median figures because "average" salaries can be skewed by outliers. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1999 (when information was collected for the 2000 census), median wages in Florida for men 16 and over who worked full-time, year-round were $32,212 and for women, $25,480. Adjusted for inflation, men would have to earn $44,389, and women, $35,112, in 2012 to keep pace. But in 2012, census figures showed that men made a median salary of $40,889 annually while women earned $34,202. That's about an 8 percent decrease in buying power for men and about a 3 percent decrease for women over that time period. The 8 percent decline for men is "substantial," Hodges said. Another way to crunch the numbers comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles average annual pay. Using their statistics from 2000 to 2012, economists said that average pay -- when adjusted for inflation -- actually increased 6 percent. (Remember, economists generally prefer median figures because "average" salaries can be skewed by outliers.) Another issue -- besides what years you use and whether you measure median or average wages -- is how you measure inflation, economists told us. The most-typical way is by using the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which is compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPI measures what urban consumers (about 87 percent of the population) are buying. It doesn’t reflect the spending of people living in rural areas, farm families, military and people in prisons and other institutions. The Consumer Price Index is compiled for the nation, the four regions of the country and 26 metropolitan areas. In Florida, the index measures spending in the St. Petersburg-Tampa-Clearwater area and the Miami-Fort Lauderdale area, but there isn't a Consumer Price Index compiled on a state-by-state basis. That can be an issue when considering a Florida-based claim. In the FIU study Gelber cited, cost-of-living figures are based on numbers for the southern region, which is comprised of Washington, D.C., and 16 states, including Florida, Texas, Alabama and Virginia. Jessica Sims, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Economic Opportunity, said that "using a regional or national CPI would not be appropriate" to adjust Florida salaries for inflation. Added Troy Martin, an economist with the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis: "Consumers in different areas are consuming different goods and services that make comparison difficult. Someone in a Manhattan condo pays $4,000 a month for a one-bedroom condo while someone in Nebraska living in a five-bedroom house may be spending $1,000 a month. How do you compare those?" That said, while CPI is not a perfect measure of cost of living, "it is the best information we have available," Hodges said. Our ruling Gelber wrote that Floridians’ "salaries have shrunk substantially while the cost of living has increased." In an un-artful way, Gelber is claiming that a Floridian’s salary doesn’t go as far today as it did a decade ago. While one calculation bucks Gelber's claim, the evidence generally backs him up. Reports show that salaries have shrunk when adjusted for inflation. The one calculation that does not is also the least persuasive. Still, economists we spoke with noted several caveats and cautioned against reaching broad conclusion. As such, we rate the claim Mostly True. | null | Dan Gelber | null | null | null | 2013-10-01T10:34:26 | 2013-09-13 | ['None'] |
snes-06271 | A list compiles Andy Rooney's wry observations on a variety of topics. | misattributed | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/andy-rooney-on-everything/ | null | Soapbox | null | Snopes Staff | null | Andy Rooney on Everything | 22 January 2004 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02085 | The smell of rain, an inspirational story about a premature baby | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/smellofrain/ | null | inspirational | null | null | null | The smell of rain, an inspirational story about a premature baby | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14328 | An image in a Chris Abele TV ad depicts "wealthy citizens" who would benefit from a "lake" created by the controversial Estabrook Dam. | pants on fire! | /wisconsin/statements/2016/mar/29/chris-abele/image-chris-abele-ad-shows-lake-s-created-estabroo/ | A new television ad from Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele shows a large body of water with a sizable boat tied up in front of a two-story boathouse. That image forms the backdrop for a statement printed on the screen about his opponent’s support of repairs to the Estabrook Dam on the Milwaukee River: "Chris Larson: $5 million of taxpayer money to benefit a few wealthy citizens." The narrator takes the claim further, saying the repairs give the wealthy residents "their own lake." The message conveyed by the image is clear: These are the properties of those wealthy residents living along the lake created by the Estabrook Dam. Only they’re not. A deeper dive Before we, um, dive into this one, here is some background on the long-running debate over whether to repair the dam. Built in the 1930s, the dam -- which sits on the river just north of Milwaukee, at the border of Shorewood and Glendale -- was installed to help control flooding and to maintain swimming and water recreation in an urban setting, especially in and around Lincoln Park. It has also created generations of what amounts to lakefront living for some people. When the dam gates are closed, the river forms a 100-acre impoundment upstream. There are about 165 property owners in the area whose property abuts the water, according to a 2015 report prepared for the county. Today, the dam is in poor condition,. The state Department of Natural Resources has ordered the county to keep the gates open until the structure is either repaired or abandoned. That means the lake has been, in effect, drained, and it’s a plain-old river again. Abele and the County Board have disagreed about how to proceed. Larson himself was a member of the board before he was elected state Senator. Abele sides with the Milwaukee Riverkeepers, a coalition of environmental groups that wants the dam removed so the river can be kept in its natural state. Years ago, the North Avenue Dam, several miles downstream, was removed and experts have said the faster current has led to improved water quality, a thriving fish population and new wildlife habitat. A majority of the County Board disagrees and wants to spend about $3.4 million on repairs and $2.2 million in operating and maintenance costs over the next 20 years. As a county supervisor, Larson voted in 2009 to repair the dam. That’s the genesis of the $5 million figure Abele used in the ad. However, in a recent interview, Larson said he’s willing to consider removing the dam. Image is all wet That leads us to the image used in the ad. It looks more like Door County than the Milwaukee River. And that’s not the kind of boat or property you’d find in that area. The boat pictured is either a fishing boat or cruiser and could be up to 36-feet long, said Charles Plueddeman, an Oshkosh-based freelance writer who focuses on the marine industry. "A boat this size could be used on large lakes or offshore in salt water," he said. "When I looked at the photo my first thought was ‘this does not look like Wisconsin,’" Plueddeman said. "I've not been to that site, but I don't think it would be surrounded by the high, rocky bluffs in this photo. And that would be a very big boat to use on that little impoundment." Indeed, pontoons and jet skis are more commonly found in the area, said Clark Blachly, who owns a nearby home. "I have been up and down this river hundreds of times there is nothing remotely like this," he said. We asked Abele’s campaign manager Tia Torhorst about the image in the ad. She said it was "stock footage" and was unaware of where it was shot. In short, it’s not the Milwaukee River. We’ve seen previous -- admittedly higher profile -- instances of the wrong images being used to make point in a political ad. Earlier this year, Republican Donald Trump aired a TV ad purporting to show Mexicans swarming over "our southern border." But the footage was of African migrants streaming over a fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Melilla. That claim was rated Pants on Fire. Our rating An Abele TV ad uses a lakefront image to criticize Chris Larson for supporting $5 million in Estabrook Dam repairs to benefit "a few wealthy citizens." But the photo used is not the Milwaukee River and the boat pictured would be woefully out of place there. We rate the claim that the image represents the area Pants on Fire. | null | Chris Abele | null | null | null | 2016-03-29T05:00:00 | 2016-03-15 | ['None'] |
pomt-14675 | Wisconsin dropped "from second in the country to 41st" among states where more than half the students took the ACT exam. | pants on fire! | /wisconsin/statements/2016/jan/15/state-democratic-party-wisconsin/blaming-scott-walker-democrats-say-wisconsins-rank/ | For years, Wisconsin leaders have expressed pride in how the state’s high school students perform on the ACT exam, which assesses students’ academic readiness for college. From 2008 through 2014, with Minnesota ranking first, Wisconsin has battled, usually with Iowa, for second or third. That is, among states where more than half of the students take the ACT. So, it was a surprise on Jan. 14, 2016 when the Wisconsin Democratic Party issued a news release declaring that Wisconsin’s ACT rank had plunged to near the bottom. "Newly released information from the (Wisconsin) Department of Instruction shows a dramatic decline in student ACT results in the past year," the news release stated, blaming Republican Gov. Scott Walker. "Test scores dropped Wisconsin from second in the country to 41st in the nation among states where more than half the students took the exam." Such a free-fall should have produced blaring headlines. But there was not even a mention of a 41st ranking in stories by Wisconsin’s leading news organizations about the scores, which had been announced a day earlier by the Department of Public Instruction. It turns out the Democratic Party came up with 41st on its own -- by mixing apples and oranges. Scores announced What made headlines from the announcement by the Department of Public Instruction were scores by younger students on a different test, the Badger Exam. More than half of Wisconsin's public school students in grades three through eight -- 51.2 percent -- were proficient or advanced in English language arts in 2014-’15, and 43.7 percent did as well in math. Meanwhile, the department’s release of the ACT scores got lesser billing in the news reports. That release stressed that the 2014-’15 school year marked the first time in Wisconsin that all juniors (11th grade) in public high schools had the opportunity to take the test. That’s because testing fees were paid by the state. In other words, the more than 64,000 juniors comprised a unique group in terms of Wisconsin students who have taken the ACT over the years. Traditionally, when state rankings on the ACT are done, the scores are for graduating seniors -- and include students from private as well as public high schools. Now to the scores. The ACT -- which tests in English, reading, writing, math and science -- is scored on a scale of 1 to 36. Wisconsin’s composite score for the public school 11th-graders for 2014-’15 was 20, according to the department’s news release. But the way to think about that score is a baseline. There won’t be a score to compare it to until the next set of public school 11th-graders takes the test. Meanwhile, the composite for the more than 46,000 graduating seniors -- the group whose scores are traditionally used to rank the states -- was higher: 22.2. The department made a point to state that comparisons between the two scores -- given that they are for two different groups of students -- are "invalid and flawed." But that’s what the Democratic Party did in its news release. The party took the 20 score for Wisconsin’s juniors and plugged it into the ACT database that compares state scores for graduating seniors. That database clearly shows that Wisconsin’s score for the traditional group, the graduating seniors in 2014-’15, was 22.2 (the same score as the previous year). The new score put Wisconsin, once again, second among states where more than half of the graduating seniors took the ACT -- behind Minnesota, which had a score of 22.7. Among all states, Wisconsin’s 22.2 ranked 18th. But the Democratic Party, using the 20 score for the group of juniors, said that score meant Wisconsin tied with Kentucky for 41st place. A spokesman for the ACT told us the party’s claim "cannot be supported" because it is "not an apples to apples comparison." And when we shared that with Brandon Weathersby, spokesman for the Democratic Party, he acknowledged the party had "flubbed" the data. Our rating The state Democratic Party said Wisconsin dropped "from second in the country to 41st" among states where more than half the students took the ACT college preparation exam. The party admits it erred, by comparing scores of two different groups of students. In fact, Wisconsin ranked second in the 2014-’15 ACT testing among states where more than half the students took the exam, not 41st. For a statement that is false and ridiculous, our rating is Pants on Fire. | null | Democratic Party of Wisconsin | null | null | null | 2016-01-15T17:03:19 | 2016-01-14 | ['None'] |
tron-00116 | Henry Ford Invented the 5-Day Work Week | mostly truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/henry-ford-invented-the-5-day-work-week/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | Henry Ford Invented the 5-Day Work Week | May 4, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03068 | Says "Nathan Deal killed pro-gun bills in 2013." | mostly false | /georgia/statements/2013/oct/01/georgia-gun-owners/group-blames-deal-bill-defeat/ | Gov. Nathan Deal has typically received high marks from gun advocacy groups, so we were surprised by a flier one group put together that accused him of derailing pro-gun legislation earlier this year. "Nathan Deal killed pro-gun bills in 2013. Will he do it again in 2014?" the flier read with a photo of the governor. Next to the photo were several demands. "No new mental health mandates. No new mandatory training requirements. No Gun Control, No Deals!" The fliers were paid for by Georgia Gun Owners, which describes itself on its website as "the ONLY no-compromise, no-sell out grassroots gun organization in the State of Georgia." So, we wondered, what pro-gun bills did the governor eliminate this year? Patrick Parsons, the executive director of Georgia Gun Owners, talked about the matter with the Atlanta-based weekly Creative Loafing. "Governor Deal, his staff, and others worked behind the scenes to water down pro-gun bills," Parsons said. "They wanted to run out the clock. And that's exactly what they did. We want the governor to publicly support passage of clean, pro-gun bills, not bills watered down with anti-gun amendments." The group handed out fliers in August at the governor’s "Grillin' with the Governor" event at Lake Lanier. Deal is facing a quandary, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted in April after two pro-gun bills were not passed during this year’s legislative session. The governor doesn’t want to be labeled as an obstructionist among gun supporters and have new conservative enemies during his re-election bid next year. "We do think that over this next recess period that there will be an opportunity to bring the different points of view together in a more orderly fashion than the last few days of the session allowed," Deal told the AJC. "And perhaps some middle ground can be found." PolitiFact Georgia wanted to find out more about the veracity of the group’s claim. Parsons said he would provide information to back up the claim in the flier. PolitiFact Georgia called and emailed Georgia Gun Owners four times over the past month, but we did not get a response. We even took a drive to Kennesaw to the address listed on the organization’s website. The address was a UPS store. Brian Robinson, the communications director for the governor, said he was baffled by the claim. The fliers are apparently focused on two bills that included language concerning firearms training and gun laws for anyone with a mental illness. Republican lawmakers pushed legislation during this year’s legislative session that would allow concealed weapons in new locations, including the more than 50 campuses of the state's university and technical college systems. Current Georgia law permits students to keep firearms locked in vehicles in university parking lots, but nowhere else. Two bills aimed at easing some restrictions concerning guns on campus, House Bill 512 and Senate Bill 101, passed their respective chambers with some tweaks to the legislation. Neither bill, however, reached the governor’s desk for his signature. The Georgia Board of Regents, which provides oversight for the University System of Georgia, fought the bills. So, too, did University System Chancellor Hank Huckaby, a former legislator who still holds sway in the Legislature. Deal had concerns about some parts of the legislation, the AJC reported. On March 13, the newspaper reported that the governor offered support for only one portion of the bill that would strengthen the rules about how people with mental illness qualify for a weapons "carry" license. "It expands the population who will be flagged by an instant background check, which the governor believes will protect innocent Georgians, " Robinson said at the time. The Associated Press reported Deal’s staff forwarded an email from Huckaby to a state representative that noted that few states allow firearms on campus. The AP also reported his chief of staff made it clear in a meeting that Deal was not personally backing the proposal, although one of the governor’s Senate floor leaders was backing the bill. Deal’s staff said the lawmaker was backing it for his own reasons. House and Senate leaders worked on a compromise of their respective bills to come up with something that both chambers and Deal could support during the final two weeks of the session. On March 28, the final day of the session, the negotiations continued near midnight. No bill was passed. Sine die. "We thought we had a deal," the AJC quoted an exasperated Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell, chairman of the House Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee. Powell said in March that House and Senate negotiators had agreed, after Deal stepped in, to allow concealed weapons permit holders to carry weapons on college campuses with the stipulation that permit holders between the ages of 21 and 25 would have to complete an eight-hour safety course first. Senators then told House negotiators that they wanted to require anyone, regardless of age, to complete the safety course before being allowed to carry a firearm on campus. "We had a conflict over some of the language that the Senate was opposed to," Powell told PolitiFact Georgia. Some lawmakers have said they oppose any mandatory training. Powell took issue with the description in the flier that the bills had been killed. "Those bills are still alive and well and still kicking," Powell told us, adding they could be adopted in 2014. Powell said the governor did not talk to him about anything in the legislation. Powell said Georgia Gun Owners "blamed our committee for a lot of things that were not correct." To sum up, Georgia Gun Owners claimed Deal killed some pro-gun bills earlier this year. It does appear from public statements from Deal’s office earlier this year that he was concerned about some elements of the bills under consideration. So, too, were other key voices. House and Senate lawmakers are still debating the matter six months later. The flier suggests the failure of these bills to pass earlier this year was the governor’s fault. We think that’s a bit of a stretch. Our rating: Mostly False. | null | Georgia Gun Owners | null | null | null | 2013-10-01T00:15:30 | 2013-08-10 | ['Nathan_Deal'] |
pomt-04150 | Did U know? Block Island Wind Farm would mean 40% est. drop in BI electric rates. | true | /rhode-island/statements/2012/dec/29/deepwater-wind/deepwater-wind-says-electricity-rates-block-island/ | Around the world, businesses and governments are looking for alternatives to fossil fuels. One of those choices is wind power, and one place where it has been getting an especially close look is Block Island. A company called Deepwater Wind wants to build a five-turbine wind farm in Rhode Island waters about three miles off the Block Island coast. The turbines would generate more than enough electricity for the island, with the surplus being sent to mainland Rhode Island. The company also has plans for a larger wind farm of up to 200 turbines in Rhode Island Sound that could provide power to multiple states, including Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New York. One aspect of the smaller project that supporters have touted is how much it would save electric power customers on Block Island. Besides providing wind-generated electricity to the island, the project calls for an underwater power cable that would connect it to the New England power grid. Currently, the island relies on its own electric company that uses diesel-powered generators to serve about 1,800 customers. Their electric rates are the highest in the state and among the highest in the country. Deepwater highlighted the potential savings in a Tweet the company put out Dec. 12: "Did U know? Block Island Wind Farm would mean 40% est. drop in BI electric rates." We wondered whether that figure was accurate or whether Deepwater was just blowing a lot of hot air. Block Island, or New Shoreham, as the island’s town is legally known, is in a unique position among Rhode Island municipalities when it comes to electric power. On the mainland, except for the section of Burrillville served by the Pascoag Utility District, the state’s cities and towns get their electricity from National Grid. On Block Island, it’s the Block Island Power Company, whose on-island generators run on diesel fuel, which must be shipped to the island by boat. A 2010 Providence Journal story on the island’s power system noted that diesel fuel regularly costs $1 more per gallon on the island than on the mainland. In fiscal 2011, according to a report by the town’s Electric Utility Task Group on the fiscal costs and benefits of the wind-farm project, the average cost of electricity on the island was 47 cents per kilowatt hour. In the rest of Rhode Island it was 14.8 cents. Once the cable is laid and the wind farm project is on line, in 2014 or 2015, Block Island Power will be able to purchase electricity from the New England power network at much lower costs. The task group estimated that electric rates on the island -- based on a 20-year agreement between Deepwater Wind and National Grid -- would fall to 30.7 cents per kilowatt hour, a 35.4-percent decrease from 2011 rates. (The island’s rates would still be substantially higher than those on the mainland because its customers would be paying for a portion of the costs for installing the cable and for maintenance of the island’s power system.) The task group’s analysis noted that current power costs on Block Island have risen to 54 cents per kilowatt hour because of the increasing diesel costs. Based on that figure, the decrease would be a 42-percent drop -- about what Deepwater said in its Tweet. Our ruling Deepwater Wind’s Tweet claimed electricity rates on Block Island will fall by 40 percent if a planned wind farm is built. The island’s Electric Utility Task Group says that, based on current prices of diesel fuel, the rates would drop 42 percent. We rule Deepwater’s claim True. (If you hear a claim you’d like us to check, e-mail it to politifact@gmail.com. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | null | Deepwater Wind | null | null | null | 2012-12-29T00:01:00 | 2012-12-12 | ['None'] |
pomt-03190 | Offshore wind power is "significantly less expensive than solar energy." | mostly true | /rhode-island/statements/2013/aug/31/jeffrey-grybowski/deepwater-wind-ceo-jeffrey-grybowski-says-offshore/ | EDITOR’S NOTE: On Aug. 28, 2013, PolitiFact Rhode Island rated as False a statement by Deepwater Wind CEO Jeffrey Grybowski that offshore wind power is "significantly less expensive than solar energy." We based that ruling on a comparison of the estimated price of Deepwater’s planned 1,000 megawatt windfarm with a recent contract price for a solar project in Rhode Island. Deepwater Wind objected to the ruling, pointing to contract prices of several other Rhode Island solar projects. Based on that information and a second review, we have changed our ruling to Mostly True and are providing this new analysis. July 31 was a red letter day for Deepwater Wind, a Providence company that hopes to build the first offshore wind farm in the United States. That was the day Deepwater was announced as the winner of a federal auction to lease space for the farm in a 257-square-mile area of waters off Rhode Island and Massachusetts. (The company plans an initial demonstration project of five turbines off Block Island. The larger project would have more than 100 turbines.) It was in that context that Jeffrey R. Grybowski, chief executive officer of Deepwater Wind, appeared Aug. 4, 2013 on the TV public affairs show "10 News Conference." Host Bill Rappleye asked Grybowski how much the electricity generated by the turbines would cost. "Yes, 13- to 14-cent power [offshore wind energy per kilowatt hour] is probably what we’re talking about, significantly lower than the cost of what we’ve seen for offshore wind to date," Grybowski said. "Also, by the way, significantly less expensive than solar energy." We wondered whether offshore wind is, in fact, cheaper than solar. We started with the state Division of Public Utilities and Carriers and the Public Utilities Commission, which both have important roles in setting the prices for renewable energy. Deepwater has negotiated with energy distributor National Grid, which is required to buy power from renewable sources, a wholesale price of 24.4 cents per kilowatt hour for the five-turbine demonstration project, steadily ranging up to 46.9 cents per kilowatt hour in the last year of a 20-year contract, according to division officials. The demonstration would have a generating capacity of 30 megawatts -- a measure of peak output over an hour. (A megawatt is 1,000 kilowatts. The average U.S. home uses about 940 kilowatt hours per month, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.) If the demonstration wind farm, called Phase I, works out as planned, Deepwater Wind expects to move forward on plans to build a large-scale wind farm, called Phase II, in the leased federal waters. Phase II would generate up to 1,000 megawatts -- enough, the company says, to power 350,000 homes. In an interview with PolitiFact Rhode Island, Grybowski said his comments on "10 News Conference" were about Phase II. He predicted that in the coming years, Deepwater will be able to negotiate with National Grid a wholesale price of 13 cents to 14 cents per kilowatt hour, escalating annually over the life of a contract. To check Grybowski’s claim, we first had to determine the price of offshore wind energy. That’s a challenge because no such project has yet been built in the United States. As proof that his 13- to 14-cent-per-kilowatt-hour estimate is realistic, Grybowski pointed to a formal offer by Deepwater in 2012 to sell Phase II energy in New York state for as low as 10 cents per kwh. The closest point of comparison is in nearby Massachusetts, where the Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound is under contract with National Grid for a year-one price, adjustable with contingencies, of 18.7 cents per kwh. How do these prices compare with the price of solar locally? The Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources, which also has a rate-setting role in renewable energy, provided a list of 18 solar projects that have entered into contracts with National Grid since December 2011. The wholesale prices ranged from 18.5 cents per kilowatt hour to 33 cents, with the largest projects having the lowest prices. Deepwater provided a similar list compiled from National Grid data, showing 21 Rhode Island solar projects, with prices also ranging from 18.5 cents per kilowatt hour to 33 cents. By law in Rhode Island, solar projects enter into contracts with National Grid at a fixed price for 15 years and offshore wind at a price with annual escalators for 20 years. Four of the 21 solar projects on Deepwater’s list have initial prices lower than Deepwater’s Phase I price. All of them would be substantially less expensive than the final Phase I price because of the annual escalator. But let’s look at the Deepwater Phase II project that Grybowski was talking about, and let’s assume that his 13-to-14 cent estimate holds true. That’s cheaper initially than all of the Rhode Island solar projects. Phase II also has an escalating price -- Grybowski said the company expects to obtain a contract of about 20 years with prices escalating about 3 percent a year. The initial Deepwater price would be cheaper than all the solar prices. At year 12, the Deepwater price would surpass the cheapest solar project’s price. After 20 years, the Deepwater price would be about 23 cents -- still cheaper than 19 of the 21 solar projects. It should be noted that comparisons of solar and offshore wind prices in Rhode Island are tricky because of scale. There’s not much room in our crowded, tiny state for the sort of large-scale solar projects that exist in the Southwest, for example. The largest solar project on Deepwater’s list, planned for the former Forbes Street Landfill, in East Providence, would have a capacity of 3.7 megawatts. Fifteen of the 21 are less than 1 megawatt, compared with the 1,000 megawatts of Deepwater’s Phase II. On the national level, the U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that the most widespread kind of solar power, photovoltaic, has a "levelized cost" of 22.4 cents per kilowatt hour, compared with offshore wind at 29.5 cents. "Levelized cost is often cited as a convenient summary measure of the overall competitiveness of different generating technologies," the administration explains on its website. For a large-scale offshore wind project, Grybowski contends that the 29.5-cent estimate is inaccurate, based on faulty methodology. Our ruling Deepwater Wind’s Jeffrey Grybowski said offshore wind power is "significantly less expensive than solar energy." Deepwater’s small Phase I demonstration project would, in fact, be more expensive over time than all of the Rhode Island solar projects the company cited. But if Grybowski’s estimated electricity price for the much larger Phase II holds true, its price would ultimately be cheaper than 19 of the 21 solar projects. The gap would be a few cents for the larger solar projects and up to 10 cents for the smallest. Because Grybowski’s claim is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, the judges rule it Mostly True. | null | Jeffrey Grybowski | null | null | null | 2013-08-31T00:01:00 | 2013-08-04 | ['None'] |
pomt-08905 | In 2009, Yost spent 2.5 times more money than it took to run the (prosecutor’s) office before he got there. | mostly true | /ohio/statements/2010/jul/29/progressohio/liberal-group-progressohio-near-mark-attack-ohio-a/ | David Pepper, the Democratic candidate for state auditor, has consistently characterized his Republican opponent Dave Yost as an out-of-control spender whose budget skyrocketed in his eight years as a county prosecutor. Pepper says Yost, the Delaware County prosecutor and a Republican with some Tea Party support, increased his office’s spending by 150 percent. The claim also was made by the liberal group ProgressOhio in an online video posted in March. "In 2009, Yost spent 2.5 times more money than it took to run the office before he got there," according to the ProgressOhio video. The charge is based on a comparison between the Delaware County prosecutor's general fund budgets in 2002, the year before Yost was appointed prosecutor, and 2009. While the prosecutor’s office has access to other funds, such as an account stocked with a portion of the county’s delinquent tax collections, general fund spending is widely regarded as a barometer of an elected official’s fiscal restraint because it is typically used to pay for day-to-day operations. Pepper, currently a Hamilton County commissioner, has been especially eager to point out Yost’s spending habits because they seem to defy his stance against bloated government spending. The ProgressOhio video shows Yost railing against the increasing cost of government at a 2009 Tea Party event in Columbus. "I’m concerned about the way we are spending money in the state of Ohio," Yost said to the crowd. The video juxtaposes Yost's speech against shots of budget documents from his office. They are the same documents the county provided us for Yost's general fund budgets. And records show the budget in fact was higher in 2009 than it was in 2002, his predecessor’s last full year in office. In 2002, the office had a budget of $591,798, according to county records. In 2009, the budget was $1.54 million — 2.6 times the amount budged in 2002. The county also keeps track of actual spending from the general fund. Spending totaled $577,887 in 2002 and $1.49 million last year. The 2009 figure for actual spending also is about 2.6 times the amount spent in 2002. But Yost said those documents don’t tell the whole story, and offers these explanations. In 2002 the office received a $130,000 subsidy from the county’s child support enforcement agency to pay lawyers and other staff who worked on child support cases. That subsidy is not reflected in the 2002 prosecutor’s budget, skewing the budget comparison to 2009, Yost said. The subsidy pushed the 2002 total closer to $710,000. Using this figure as the basis for the comparison, Yost spent about twice as much in 2009 as his predecessor did in 2002. The child support enforcement agency was removed from the prosecutor’s office in September 2003 and placed under the Delaware County commissioners. To cover the staff costs for legal work on those cases, the commissioners, who set the county budget each year, allocated more money to the prosecutor. The demands on the prosecutors office for services increased as the county’s population increased. Yost also pointed to prosecutor’s budgets in five other counties with populations between 150,000 and 200,000: Greene, Licking, Medina, Clermont and Portage. Delaware County had the second-lowest general fund budget in 2009 in the group. While the ProgressOhio video is correct that the amount of spending in the Delaware County prosecutor’s office jumped during Yost’s tenure, it leaves out the caveat that bookkeeping changes within the county finances helped explain part of those increases. Yost’s argument to mitigate the degree to which his budgets increased is well taken. We find ProgressOhio’s statement Mostly True. Comment on this item. | null | Progress Ohio | null | null | null | 2010-07-29T12:00:00 | 2010-03-12 | ['None'] |
pomt-01888 | David Perdue said he’d raise taxes. | half-true | /georgia/statements/2014/jul/08/jack-kingston/would-david-perdue-raise-taxse/ | Republican candidates tend to embrace the same familiar themes. At the top, if not a desire to roll back Obamacare, would likely be the longtime GOP stance opposing any tax increase. So it’s no small thing for U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston to brand businessman David Perdue, his rival in the Republican runoff for the U.S. Senate, as a tax supporter. The ad in question, featuring a voicemail for Kingston left by a President Obama impersonator, is to the point: "Perdue said he’d raise taxes. You never even voted for a tax increase." The Kingston camp pointed us to two Perdue statements: one from a May meeting with the Macon Telegraph editorial board and the other from a candidate forum from January. "Mr. Perdue has repeatedly advocated for tax increases," Kingston campaign manager Chris Crawford said. That seems clear enough. But digging into the details, as PolitiFact does, clouds things up a bit. Perdue, a former CEO who has built his campaign focused as an outsider to politics, told the editorial board he supported "both" curbing spending and increasing revenue to boost the economy. When a member of the board calls revenue increases "a euphemism for some kind of tax increase, of course," Perdue talks about the need to grow business and grow revenue. Crawford notes that Perdue chuckles before he speaks but doesn’t outright deny support for a tax increase. In an interview with PolitiFact, Perdue said his point in the meeting was to focus not just on the economy but how to use the economy to help pay down the national debt. "We can balance the budget by cutting spending, and that’s where you start," Perdue said. "But an $18 trillion debt will require an economy that’s growing, with people back to work, like we did in the ‘60s, ‘80s and even the ‘90s." An Internet sales tax, or a tax on online sales similar to those made at physical stores, would also increase revenue. Now, people who buy from online retailers are supposed to report their purchases on their state tax returns and pay. Few do. Georgia lost an estimated $410 million in uncollected online sales tax in 2012, according to a study from the University of Tennessee’s Center for Business and Economic Research. The Marketplace Fairness Act would permit state and local governments to collect sales taxes from internet retailers that do not have a physical location in their jurisdictions. It passed the Senate last year but has been held up in the GOP-run House, with conservative members labeling it a tax hike. Perdue said at the January candidate forum that he supported the concept of the bill to make sure there was "an even playing field" for all retailers. "Frankly, I think whether you have brick-and-mortar or Internet sales, we should have the same rules apply to both," Perdue said at the event. He recently clarified with PolitiFact that his support falls under his advocacy of a Fair Tax, which would replace existing federal income taxes with a national 23 percent sales tax on all new goods and services, including those bought on the internet. Critics the Fair Tax, note that the proposal is regressive – that is, it disproportionately hurts people with lower incomes who spend more of their wages and therefore pay a higher tax rate. Perdue acknowledges that the current proposal would need tweaks to avoid that problem. But he believes taxing consumption – including buying new products from Amazon or elsewhere on the Internet – is a change that needs to happen. "I would argue that it would reduce taxes, because it would have greater growth in the economy," Perdue said. Kingston has made that argument, too, notes staffer Crawford. In fact, Kingston reiterated support for the Fair Tax during the same January forum but refused to support an internet sales tax as an incremental measure. "If David Perdue wanted to equivocate on that, he had five months to do it," Crawford said. "He didn’t until it was politically expedient and that doesn’t ring true." Speaking of truth, where does all of this leave us on whether David Perdue would raise taxes? Basing the statement alone on Perdue’s meeting with a newspaper editorial board takes his statements out of context. Equating revenue increases with tax hikes is a stretch that breaks upon closer examination. Perdue is far more clear, though, on support for extending sales taxes to goods and services bought online. Though the Fair Tax includes such a tax as part of its proposal, there is a separate bill that would levy the Internet sales tax in the exact way that Perdue said he supported. Taken together, we rate the claim Half True. | null | Jack Kingston | null | null | null | 2014-07-08T00:00:00 | 2014-06-19 | ['None'] |
tron-02385 | President Obama absent from the Arlington 2010 Memorial Day Ceremony | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/obama-2010-memorial-day/ | null | military | null | null | null | President Obama absent from the Arlington 2010 Memorial Day Ceremony | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Barack_Obama'] |
afck-00374 | “Under the ANC, not one department featured in the top three.” | incorrect | https://africacheck.org/reports/is-the-das-western-cape-story-a-good-story-to-tell-we-examine-the-claims/ | null | null | null | null | null | Is the DA’s Western Cape Story a ‘good story to tell’? We examine the claims | 2014-03-28 05:02 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04317 | Actress Melissa McCarthy admitted that the TV sitcom Mike & Molly was cancelled due to her weight loss. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mike-molly-weight-loss/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Dan Evon | null | ‘Mike & Molly’ Cancelled Due to Melissa McCarthy’s Weight Loss? | 4 August 2016 | null | ['Mike_&_Molly'] |
snes-04276 | Hillary Clinton cited Robert F. Kennedy's June 1968 assassination as a reason to remain in the presidential race against Barack Obama in 2008. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-rfk-comment/ | null | Ballot Box | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Hillary Clinton Referenced RFK Assassination as Reason to Continue 2008 Campaign | 10 August 2016 | null | ['Barack_Obama', 'Robert_F._Kennedy', 'Hillary_Rodham_Clinton'] |
pomt-01715 | All Aboard Florida is receiving millions in Florida taxpayer dollars. | half-true | /florida/statements/2014/aug/07/charlie-crist/charlie-crist-says-all-aboard-florida-receiving-mi/ | Democrats have been attacking Republican Gov. Rick Scott for a controversial passenger rail line project with ties to his administration. While Scott has said All Aboard Florida won’t get state subsidies, Democratic front-runner former Gov. Charlie Crist says that’s inaccurate. "All Aboard Florida is receiving millions in Florida taxpayer dollars," Crist stated in a July 10 fundraising email. How much -- if any money -- is All Aboard Florida receiving from the state? Hop aboard and let’s see what we learned. Sources of money All Aboard Florida is a $2.5 billion passenger rail line that will connect Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach in 2016, with hopes to extend to Orlando in 2017. Proposed by Florida East Coast Industries, LLC, All Aboard will use private financing for a large portion of its costs and has applied for a $1.6 billion federal loan. Scott has taken heat because of the role of Adam Hollingsworth, now Scott’s chief of staff. In 2010, Hollingsworth was a transportation adviser to Scott’s transition team. Then Hollingsworth went to work for All Aboard Florida’s parent company for part of 2011 and 2012 and lobbied Scott’s administration for the project, the Naples Daily News reported. In 2012, Hollingsworth became Scott’s chief of staff. While Scott has supported the All Aboard Florida project he killed high-speed rail slated to get $2.4 billion in federal funds in 2011. In this case, the controversy lies with various pots of state money. A Crist campaign spokesman pointed to a July article by the Scripps/Tribune Capital Bureau, which ran in the Naples Daily News headlined, "All Aboard Florida private rail project has government financial support." The article stated that "the state already has set aside more than $220 million that will benefit the project." Several other news outlets weighed in; a Tampa Bay Times editorial called for Scott to "stop misleading voters about its public cost." The Florida Department of Transportation, led by a Scott-appointee, pushed back. We read several news articles, transportation department press releases and interviewed officials connected to the project to figure out the project’s finances. Orlando International Airport: The airport is building a complex to include the airport’s people mover, parking and ground transportation. Connected to that project, the airport is also building an intermodal transportation facility -- and that’s the piece that will get about $214 million from a loan and grant from the state. The intermodal facility will accommodate rail -- including All Aboard Florida -- and potentially two other future rail projects, Phil Brown, airport director, told PolitiFact Florida. Having airport connections to rail has been in the airport’s plan for decades. However, Brown said the airport couldn’t seek state money until it had an entity committing to build it -- and that’s All Aboard Florida. "What we had was an opportunity with All Aboard Florida to get some state funding to accommodate that," facility, Brown said. All Aboard Florida will pay the airport $2.8 million a year for a lease, which the airport will use to repay a portion of the state loan. In addition, All Aboard will pay the airport between $1 and $1.50 per passenger. (All Aboard Florida estimates that combined the total will add up to about $4.5 million a year.) "Whatever they are using of that facility they are going to pay for," Brown said. The airport is required under federal regulations to charge fair market rate. "All Aboard Florida is not getting a free station in Orlando," Brown wrote in an op-ed in the Orlando Sentinel. "In fact, the airport will be required to repay the state the portion of the terminal-construction cost to be used by All Aboard Florida." All Aboard will pay off the cost to build their platform at the airport, Brown told PolitiFact Florida. Quiet zones: In 2014, the Legislature agreed to provide $10 million for "quiet zones" related to horns at railroad crossings. Local government agencies can apply for the money -- so All Aboard Florida can’t get the money. The bill language doesn’t name any particular type of rail or All Aboard Florida, but it was added to the state’s spending plan due to residents’ concerns about noise. Tri-Rail connection: The Naples Daily News wrote that an investor pitch by All Aboard Florida outlined its plan to connect with Tri-Rail, an existing public passenger rail service in South Florida. "Project officials want the state to pay the estimated $44 million cost of the connection," the article stated. All Aboard’s bond documents stated: "We are exploring a number of different financing alternatives for this construction, including a possible state-funded grant for some or all of the construction cost." All Aboard and transportation officials talked about the idea of seeking $44 million in state money for a Tri-Rail connection but that never materialized. Before All Aboard Florida was announced, Tri-Rail Coastal Link already had plans for future stations in the downtowns of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach. In 2013, All Aboard Florida and the South Florida Regional Transportation Authority, which oversees Tri-Rail, began to coordinate on potential design plans. Susie Wiles, a consultant for All Aboard Florida who ran Scott’s 2010 campaign, said that it was Tri-Rail that wanted the connection, so All Aboard wasn’t going to pay for it. All Aboard officials provided transportation officials with a breakdown of the cost. But the news report about the $44 million prompted the Scott administration to push back. "As we previously discussed with your company, the department will not invest state dollars in your project," stated a July 15 letter sent by the Florida Department of Transportation Secretary to All Aboard Florida. (Scott had said in June that there would be no state subsidies for All Aboard.) Our ruling Crist said on July 10, "All Aboard Florida is receiving millions in Florida taxpayer dollars." All Aboard is not receiving millions directly from the state. Instead, it could get federal loans, and the state is spending millions on infrastructure that will end up benefiting the rail line, especially an intermodal center at Orlando International Airport. All Aboard will have to pay rent and passenger fees at the airport. Overall, we rate his statement Half True. | null | Charlie Crist | null | null | null | 2014-08-07T14:45:17 | 2014-07-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-10975 | Says Brett Kavanaugh "refused to uphold key patient protections in the past." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/18/demand-justice/pro-aca-group-court-pick-kavanaugh-refused-uphold-/ | A new ad from a group with strong Democratic ties aims to pressure three Democratic senators in North Dakota, West Virginia and Indiana to vote against Brett Kavanaugh as the next Supreme Court justice. The ad, made by the liberal group Demand Justice, focuses on protections for people with pre-existing conditions in the Affordable Care Act, saying all would be at risk with Kavanaugh on the court. "The Senate is about to consider Brett Kavanaugh to be the next Supreme Court justice," the ad says. "Kavanaugh refused to uphold key patient protections in the past, and if he joins the court he could vote to end these protections for good." No one can say for sure what Kavanaugh might do in the future, but we can look at whether he refused to uphold patient protections in the past. Key takeaways The statement hangs on Kavanaugh’s dissent in a 2011 case that challenged the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act. The argument made to Kavanaugh and two other appellate court judges was that Congress had overstepped its constitutional powers. Two of the judges nixed the challenge, saying that, yes, Congress actually did have the power. Kavanaugh also rejected the challenge, but for a totally different, technical reason. Basically, he said it was too early for the court to rule. So, both the two judges and Kavanaugh reached the same place, but his fellow judges upheld Congress’s power to impose the mandate, and Kavanaugh, by sidestepping that question, did not. Notice that the case wasn’t directly about patient protections, most notably the ban on denying coverage based on a pre-existing health condition. But all the judges agreed that those protections and the mandate were joined at the hip. They all said that the mandate made the patient protections work economically. The dividing line was two judges affirmed Congress’s power to make the package work and Kavanaugh did not. But he still rejected the challenge. More detail: What Kavanaugh’s dissent means, and doesn’t In the case of Seven-Sky vs. Holder, a group of taxpayers argued that the health care law’s requirement to buy health insurance went beyond the legitimate power of Congress. Two out of the three appellate judges rejected the challenge outright, saying that the mandate was allowed under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause. In his dissent, Kavanaugh shot down the challenge but pointedly avoided ruling on the plaintiffs’ big issue. "I do not take a position here on whether the statute as currently written is justifiable under the Taxing Clause or the Commerce Clause," he wrote. Instead, he rejected the claim based on tax law. He said the suit itself was flawed because an 1867 law — the Anti-Injunction Act — blocks courts from ruling on tax laws before they take effect. It was 2011, and the mandate didn’t come into force until 2014, so "a suit challenging the individual mandate cannot be entertained until 2015." Where do patient protections come into this? Well, key protections, most prominently the ban on denying coverage based on a pre-existing condition, come hand-in-hand with the mandate in Obamacare. As Kavanaugh saw it, you can’t have one without the other. Another name for that ban is guaranteed coverage, and during oral arguments, Kavanaugh said that part of the Affordable Care Act was fine. "Congress has the power to impose a guaranteed issue requirement on insurance companies," he said. Going further, there’s no mistaking that Kavanaugh saw the link to the mandate. "It won’t work without an individual mandate attached to it," he said. "We know that from the states that have tried it that way. It didn’t work. Massachusetts tried it with the mandate and it’s worked extremely well, at least in terms of the goal of coverage." So Kavanaugh was content to give patient protections the constitutional thumbs up, but when it came to the other half of the equation, the mandate, he said it was too soon to make a decision on its constitutionality. Interpreting what Kavanaugh did For the makers of the ad, this is very simple. "Two judges upheld the Affordable Care Act and its patient protections, and he declined to uphold it," Demand Justice executive director Brian Fallon said. "He could have joined their opinion and upheld it on the merits and he didn't." For outside legal experts, the situation is much cloudier. "The group’s statement is technically true, although a bit misleading," said Allison K. Hoffman at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. "Kavanaugh never said that the mandate was unconstitutional. He painstakingly avoided opining on its constitutionality. He spent 65 excruciatingly dense pages of opinion repeatedly calling it a tax, the very thing Congress avoided doing because they knew it would be unpopular." James Blumstein at Vanderbilt agreed that by taking no position on the reach of the Commerce Clause, Kavanaugh succeeded in placing himself in the gray zone regarding congressional power. "Kavanaugh was unwilling to endorse the Affordable Care Act under the Commerce Clause," Blumstein said. "He wanted to avoid having to decide what was for him a hard question." In his dissent, Kavanaugh emphasized an important principle that stands apart from assessing congressional power: judicial restraint. That’s the idea that courts should not get ahead of the political process that plays out in the nation and Congress. "I see in his declining to address that issue (the mandate) only normal judicial prudence of not deciding issues unless the case requires them to be decided," Wake Forest University’s Mark Hall told us. And law professor David Gamage at Indiana University said Kavanaugh’s dissent makes him neither "pro-Affordable Care Act, nor anti-Affordable Care Act." Our ruling The group Demand Justice said that Kavanaugh refused to uphold patient protections. Looking at the record, it is fair to say that he did not uphold the power of Congress to impose the individual insurance mandate. That is one step removed from upholding patient protections, but Kavanaugh said that the two are tightly linked, and there’s broad agreement on that point. But while he didn’t uphold that power, his dissent didn’t specifically negate it. Outside legal scholars said there’s only so much one can read into his opinion. In oral arguments, Kavanaugh said both that the patient protections are legal and that in order to work in the marketplace, they require the individual mandate. In his dissent, he avoided saying whether Congress has the power to impose the mandate, thus leaving the viability of the patient protections in limbo. We rate this statement Half True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Demand Justice | null | null | null | 2018-07-18T09:00:00 | 2018-07-12 | ['None'] |
chct-00097 | Trump Says NFL Ratings Have Tanked - Here Are The Numbers | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/07/09/fact-check-nfl-ratings-20-percent/ | null | null | null | Emily Larsen | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 2:51 PM 07/09/2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07213 | The Central Falls School system "spent $100,000 on a time clock." | pants on fire! | /rhode-island/statements/2011/jun/05/john-tassoni-jr/state-sen-john-tassoni-says-central-falls-school-s/ | State Sen. John Tassoni Jr. is waging an aggressive campaign to oust the leadership of the embattled Central Falls school system In a news release, he called for the immediate resignation of Supt. Frances Gallo, saying that management of the state-funded district is "erratic at best and incompetent at worst. … State money is being used to operate the schools, and some of that money is being wasted and used irresponsibly." We’re not about to wade into a controversy over who should be leading the school system. Gallo and the schools have made national news for reform efforts that have kept administrators and the teachers locked in a nasty fray for more than a year. But we were curious about one example Tassoni gave of questionable financial decisions. In his press release, he stated that "he has learned that the department spent $100,000 on a time clock." Really? Could a time clock cost that much? Without punching in, we got right to work on this one. When we met with Tassoni, he showed us three Central Falls school district documents that he called "purchase orders." He noted that each made reference to a time clock and that each had a different total: $40,543.64, $55,414.68 and $5,581.68. So he added them up. Grand total: $101,540. "That $100,000 disturbed me -- $100,000 for a time clock?" he said. A first glance at the documents, however, reveals that there’s a great deal more to the purchase than a "time clock." Two of the documents specify the order was for "TimeClock Plus 6.0 Professional." There’s enough detail to make clear it’s a computerized system. "It’s not just a clock. It’s a whole system," Gallo said when we contacted her. "It’s automated and has brought us out of antiquity into a truly networked system." We pictured Fred Flintstone ending his day at Slate Rock and Gravel Company by simply sticking his time card into a dinosaur’s mouth. And we recalled those classic wall-mounted clocks, the kind Moocher, in the movie "Breaking Away," smashes with his fist when his boss says, "Don’t forget to punch the clock, Shorty." What can the new system do better? And how does it work? No one sticks a card into a clock in Central Falls schools anymore. Hourly employees place a finger on a scanner to record their arrival and departure. Their fingerprints are checked to verify their identity. Forget punching in for a friend who hasn’t shown up for work. The clocks relay employees’ hours to payroll systems, reducing the time staff must spend processing cards and avoiding human error that could result in payment mistakes, according to Giovanna Venditti, the School Department’s director of finance, and Kathy Gaouette, director of human resources. The system can notify administrators when employees are approaching overtime. TimeClock can also ease record-keeping by tracking which hours should be paid out of the general fund or from an account set up for a specific grant, they said. Of the 500 full- and part-time employees who support the 2,800-student district, only 182 mostly non-salaried employees -- including maintenance workers, crossing guards, bus monitors and drivers -- use the new system. But the district wants its 340 teachers to agree to use it, too. Now back to those documents that Tassoni used to support his $100,000 claim. Only two are actual purchase orders, said Venditti. One for $55,598.68, dated March 15, 2010, was for hardware, software, licensing fees, training and systems support. The purchase included 11 time clocks -- not one -- for nine school buildings. The other purchase order, for $5,581, dated Feb. 23, 2011, was to renew a technical support agreement for the TimeClock system for another year. And that third document, the one with the $40,539 total? It’s just a packing slip. Unlike the other two documents, it does not say "purchase order" at the top in large bold letters or include any similar information, such as a "P.O. date" or "P.O. issued to." Data Management Inc., of San Angelo, Texas, simply included it in a shipment of items it sent to Central Falls. The packing slip didn’t total $55,598, the amount of the purchase order, because the $13,442 fingerprint scanning equipment and one other item were shipped separately. So Tassoni, by simply adding the totals of the three documents, counted some items twice, inflating the original purchase of $55,598.68 (excluding the systems support renewal) by nearly 75 percent. "It is not $100,000," said Venditti, the finance director. TimeClock was recommended by UniFund, the New Hampshire company that sold Central Falls its BudgetSense financial software, which helps the schools meet state financial reporting requirements. The programs are compatible. Like Central Falls, Barrington purchased TimeClock at the advice of UniFund. The town paid only $18,996, said Ronald Tarro, director of administration and finance -- a lot less than Central. Falls. But Barrington bought two fewer clocks and decided not to pay extra for the fingerprint technology. Barrington schools use badges instead. Barrington’s costs are also substantially lower because only 25 non-salaried maintenance and custodial staff are using TimeClock. Data Management charges a fee based on the number of users--$15 for each of the 500 employees that Central Falls wants to use the clocks. With the clock still running, where does this leave us? For starters, Tassoni could have asked school officials about the documents he was shown. Instead, the senator -- who publishes a union newspaper and is a former union administrator -- simply added up the totals on the three documents to push his case against the school leadership. That’s flimsy backup for saying he "learned" of a $100,000 expenditure and, then, choosing two words out of context, calling the purchase a "time clock." It clearly was not just a time clock. And it didn’t cost $100,000. The total was just over half that (plus the annual support contracts which are typical of software purchases). When he turned over the documents to PolitiFact, Tassoni even admitted, "I could be all wet." He IS all wet. But not to worry. We’re going to flame-dry his Dockers with a Pants on Fire! (Get updates from PolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on our PolitiFact Rhode Island Facebook page.) | null | John Tassoni Jr. | null | null | null | 2011-06-05T00:01:00 | 2011-05-19 | ['None'] |
pomt-09547 | On whether he supports 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.' | full flop | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/feb/04/john-mccain/mccain-flips-dont-ask-dont-tell/ | The military's controversial "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy is back in the spotlight after President Barack Obama pledged to repeal it in his State of the Union speech. On the campaign trail, Obama frequently attacked the policy, which prohibits gays and lesbians from openly serving in the military. His opponent Sen. John McCain signaled he was open to changing the policy, but made it conditional to what military leaders wanted. Here's what he had to say about the issue back in 2006: "I listen to people like Gen. Colin Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and literally every military leader that I know. And they testified before Congress that they felt the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy was the most appropriate way to conduct ourselves in the military. A policy that has been effective. It has worked. ... But the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, 'Senator, we ought to change the policy,' then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to." McCain made those comments while speaking to a group of students at Iowa State University during a special taping of Hardball with Chris Matthews in October 2006, when he was considered a likely presidential candidate. McCain didn't formally announce his campaign until the spring of 2007. McCain offered variations of that position during the campaign, at times sounding more firm in his support of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. "We have the best-trained, most professional, best-equipped, most efficient, most wonderful military in the history of this country," McCain said during a debate on June 5, 2007. "There just aren't enough of them. So I have to rely on our military leadership, in whom we place the responsibility to lead these brave young Americans in combat as we speak. ... I think it would be a terrific mistake to even reopen the issue. It is working, my friends. The policy is working. ... Let's not tamper with them." In May 2009, McCain said in an interview on This Week that he'd be glad "to have a thorough review of the policy by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their recommendations," but added that, "right now the military is functioning extremely well in very difficult conditions. We have to have an assessment on recruitment, on retention and all the other aspects of the impact on our military if we change the policy. In my view, and I know that a lot of people don't agree with that, the policy has been working and I think it's been working well." McCain used similar rhetoric several times throughout 2009, emphasizing his belief that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was working and should not be changed. After Obama pledged to repeal the policy in his State of the Union speech, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Michael Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates told the Senate Armed Services Committee, which McCain co-chairs, how they planned to fulfill Obama's promise. During the testimony, Mullen said, speaking "for myself and myself only," that he is in favor of "allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly" in the armed forces. "No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” he said. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, "I fully support the president's decision." Gates told the committee that a working group would review ways to properly repeal the policy, though Congress must ultimately vote to change the law. The group is due to report on its findings a year from now. McCain -- who had said back in 2006 that he would be guided by military leaders -- told Gates and Mullen that he was "disappointed" with the testimony. Overturning the law would "be a substantial and controversial change to a policy that has been successful for two decades," he said in his opening statement. "It would also present yet another challenge to our military at a time of already tremendous stress and strain... At this moment of immense hardship for our armed services, we should not be seeking to overturn the 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell' policy." Nevertheless, McCain said he would welcome a report on the subject so long as it steered clear of politics and focused only on military readiness and effectiveness. We asked McCain's spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan whether her boss had experienced a change of heart on the policy, and she told us he had not. "Obviously, Sen. McCain does not believe we should repeal 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,'" she said. Mullen had spoken for himself when he said the policy should be repealed, not for the entire military, she said. If, after the one-year review, the Joint Chiefs agree, "then Sen. McCain would obviously consider a military leader's decision." Three years ago, McCain said that he would "consider seriously changing ['Don't Ask, Don't Tell']" should the administration's top brass say it was a good idea. On Feb. 2, 2010, those officials showed up in McCain's committee room and said just that. Yet McCain's statements -- reiterated by Buchanan -- make it clear he hasn't budged. So we rate this a Full Flop. | null | John McCain | null | null | null | 2010-02-04T18:06:36 | 2010-02-02 | ['None'] |
snes-05544 | A photograph shows two extremely muscular female bodybuilders. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/female-bodybuilders/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Female Bodybuilders | 10 November 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05089 | The volume of Americans researching the details of immigrating to Canada was so high on Super Tuesday that it temporarily crashed the country's immigration site. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/moving-to-canada-search/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Kim LaCapria | null | ‘Moving to Canada’ Search Spike? | 9 March 2016 | null | ['Canada', 'United_States'] |
pomt-07941 | The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jan/26/barack-obama/obama-says-one-department-regulates-salmon-freshwa/ | One of President Barack Obama's big laugh lines from his State of the Union address came when he talked about fish: salmon, to be specific. Obama's set-up was a call for efficient government. "We shouldn't just give our people a government that's more affordable. We should give them a government that's more competent and more efficient. We can't win the future with a government of the past," Obama said. "We live and do business in the Information Age, but the last major reorganization of the government happened in the age of black-and-white TV. There are 12 different agencies that deal with exports. There are at least five different agencies that deal with housing policy. Then there's my favorite example: The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they're in freshwater, but the Commerce Department handles them when they're in saltwater. I hear it gets even more complicated once they're smoked." We didn't much doubt the example. (We'll note again that White House speech writers have weeks to research and write the address.) But it did make us curious. So we decided to check the facts behind salmon swimming across regulatory lines. And swim they do: Most salmon are born in rivers and streams, then swim out to the ocean to become adults. Once they're full-grown, they return to the rivers and streams to breed. The technical term for this is "anadromous." When fish are out in the ocean, they're regulated by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which "predicts the status of fish stocks, ensures compliance with fisheries regulations and works to reduce wasteful fishing practices," according to its website. The service is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is, as Obama said, part of the U.S. Commerce Department. When fish are in the rivers and streams, they're regulated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which focuses on the conservation and protection of fish and wildlife and their habitats. The Fish and Wildlife Service is indeed part of the Department of Interior. When the fish is smoked, it would generally be regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which regulates most packaged foods. Obama might even have been underselling the complexity. A major effort in the Pacific Northwest to protect and conserve salmon in the Columbia River Basin involves a "federal caucus" of 10 agencies working together for that purpose, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Geological Survey, to name a few. And while the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service claims jurisdiction over salmon, freshwater fishing is also regulated heavily by state agencies. "It is a stretch to say that salmon in freshwater are regulated by the Interior Department," said Ray Hilborn, a professor at the University of Washington's School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. "Harvest in freshwater is almost totally regulated by states, and in some case tribes," he said in an e-mail. "In salt water the ocean harvest beyond 3 miles is federally regulated, but almost all the catch in the U.S. takes place in Alaska, and the state of Alaska regulates that fishery." "In reality, most of the things that affect salmon in freshwater are managed by dozens of agencies," he added. A conservationist we spoke with said that more agencies doesn't necessarily mean more inefficiency. "It can cut both ways. In a good sense, it can bring more resources," said Andrew Goode of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, a group that works to protect wild salmon. "It can get bogged down if the agencies have different ideas on how the species should be managed." Finally, a spokesman with the National Fisheries Institute, which represents commercial fishers, said salmon isn't even the half of it when it comes to overlapping rules. "There's more where that came from, unfortunately, when it comes to seafood," said Gavin Gibbons, a spokesman for the group. His group is particularly critical of a provision included in the 2008 farm legislation that allows the U.S. Department of Agriculture to regulate catfish. Not all fish, just catfish. He called those rules a "a demonstrable special interest effort." American catfish farmers asked for the new rules; they say foreign fish farmers are selling inferior products in the U.S. Gibbons praised the National Marine Fisheries Service, though, for its work conserving fish stocks. "They're not perfect, and there are controversies about catch shares and limits and that sort of thing," he said. "But broadly speaking, they're a world-class organization in terms of sustainability" In ruling on Obama's statement, we found that he's right about the regulatory division on salmon, with different agencies responsible for the fish when they're in freshwater versus when they're in saltwater. In fact, he leaves out a lot of detail, including the role of the states. The actual regulatory scene is even more complicated. But Fish and Wildlife in the Interior Department does have authority over fish when they're in freshwater, and the National Marine Fisheries Service in the Department of Commerce regulates them in saltwater. Because he left out some of the complexity, we rate his statement Mostly True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2011-01-26T18:30:51 | 2011-01-25 | ['United_States_Department_of_Commerce', 'United_States_Department_of_the_Interior'] |
vogo-00284 | Horn Reacts to Whopper Award: Fact Check TV | none | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/mayor-2012/horn-reacts-to-whopper-award-fact-check-tv/ | null | null | null | null | null | Horn Reacts to Whopper Award: Fact Check TV | January 17, 2012 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13679 | A few weeks ago, (the) education committee in Congress is deciding what’s going to be in your local salad bar. | false | /virginia/statements/2016/aug/02/dave-brat/dave-brat-education-committee-deciding-whats-going/ | Uncle Sam’s overreach is so great that his fingers are in your local salad bar, according to U.S. Rep. Dave Brat, R-7th. During a podcast interview on TheBlaze, a news network founded by conservative commentator Glenn Beck, Brat said Washington should cede control over many of its programs to state and local governments. And he called for the crumbling of some federal pillars. "The Department of Education for starters, right?" Brat said on June 29. "A few weeks ago, (the) education committee in Congress is deciding what’s going to be in your local salad bar. For real. You can’t make it up." Our thoughts went to the salad bars at local groceries and restaurants, and we wondered whether the education panel really is deciding their contents. Lettuce tell you what we found. For starters, Brat’s statement was overly broad. Barbara Boland, the congressman’s press secretary, said Brat was referring to salad bars in schools. Boland pointed us to a reauthorization bill, called the "Improving Child Nutrition Education Act of 2016," which would put new restrictions on a federal program that offers free breakfasts and lunches to low-income students. The measure was approved by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, by a 20-14 vote, on May 18. Under the Republican-sponsored bill, schools would qualify for free meals for all of their students if 60 percent of their students come from low-income homes. The current threshold for school-wide free meals is 40 percent. The bill also adds momentum to Republican efforts to give states control over free-meals programs. It would start a pilot program in which three states would be given block grants to pay for food and would be freed from some federal nutritional mandates on the meals. The nutritional standards have been a big deal since 2010, when Congress - at the urging of first lady Michelle Obama - required free-meal schools to serve healthier food. Subsequent regulations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture established minimum weekly requirements for servings of meats, vegetables, fruits, grains and milk. They also established minimum and maximum calorie standards for each breakfast and lunch. Many Republicans, including Brat, say the standards are burdensome on schools and have resulted in hungry students being served unappetizing meals that barely are eaten. What about salad bars? Many schools have found that salad bars are popular with students and a good way to satisfy vegetable requirements for children who receive free meals. Federal regulations encourage their use. But only one sentence in the 180-page House bill addresses salad bars. It instructs the USDA to create regulations that would give free-meal schools "flexibility" in setting up and running salad bars. That’s contrary to Brat’s claim that the education committee was "deciding" what’s going to be in any salad bar - school or otherwise. Salad bars came up for only two minutes during a five-hour debate the committee held on the bill on May 18. That occurred when Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., withdrew an amendment that would have required the USDA to draw up a plan to expand the use of salad bars in free-meal schools and offer one-time federal grants to pay for their purchase and installation. "There is nothing in the House bill that regulates what schools can serve in their salad bars," we were told by Lorelei Disorga, vice president for the United Fresh Produce Association, a lobbying organization that monitors school lunch legislation. We received a similar statement from Tyler Hernandez, deputy communications director of the House Education and Workforce Committee. "HR 5003 does not dictate what must be served on salad bars," he wrote in an email, referring to the bill by its congressional number. But there’s one more thing consider. Brat’s office makes a point we noted earlier: This year’s legislation largely reauthorizes the 2010 free-meals bill that instructed the USDA to devise regulations for healthy breakfasts and lunches. The regulations, enacted in 2012, include weekly standards for the amount of vegetables served: 3.75 cups for grades K-8; 5 cups for grades 9-12. Within those rules are a subset of minimum requirements for the types of vegetables served, identified as "dark green," "red-orange" and "beans and peas." The USDA, in a 2013 memo, said it has received "numerous inquiries" on how free-meal schools with salad bars can make sure they’re complying with the vegetable regulations. The department recommended prepackaging salads with the proper mix, posting instructional signs by salad bar, or stationing staff at the end of the salad bar to ensure each student leaves with a federally reimbursable meal. We finally should note that Republicans on the education committee voted 20-1 to pass this year’s reauthorization bill. Brat was the lone GOP dissenter. In a May 19 news release, Brat said the healthy-meal regulations have resulted in students being served "stomach-churning school lunches." Boland, Brat’s press secretary, also told us in an email that the congressman is concerned by the rising cost of the free breakfast and lunch programs. The price is about $16.5 billion this year and is expected to reach $31 billion in 2025, according to projections by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Boland said Brat thinks the programs would be run more efficiently by states. Our ruling Brat said, "A few weeks ago, (the) education committee in Congress is deciding what’s going to be in your local salad bar." The congressman misspoke. The committee never has considered what should be in the salad bars of, say, restaurants or grocery stores. Brat’s office said the congressman was referring to school salad bars. Brat points to the committee’s May passage of a bill providing free breakfasts and lunches for students from low-income homes. The measure does not specify what vegetables should be served, and the panel spent no time haggling over amounts of lettuce, carrots and tomatoes. Setting nutritional standards would be left to the USDA. The bill largely would reauthorize free-meals legislation passed in 2010 that prioritized serving healthy food to students. In the aftermath, the USDA established copious regulations that include minimum weekly servings of green and red-orange vegetables and legumes. Many schools have salad bars, and it can be argued that Congress has allowed the USDA to regulate their contents. But it’s hard to imagine any salad bar worth its salt not offering a mixture of vegetables. So Brat’s statement that the education committee is deciding salad bar contents - in schools or, perhaps, anywhere - is a stretch, and we rate it False. | null | Dave Brat | null | null | null | 2016-08-02T00:00:00 | 2016-06-29 | ['United_States_Congress'] |
goop-02076 | Scott Disick Worries Son Reign Is Not His Child? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/scott-disick-son-reign-not-his-child/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Scott Disick Worries Son Reign Is Not His Child? | 2:31 pm, December 6, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01987 | Mark Wahlberg “Blackballed From Hollywood” For Saying Celebrities Shouldn’t Talk Politics? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/mark-wahlberg-politics-celebrities-blackballed-hollywood/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Mark Wahlberg “Blackballed From Hollywood” For Saying Celebrities Shouldn’t Talk Politics? | 11:06 am, December 21, 2017 | null | ['Cinema_of_the_United_Kingdom'] |
snes-02641 | President Trump voiced his support for United Airlines following the release of a video showing the a passenger being forcibly from a flight. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-united-my-people/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Trump Calls United Airlines ‘My Kinda People’? | 11 April 2017 | null | ['United_Airlines'] |
chct-00140 | NBC Labels Dr. Jordan Peterson 'Alt-Right.' Let's Fact Check That Claim | verdict: false | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/05/04/fact-check-jordan-peterson-alt-right/ | null | null | null | David Sivak | Fact Check Editor | null | null | 9:13 AM 05/04/2018 | null | ['None'] |
vees-00402 | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Duterte on SC's role in martial law | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-duterte-sc-role-martial-law | null | null | null | null | Duterte,Martial Law,Supreme Court | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Duterte on SC's role in martial law | July 25, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-09170 | Says EPA regulation of greenhouse gases will endanger 575 Texas dairy facilities, 58 swine operations, 1,300 corn farms and 28,000 beef cattle operations. | false | /texas/statements/2010/jun/07/todd-staples/staples-says-epa-regulation-greenhouse-gases-endan/ | Todd Staples, the state agriculture commissioner, this year joined Gov. Rick Perry and Attorney General Greg Abbott in objecting to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency designating half a dozen greenhouse gases as endangering public health. Staples says on his campaign website, which we visited in late May, that he’s fighting the December “endangerment” finding because the consequences would be disastrous for Texas farmers who, he implies, would suffer from government monitoring and regulation of gases emitted by animals and equipment. “Companies that will be endangered in Texas include 575 dairy facilities, 58 swine operations (and) 1,300 corn farms," Staples says. "No industry is more threatened than the cattle industry. If this rule is implemented, an estimated 28,000 beef cattle operations in Texas will fall under EPA regulation.” Milk, pigs, corn, cows – the feds whuppin' all these grown-in-Texas products? We wondered if Staples plows a straight row. Cody McGregor, Staples’ campaign manager, said the commissioner, a Republican seeking re-election, derived his Texas figures from a July 2008 letter written by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in response to the EPA’s draft advance notice to regulate greenhouse gases. In its letter, the USDA said that if greenhouse gas emissions were regulated under the Clean Air Act, numerous farms then not required to seek gas-emission permits would be so burdened. The 1970 act directs the EPA to establish air quality standards; the law requires the agency to concentrate on major polluters, which are defined as those that emit more than 100 tons of unhealthful pollutants a year. The USDA letter says that even “very small agricultural operations" would fall in that category: "For example, dairy facilities and farms with over 500 acres of corn may need to get a Title V permit. It is neither efficient nor practical to require permitting and reporting of (greenhouse gas) emissions from farms of this size. Excluding only the 200,000 largest commercial farms, our agricultural landscape is comprised of 1.9 million farms with an average value of production of $25,589 on 271 acres.” O June 23, 2009, Staples sent a letter to Lisa Jackson, the EPA administrator, objecting to the greenhouse gas endangerment finding. That letter says that based on the USDA’s herd and acreage estimates, Texas in 2007 had approximately 575 dairy facilities, 28,000 beef cattle operations, 58 swine operations and 1,300 corn farms that met the “regulatory threshold.” So, Staples aired his Texas estimate nearly a year ago based on the USDA’s assessment of the impact of EPA plans to regulate greenhouse gases drafted about a year before that. Presuming his math is solid, we wondered if the nearly 2-year-old concerns shared by USDA still hold. To our queries, Staples did not say precisely why or how the EPA's permitting will endanger the Texas operations he tallies. In Washington, EPA spokeswoman Catherine Milbourn looked over the information provided by Staples’ campaign. She said the analyses reflect expectations about the EPA’s plans that are no longer valid because the EPA effectively excused farms from complying with the requirements cited in the USDA’s letter. EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan followed up with an e-mail: “These types of doomsday scenarios are simply untrue. EPA issued a rule that would specifically ensure small businesses and farms are shielded from clean air act permitting for” greenhouse gases. The EPA’s May 13 final "tailoring rule," a descriptive reflecting the agency's decision not to impose the same pollutant thresholds on greenhouse gases that were spelled out for pollutants in the Clean Air Act, specifies the types of entities that will initially have to toe the line on greenhouse gas emissions. An accompanying fact sheet states: “Facilities responsible for nearly 70 percent of the national (greenhouse gas) emissions from stationary sources will be subject to permitting requirements under this rule. This includes the nation’s largest (greenhouse gas) emitters—power plants, refineries, and cement production facilities. Emissions from small farms, restaurants, and all but the very largest commercial facilities will not be covered by these programs at this time.” At this time? The fact sheet says the EPA is committing to additional rule-making by July 2012 which may discuss “whether certain smaller sources can be permanently excluded from permitting.” Permits for smaller sources of any type won't be required until at least April 30, 2016, the agency says. In a May 13 blog post headlined "EPA Greenhouse Gas Rules Likely Target for Suits," Legal Times magazine in Washington notes that the Clean Air Act requires entities that emit 100 to 250 tons of pollutants per year to get government permits to do so. Because greenhouse gases are emitted in much larger quantities than traditional pollutants, the 100 to 250 ton threshold would require permits for small farms, restaurants and apartment buildings, for example. In raising the threshold, the agency is admitting the absurdity of applying the lower limits to more prevalent greenhouse gases, the blog says. McGregor of Staples’ campaign conceded the EPA's May 13 rule excludes farms. McGregor said, however, that what the EPA says today "can likely change tomorrow." He pointed us to an online analysis of the rule by Washington lawyer Richard Stoll, whose clients include industrial operators including Portland cement manufacturers. Stoll told us he expects the rule to be challenged in federal court because the pollutant thresholds in the rule are far above what the Clean Air Act mandates. More broadly, Stoll said, the EPA wants Congress to pass laws related to greenhouse gas regulation; one way of touching off such action is to issue rules likely to be tossed in court. “There is a good chance that the DC circuit (court) will throw that regulation out and then all of a sudden EPA is going to be confronted with having to do something about all these farms and everything (else),” Stoll said. “There’s grounds to be fearful here.” However, Stoll said, should the EPA ever get to the point of requiring farmers to monitor and report on localized gas emissions, Congress almost certainly will intervene. "If all of a sudden you’re having farmers worried about monitoring cow farts, Congress will be all over this," he said. "It might not be immediately; it could be a damn mess for a while." Shannon Goessling, executive director and chief legal counsel of the conservative-leaning Southeastern Legal Foundation, which has challenged the endangerment finding, contends the EPA had another reason for excusing farms and other small businesses from greenhouse gas regulation: The government hopes they will drop their resistance to the endangerment finding. There's another legal view. Melinda Taylor, former director of the Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, agreed with Stoll that the EPA wants Congress to step in and take on greenhouse gas emissions. But, she said, it’s also likely the EPA would prevail in court if its May 13 rule is challenged. Generally, she said, “courts will not substitute their own judgment for that of an agency.” Besides, she said, “farmers have always been very successful in making the case they can’t comply with regulations that would be onerous and inordinately costly to them — to the detriment of the environment, I might add.” Phew. Where does all this leave Staples’ statement? The commish had a basis for his numbers in the 2008 USDA letter. But his assumption that farms would be subject to the regulations expired when the EPA issued its final rule weeks ago. Since, Staples has neither adjusted nor reasonably explained his outdated complaint. His statement is False. | null | Todd Staples | null | null | null | 2010-06-07T00:00:00 | 2010-05-25 | ['Texas'] |
tron-02985 | Joe Biden: Lazy American Women to Blame for Economy | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/joe-biden-lazy-american-women-blame-economy/ | null | politics | null | null | ['2016 election', 'hillary clinton'] | Joe Biden: Lazy American Women to Blame for Economy | Oct 28, 2016 | null | ['Joe_Biden'] |
pomt-00407 | For only the second time since 2000, there are more job openings than Americans who are unemployed. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/aug/31/west-virginia-republican-party/wva-gop-right-about-job-openings-unemployed-worker/ | In a recent tweet, the West Virginia Republican Party offered an example of how well the national economy is performing. On Aug. 10, the party tweeted, "ICYMI: For only the second time since 2000, there are more job openings than Americans who are unemployed. Tax reform and a pro-growth agenda have unleashed America's economic engine. #WVGOP #WVComeBack" See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com Is this correct? We turned to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the official federal data source for employment figures. The bureau collects both statistics -- job openings and unemployed workers. We produced a chart to show how those trend lines interact: See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com The chart makes it clear: For the first time since both statistics were recorded at the same time, the number of job openings, shown in blue, has exceeded the number of unemployed workers, in red, in recent months. This was the case in March, April, May and June. So the tweet understated the number of times, but was otherwise accurate. Our ruling The West Virginia Republican Party tweeted, "For only the second time since 2000, there are more job openings than Americans who are unemployed." In March, April, May and June, the number of job openings was higher than the number of unemployed Americans -- the first time since that has happened since both statistics were calculated. That’s four times rather than two, so the tweet actually undersold the accomplishment. We rate the statement True. | null | West Virginia Republican Party | null | null | null | 2018-08-31T00:52:57 | 2018-08-10 | ['United_States'] |
snes-02314 | An 11-year-old Florida girl was depicted in a shocking photograph and forced to marry a much older man who raped her. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/child-bride-florida/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Was an 11-Year-Old Girl Forced to Marry Her Rapist in Florida? | 30 May 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02908 | Says Rick Scott "didn’t even come to his own education summit. But he did take time to go to the tea party convention the same week." | true | /florida/statements/2013/nov/04/charlie-crist/charlie-crist-says-rick-scott-skipped-out-educatio/ | One of the most applause-grabbing lines Charlie Crist deployed in the rally announcing his candidacy for governor on Nov. 4, 2013, honed in on just one week in the life of his Republican rival. "(Rick Scott is) a governor who cares so little about education that he didn’t even come to his own education summit," Crist said. "But he did take time to go to the tea party convention the same week." The crowd of Democrats in St. Petersburg loved the line. But we wanted to know if it was accurate. Scott announced a three-day "education accountability summit" on Aug. 22. The event capped a heated summer for education in Florida, with the Board of Education deciding to pad school grades, opposition mounting against Common Core standards from across the political spectrum, and Education Commissioner Tony Bennett resigning amid accusations he helped shield a charter school led by a Republican donor from getting a "C" back in Indiana. It was time to talk it out -- or to at least talk about something else. Scott asked then-interim Education Commissioner Pam Stewart to convene the summit at St. Petersburg College in Clearwater Aug. 26-28. "Florida's education accountability system has become a national model, but we are at a critical point in our history," Scott said in a statement before the meeting. Invitations went to three-dozen people with stakes in education, including three county teachers of the year, eight legislators, activists from Florida PTA and Florida Parents Against Common Core, Board of Education chairman Gary Chartrand, Florida Education Association president Andy Ford, Miami-Dade superintendent Alberto Carvalho, and Patricia Levesque, executive director of former Gov. Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Florida’s Future. On the agenda: new Common Core standards, new tests that will come in place of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, school grades and teacher evaluations. And yes, Scott was a no-show. His press office said that was intentional. "Gov. Scott wanted the benefit of an honest discussion on school grades, state standards, standard assessments and teacher evaluations," Scott spokeswoman Jackie Schutz said at the time. "The focus of the summit was to ensure that each Florida child is prepared to succeed." Scott did send representatives, including Stewart, communications director Melissa Sellers, policy chief Chris Finkbeiner and members of his education policy team, deputy communications director Frank Collins told us. So what was Scott up to that week? We compiled his activities based on his public schedule on the governor’s website and news stories. (We asked for a more complete account of his activities from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement but did not get it by our deadline.) Monday, Aug. 26: Scott’s schedule included a meeting with Gray Swoope, CEO of Enterprise Florida, and time in his Capitol office. Meanwhile, the summit’s first day was mostly spent on introductions and background presentations, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Tuesday, Aug. 27: Another day in Tallahassee. Scott’s schedule contained several hours of "staff and call time," a meeting with agency heads, and a dinner with community leaders at the governor’s mansion. Wednesday, Aug. 28: Scott met with Republican speaker-designate Steve Crisafulli in Cocoa, Fla. In Fort Myers, he pledged millions for a project aiming to improve natural water flow to part of the Everglades and limit water releases from Lake Okeechobee. Later, he marked the opening of the new headquarters for Univision and its new English-language network Fusion in Doral. The summit wrapped early without him in Clearwater, with attendees calling for reforms to school grades and teacher evaluations. Thursday, Aug. 29: The morning after the summit ended, Scott had a jobs announcement with Boeing in Virginia Gardens. What he did that night caused a stir: He met with state Sen. John Thrasher, Chartrand of the Board of Education and former Gov. Bush at an undisclosed location in Miami at suppertime. The news of his behind-the-scenes meeting with education power players irked parent activists, according to the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald. "This is how education reform gets done in Florida," Rita Solnet, founder of the advocacy group Parents Across America, told the Times/Herald. "The summit was a façade. The real decisions have always been made by Jeb Bush." Friday, Aug. 30: At a luxury hotel in Orlando, Scott spoke before a crowd of conservative activists with tea party leanings for 15 minutes at the two-day Americans for Prosperity Foundation "Defending the Dream" summit, about the state’s economic turnaround (and took too much credit for an expected tax revenue record, we determined). Americans for Prosperity is a conservative political action committee founded by libertarian billionaires David and Charles Koch and widely seen as sharing the concerns of and organizing the grassroots tea party movement. Americans for Prosperity Foundation, which sponsored the event, is its less political brother, a 501(c)(3) that focuses on education. Both groups believe in free markets, low taxes and limited government. Our ruling Scott delegated oversight of the education summit to his education commissioner, and other members of his team also attended. Still, Crist is right on the facts: Scott steered clear of one summit that week and made a speech at another laced with politics and connections to the tea party movement. We rate the statement True. | null | Charlie Crist | null | null | null | 2013-11-04T18:37:28 | 2013-11-04 | ['None'] |
pomt-04196 | A man using bath salts reported that raccoons had set fire inside his home and stolen his cell phone. | true | /ohio/statements/2012/dec/07/mike-dewine/mike-dewine-says-abuse-bath-salts-led-man-make-biz/ | Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine recently told some disturbing and odd stories about bath salts – an emerging drug that he said is a growing problem in Ohio. The stories were part of DeWine’s announcement last month that his office will target bath salts in its ongoing fight against drugs. Bath salts and other synthetic drugs have a tendency to induce violent and paranoid behavior, said DeWine, the state’s top law enforcement officer. One example DeWine, a Republican, gave involved a man having hallucinations of raccoons in his house. "The Ohio State Highway Patrol confronted a man who after using bath salts reported that raccoons had set fire inside his home and stolen his cell phone. He proceeded to chop up his deck with a hatchet while looking for the fire-setting raccoons," DeWine said. That got PolitiFact Ohio’s curiosity going, so it decided to look into the facts behind the bizarre tale. Examining the statement might provide useful information to people unfamiliar with the drug and its effects. When we called DeWine’s office for information to back up his account, spokesman Dan Tierney provided an Ohio State Highway Patrol study to educate the law enforcement community about bath salts. Bath salts, which became illegal in Ohio in 2011, are a synthetic drug that can be snorted, injected or mixed with a fluid to drink. Users have said the drug gives an intense high and a rush similar to cocaine, according to the highway patrol study, which was completed in May. Others have described users as violent, unpredictable and paranoid. The study includes a short description of the raccoon event DeWine described – along with five other incidents involving bath salts – but it doesn’t provide any details about the time, place and people involved. We called the highway patrol and were told the incident happened in Reynoldsburg, near Columbus. The police department there provided a report with written accounts from three responding officers. The police report includes a transcript of the 911 call in August 2011 from the 31-year-old Reynoldsburg man who was seeing raccoons: "I got raccoons in my house that are starting fires. I wonder how the hell they are doing it," he said. "I keep putting them out but they start another one. I had to drive down here because I couldn’t find my cell phone. I think one of them took it and did something with it." The report also said the man told police he took bath salts three times that day and could be hallucinating. A local fire department determined there were no fires inside the house. One of the officers noticed the deck at the house was destroyed and there was a hatchet nearby. The man told police he chopped up the deck because he was looking for a dead raccoon. So where does that leave us? DeWine’s account at the press conference last month was backed up by the Reynoldsburg police report. His only misstep was saying state patrolmen confronted the man. The mistake is immaterial because it doesn’t change the circumstances of the incident and the role of bath salts, according to police. The Reynoldsburg man, for what it’s worth, eventually pleaded guilty to a charge of making false alarms. DeWine’s statement is accurate and there is nothing significant missing. That rates True on the Truth-O-Meter. | null | Mike DeWine | null | null | null | 2012-12-07T06:00:00 | 2012-11-14 | ['None'] |
pomt-09420 | People "can't go fishing anymore because of Obama." | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/17/rush-limbaugh/rush-limbaugh-says-because-obama-people-cant-go-fi/ | Since President Barack Obama took office, he's been accused of overturning a number of all-American traditions, including Christmas trees at the White House and gun rights. Now, Obama apparently wants to ban a popular American pastime: fishing. On his March 9, 2010, talk show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that, "fishing is on the verge becoming a privilege controlled by Barack Obama." He went on to say that he's only had a few experiences with the sport, but that, "I know a lot of people, former professional athletes, who go into shock after hearing they can't go fishing anymore because of Obama." Like so many claims we check at PolitiFact, this one was messy. It started, of all places, with a story from ESPNOutdoors.com, was picked up by conservative bloggers, and then made its way to Limbaugh's radio show and other outlets including Glenn Beck's evening program on Fox News. In the process, the story changed. So, we'll do our best to sort through the rhetorical rubble. To support his claim, Limbaugh points to an article that appeared on ESPNOutdoors.com on March 9, 2010. The article, written by Robert Montgomery, reported that, "The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters." This quote was pulled from the Web site of left-wing media watchdog Media Matters. Montgomery later changed his column, so the original language is no longer on the ESPNOutdoors site. But more about that later. Montgomery was writing about Obama's Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force, a 24-member group headed by the chair of Obama's Council on Environmental Quality. In June 2009, Obama created the task force to develop a national policy to protect, maintain and restore oceans, coasts and the Great Lakes. He asked the group recommend a framework for improved stewardship and effective coastal and marine spatial planning; the group released a draft of its recommendations in December 2009. Among other things, it recommends creating nine regional planning areas to carry out the framework. In plain English, the Obama administration is drafting new plans for waterway conservation. "Spatial planning" is jargon for making sure that waterways are being used in the most economically and environmentally friendly way, explained Beth Lowell, federal policy director for ocean conservation group Oceana. If a body of water has no biological value, perhaps it's best used for a wind farm, she gave as an example. Or if there's a vulnerable coral reef in the area, the framework will help sort out what kinds of fishing can be done on the surface so as not to disturb the ecosystem below. So, the framework may mean changes in fishing practices in some areas, depending on the location, the local economy and specific ecological problems. Indeed, the draft framework states that plans "are expected to vary from region to region according to the specific needs, capacity, and issues particular to each region." Almost instantaneously, conservative bloggers picked up on Montgomery's story. Michelle Malkin wrote, "Sacrificing jobs for the green agenda. Conducting Kabuki theater on public input. Business as usual for the Obama White House." And from Gateway Pundit: "Obama’s latest assault on your rights– He wants to ban sport fishing. Barack Obama has a message for America’s 60,000,000 anglers – We don't need you." The meme found its way to the desks of Limbaugh and of Beck, who implied on his March 10, 2010, show that Obama was banning fishing by executive order. "Obama will no longer listen to the public as he tries to prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing on some of the nation's oceans, coastal areas and Great Lakes and even some inland waters," he said. "No more fishing. . . . Some environmentalists want to save the fish. Forget about the frickin' fish! People are losing their rights." (We should point out that Obama has not banned fishing through executive order, so Beck is wrong on that point.) The firestorm prompted ESPNOutdoors executive editor Steve Bowman to issue a statement on the story. He wrote that the news organization should have made it clear that the story was an opinion column in a series of stories on the implications of Obama's new task force. "While our series overall has examined several sides of the topic, this particular column was not properly balanced and failed to represent contrary points of view," Bowman wrote. "We have reached out to people on every side of the issue and reported their points of view -- if they chose to respond -- throughout the series, but failed to do so in this specific column." Media Matters also noted that the first paragraph of Montgomery's story now reads that the administration's plan "could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing some of the nation's oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters." (The emphasis is ours to show the difference between Montgomery's first and second iteration of the column.) The column still fails to mention that the administration has made no final decisions on the recommendations. And while the framework could change some fishing practices as Lowell points out, the draft proposals do not say anything about banning recreational fishing as the column implies. Here's what Christine Glunz, spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, had to say about the issue: "The draft reports issued by the Ocean Policy Task Force have involved extensive stakeholder input and public participation as they were being prepared, which has included the interests of conservationists and the recreational fishing community. These draft reports are not map-drawing exercises, they do not contain a zoning plan, and they do not establish any restrictions on recreational fishing or on public access, nor make any judgments about whether one ocean activity or use is better than another.'' And Eric Schwaab, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's assistant administrator for fisheries, simply stated in a March 10, 2010, statement that "the Ocean Policy Task Force has not recommended a ban on recreational fishing." Like many things we check at PolitiFact, this claim is like sausage: It went in the meat processor that is the Internet as one thing and came out quite different. An opinion piece that argued Obama's effort could ban some fishing was chopped up, reprocessed and put back together as a claim that Obama wants to ban all fishing. In fact, the draft framework says nothing about banning fishing. Limbaugh has taken an early discussion about the use of waterways and twisted it to make it sound like Obama is outlawing a popular pastime. While the panel's recommendation could change fishing practices in some areas, the framework is still in draft form; the administration has not made any final decisions on what the framework will look like. But Limbaugh is grossly distorting the truth. Pants on Fire! | null | Rush Limbaugh | null | null | null | 2010-03-17T13:58:16 | 2010-03-09 | ['None'] |
bove-00182 | Did A Woman Protester Throw A Shoe At PM Narendra Modi? | none | https://www.boomlive.in/did-a-woman-protester-throw-a-shoe-at-pm-narendra-modi/ | null | null | null | null | null | Did A Woman Protester Throw A Shoe At PM Narendra Modi? | Sep 22 2017 7:30 pm, Last Updated: Sep 23 2017 9:27 pm | null | ['None'] |
snes-05096 | A photograph shows a crowd with their hands raised pledging allegiance to President Obama. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/photo-obama-nazi-salute/ | null | Politicians | null | Dan Evon | null | Photo Doesn’t Show Crowd Giving Obama the Nazi Salute | 8 March 2016 | null | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-07971 | Says that "data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggest that the Texas budget gap is worse than New York’s, about as bad as California’s, but not quite up to New Jersey levels." | mostly true | /texas/statements/2011/jan/21/paul-krugman/paul-krugman-compares-projected-shortfalls-texas-c/ | Texas, a model of fiscal soundness? Not so, writes Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and liberal op-ed columnist for the New York Times. In his Jan. 6, 2011 column, titled "the Texas Omen," Krugman opines that the Texas-style "modern conservative theory of budgeting" ain’t all it’s cracked up to be, now that fiscal reality has intruded. Though he notes that "comparing budget crises among states is tricky," Krugman does just that, writing that "data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities suggest that the Texas budget gap is worse than New York’s, about as bad as California’s, but not quite up to New Jersey levels." We wondered if Krugman’s comparison was on target. In response, he pointed us to a table in a Dec. 16, 2010 report by the Washington-based center, which studies the impact of state and federal budget decisions on low-income Americans. The report, headlined "States Continue to Feel Recession’s Impact," says the national recession has caused the steepest decline in tax receipts on record, resulting in "a state fiscal crisis of unprecedented severity." Table 3 in the report lists nearly every state confronting a projected fiscal 2012 budget shortfall and compares each shortfall to the state’s fiscal 2011 budget. The table says Texas faces a $10 billion shortfall, amounting to 22.3 percent of its 2011 budget. The New York budget gap equals $9 billion, 9 percent of its 2011 budget, while the expected gaps for California and New Jersey equal $19.2 billion (22.2 percent) and $10.5 billion (37.4 percent), respectively, of each state’s 2011 budget. So, the 2012 Texas shortfall appeared to be worse than New York’s, about as bad as California’s, but not quite up--actually, hardly close--to New Jersey’s level. The report says the center’s sources for the Texas breakdown includes an analysis of state agency budget requests and other information by the Austin-based Center on Public Policy Priorities, which advocates for programs that serve low-income Texans. The two similarly-named organizations occasionally collaborate on projects. We called Eva DeLuna-Castro, the Austin center’s senior budget analyst, who said the shortfall figure cited for Texas reflected her earlier research indicating that the state would need about $20 billion in additional revenue to extend current programs and services through 2012-13. One year’s worth of the shortfall estimate is $10 billion. DeLuna-Castro noted that at the time of the Washington center’s research, Texas state government expected to spend $45 billion in fiscal 2011, a figure since reduced to $42.6 billion to account for agencies’ spending cuts last year. DeLuna-Castro said she has studied the California shortfall projection and thinks the Washington center’s research is solid there. She said she hasn’t studied projected shortfalls for New York or New Jersey. Finally, she cautioned that comparisons might overlook the fact that Texas lawmakers could tap billions of dollars in the state’s rainy day fund. She said other states, which budget annually, may have already dug into such funds. That seems a reasonable point. The Texas rainy day fund could ease the state’s shortfall--a fact not mentioned in Krugman’s column. Then again, tapping the fund requires a two-thirds vote of the GOP-majority Legislature, and some Republican legislators have said the fund is off-limits. Finally, the lead author of the state-by-state comparison, Elizabeth McNichol, a senior fellow with the Washington center, told us the comparison would soon be updated to reflect increases in projected shortfalls for Texas and California. "The problem that Texas is facing is on a similar level to these other states," McNichol said. As we noted recently, the Center for Public Policy Priorities now estimates that Texas needs nearly $27 billion more than the state expects to raise from taxes and other sources to maintain current government services and programs through 2012-13. McNichol told us by e-mail that the Washington center consequently considers the updated 2012 Texas shortfall to be $13.4 billion, equal to nearly 30 percent of the 2011 budget. At the time of Krugman’s column, the projected Texas shortfall was nowhere near New Jersey’s level. The comparisons of expected shortfalls in Texas, New York and California were accurate. We rate his statement Mostly True. | null | Paul Krugman | null | null | null | 2011-01-21T10:25:51 | 2011-01-06 | ['Texas', 'New_Jersey', 'California'] |
vees-00180 | Duterte, warning he will “make radical changes in the days to come,” upon his arrival from South Korea June 5 said: | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-duterte-wrong-claim-martial-law-and-na | Instructive of the difference is how the Supreme Court ruled on former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Proclamation No. 1017 declaring a state of national emergency in 2006. | null | null | null | Duterte,Martial Law,national emergency | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Duterte wrong to claim martial law and national emergency are the same | June 08, 2018 | null | ['South_Korea'] |
snes-03847 | Melania Trump has announced she's endorsing Hillary Clinton. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/melania-announces-backing-hillary/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | After Grotesque Trump Audio Revealed, Melania Announces She’s Backing Hillary | 7 October 2016 | null | ['Hillary_Rodham_Clinton'] |
ranz-00030 | You went up 40 percent in your time, we have gone up 30 percent in ours; I accept it’s a challenge. | fact | https://www.radionz.co.nz/programmes/election17-fact-or-fiction/story/201859218/fact-or-fiction-how-correct-are-corrections-claims | The prison population in 1999, when Helen Clark's Labour Government was first elected, was 5647. By 2008, when National took government, the prison population had risen to 7763 - a 37 percent increase. The prison population at June 2017 was 10,260, so a 32 percent increase under National. | Elections | Louise Upston | null | null | Fact or Fiction: How correct are corrections claims? | 20 September 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11686 | World’s most popular candy to be removed from shelves by December 2017. | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2018/jan/02/musclecarusainfo/no-reeses-peanut-butter-cups-were-not-removed-shel/ | A fake news story on Facebook stated that Reese’s peanut butter cups were scheduled to be removed from all store shelves by the end of 2017. "World’s most popular candy to be removed from shelves by December 2017," stated a Dec. 18 headline on musclecarusa.info. The website is mostly about cars and had no contact information. "RIP Reese’s peanut butter cups," said the article, which cited a news conference about declining sales that did not happen. "Make sure to get you one before they are gone!" Peanut butter cup lovers have no reason to panic -- the candy remains available. A Hershey’s spokeswoman, Anna Lingeris, told PolitiFact in an email that the story is inaccurate. "Rest assured, the only people removing Reese’s products from shelves are consumers, who are taking them home to eat," she said. Facebook users flagged the post as being potentially fabricated, as part of the social network’s efforts to combat fake news. Because we were curious, and a little hungry, we researched whether Reese’s is the world’s most popular candy. Lingeris told PolitiFact that Reese’s is the No. 1 franchise in the candy-mints-gum category based on dollar sales, according to IRI Market Advantage, a market insights and analytics provider. We contacted IRI directly to confirm the information but did not get a response. It’s fake news that the peanut butter cups were slated for removal from store shelves. We rate this headline Pants on Fire. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Musclecarusa.info | null | null | null | 2018-01-02T16:35:45 | 2017-12-18 | ['None'] |
tron-00993 | Microsoft virus warning | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/microsoftwarning/ | null | computers | null | null | null | Microsoft virus warning | Mar 16, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02668 | The Kidnap Warning in Deerfield Township in Ohio | none | https://www.truthorfiction.com/deerfieldhoax/ | null | miscellaneous | null | null | null | The Kidnap Warning in Deerfield Township in Ohio | Mar 13, 2015 | null | ['Ohio'] |
pomt-01379 | Under Scott Walker's "tax plan, the average Wisconsin taxpayer got just $11 a month. But corporations got $610 million in tax cuts. Millionaires got at least $1,400 per year." | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2014/oct/16/mary-burke/scott-walkers-tax-plan-favors-rich-corporations-ov/ | In a Mary Burke TV ad released Oct. 8, 2014, the narrator begins by asking: "What’s $11 buy you in Wisconsin? How about a pizza?" Sounds good. We're hungry. Then the ad quickly turns to one of Burke's key campaign themes -- that Gov. Scott Walker favors big business and the well-to-do over average folk. Under Walker's "tax plan," the narrator continues, "the average Wisconsin taxpayer got just $11 a month. But corporations got $610 million in tax cuts. Millionaires got at least $1,400 per year." The ad ends with "Scott Walker -- Millions for them, pizza for you." Doesn't sound quite as tasty any more. Burke’s reference to a "tax plan" suggests Walker has had only one, when there have been several measures affecting income and property taxes. And, notably, she expresses each dollar amount differently -- a small per-month figure for the average taxpayer, versus a large lump sum for corporations and a large per-year figure for millionaires. So let’s slice up Burke's claim into its three pieces and see what we have. Average taxpayer: $11 per month When the narrator speaks about the average taxpayer and Walker’s tax plan, a footnote appears on the screen referencing the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state’s nonpartisan budget scorekeeper, and a date: July 28, 2014. But the footnote doesn’t give the viewer a clear idea of what Burke is citing -- or that it just provides a partial picture. A memo issued by the bureau on that day details two state income cuts signed into law by Walker in 2013. It says a taxpayer with an adjusted gross income of $40,000 to $50,000 will save an average of $133 in 2014. That comes to about $11 per month. Walker’s campaign, meanwhile, noted that the same memo pegs the average savings -- rather than the savings for the average taxpayer -- slightly higher, at $189 per year. That would be about $16 per month. The larger point, however, is that besides income tax cuts, Walker has approved a number of property tax relief measures. These are ignored by Burke, who made a broad claim but then supported it only by citing reductions in one type of tax. When Walker claimed that his various income and property tax cuts amount to $322 in the 2014 tax year for the average family, our rating was Mostly True. That comes to about $27 per month. We found that the income and property tax cuts would save the median-income family at least that much in 2014, although not every average family would save that much, particularly if they are not property owners. Corporations: $610 million Burke overstates the second part of her claim -- that corporations got $610 million in tax cuts. That figure is based on another fiscal bureau memo, which calculates tax savings over Walker’s full four-year term. The memo describes those tax reductions as being "targeted to businesses," not necessarily corporations, which suggests large operations. In other words, some of the tax cuts apply to small businesses as well. For example, $126 million of the $610 million comes from reducing the state tax on the production earnings of manufacturers and agricultural businesses. Businesses organized like limited liability companies -- whose shareholders pay the firm's tax as personal income tax -- benefit from the reduction. Millionaires: $1,400 per year The third part of Burke’s claim goes back to the 2013 income tax cuts. The fiscal bureau estimated that people with an adjusted gross income of $300,000 or more would see a tax decrease averaging $1,402 in 2014. It’s worth noting that the $133 decrease for what Burke described as the average taxpayer was a reduction of 8 percent, while the the reduction for millionaires is 2.32 percent. And, again, she uses an annual figure for the millionaires, but a monthly one for the average folks. Our rating Burke said that under Walker's "tax plan, the average Wisconsin taxpayer got just $11 a month. But corporations got $610 million in tax cuts. Millionaires got at least $1,400 per year." The $11 refers only to income tax cuts, when in fact the typical taxpayer has also enjoyed property tax reductions. The $610 million applies to small businesses as well as corporations. And it’s correct that millionaires got at least $1,400 per year in tax reductions. In short, the claim uses different figures that when mashed together are misleading. For a statement that is partially accurate, but takes things out of context, our rating is Half True. To comment on this item, go to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s web page. | null | Mary Burke | null | null | null | 2014-10-16T05:00:00 | 2014-10-08 | ['Wisconsin', 'Scott_Walker_(politician)'] |
pomt-10282 | Barack Obama has "pledged to reduce the size of the military." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/aug/20/jerome-corsi/obama-wants-to-increase-the-size-of-the-military/ | A new book — The Obama Nation by Jerome R. Corsi — attacks Barack Obama as a political extremist. Taken as a whole, the book's primary argument is that Obama is a likely communist sympathizer with ties to Islam who has skillfully hidden his true agenda as he ruthlessly pursues elected office. We found factual problems with Corsi's book and question its overall tone; read our extended story here. One of Corsi's attacks on Obama is that Obama advocates nuclear disarmament ( a statement we checked previously and rated False) and that he wants to reduce the size of the military. Here, we'll check whether Obama "pledged to reduce the size of the military" as Corsi charges. We consulted Obama's proposals on defense that are detailed on his campaign Web site. "Barack Obama supports plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marines by 27,000 troops," says the plan. "Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families." The policy also discusses building up "special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply." Corsi says Obama has promised to reduce the size of the military, but he seems to be drawing that assumption from Obama's criticism of the Iraq war and Obama's promises to bring more transparency and rigor to the defense contracting process. Obama's written policy proposals say Obama intends to increase the size of the military. We find Corsi's statement False. | null | Jerome R. Corsi | null | null | null | 2008-08-20T00:00:00 | 2008-08-01 | ['None'] |
pomt-09074 | Langevin votes “the party line about 98 percent of the time." | true | /rhode-island/statements/2010/jun/27/mark-zaccaria/zaccaria-says-langevin-votes-party-line-about-98-p/ | Mark Zaccaria, one of three Republicans hoping to unseat Democratic U.S. Rep. James Langevin in the 2nd District, issued a news release June 3 reacting to a Providence Journal story that concluded with this paragraph: "People are tired of partisan politics in Washington and they are tired of the bickering," Langevin said. "People know that I'm not [partisan]. They know that I try to find commonsense solutions to problems." Zaccaria's news release said: "Mr. Langevin is right that people are tired of partisan politics," Zaccaria said. "But I find it laughable that he would describe himself as 'non-partisan.' Langevin has been the most reliable vote for Speaker Pelosi, voting the party line about 98 percent of the time. If he doesn't see that as being partisan, then he is delusional. Rhode Island cannot afford to allow Mr. Langevin and Speaker Pelosi to continue to put people out of work and drive businesses out of this country while catering to their special interests." We were interested in two elements: Has Langevin voted the party line as often as Zaccaria says, and has he been "the most reliable vote for Speaker Pelosi?" We deal with the Pelosi claim in a separate item. We called Zaccaria’s campaign manager, Parker Lacoste, who told us that the actual percentage is even higher -- 99.2 percent -- and he referred us to a WashingtonPost.com web page of votes during the current Congress, which also shows whether Langevin’s votes conformed to the Democratic party line. The site reported that "James Langevin has voted with a majority of his Democratic colleagues 99.2% of the time during the current Congress. This percentage does not include votes in which Langevin did not vote." That's well above the 92.2 percent rate among all Democrats, which seems to bear out Zaccaria's point that Langevin, at least by his voting record, can't claim to be non-partisan. If anything, Zaccaria's original statement understates Langevin's Democratness. We rate it as True. | null | Mark S. Zaccaria | null | null | null | 2010-06-27T00:02:00 | 2010-06-02 | ['None'] |
goop-02329 | Harry Styles Hit On By Woman In Her 80s?! | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/harry-styles-hit-on-woman-80s-propositioned-grandma/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Harry Styles Hit On By Woman In Her 80s?! | 10:52 am, October 19, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01301 | I fought 38 Studios from the beginning. | mostly false | /rhode-island/statements/2014/oct/30/gina-raimondo/gina-raimondo-says-she-battled-against-ill-fated-3/ | The role played by Democrat Gina Raimondo in Rhode Island's investment in 38 Studios, the now-defunct video game company created by former Boston Red Sox star Curt Schilling, has been a source of contention throughout her run for governor. Raimondo’s Republican opponent, Allan Fung, has attacked her for urging the state to pay investors who bought the moral obligation bonds used to raise money for the company. In response, since Oct. 7, 2014, the Raimondo campaign has repeatedly aired a television commercial called "From the Beginning," which is intended to address the controversy. "You might have seen Allan Fung’s ad attacking me over 38 Studios," it begins. "I fought 38 Studios from the beginning." Raimondo has repeated that claim in debates, with Fung challenging that claim, saying that one email doesn't constitute a fight. So who’s right? First, a little background. In 2010, the General Assembly passed a bill authorizing the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation to guarantee up to $125 million in economic development bonds. The bill did not mention any potential beneficiary. But within weeks, the beneficiary became clear when the EDC approved a $75-million loan guarantee for 38 Studios. The company ultimately went bankrupt; the EDC, now the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation, owes a total of $115.9 million in principal, interest and fees to repay the bonds. At least two prominent Rhode Island politicians vigorously opposed the deal when it was proposed. Lincoln Chafee, when he was running for governor as an independent in 2010, repeatedly urged the EDC to reject the proposal. He repeatedly tried to address the EDC directly and showed up at one of its meetings, only to be rebuffed. Then-General Treasurer Frank Caprio, a Democrat also running for governor, eventually joined Chafee in his opposition, to the point where Gov. Donald Carcieri, who chaired the EDC, complained, "The attitudes and positions taken by Mr. Caprio and Mr. Chafee serve only to undermine the positive economic development steps the state has taken in recent years." Where was Raimondo, then a candidate for general treasurer, in all this? On July 16, 2010, she wrote an email to Keith Stokes, then EDC's director, expressing "significant concerns." "I would proceed very carefully on this," she wrote. "The fact that many have looked at it and passed is a red flag," a reference to other groups that had decided not to help finance the 38 Studios venture. So she was clearly voicing serious concerns. In addition, Raimondo's TV commercial references The Providence Journal of July 22, 2010, where an Ed Fitzpatrick column quotes Raimondo as saying, "Truly, this is a gamble. This company hasn’t launched a game yet. It’s pre-revenue; they haven’t made one penny. This could very easily be out of business in a year or two." The column appeared two days before the EDC took its final vote on the 38 Studios deal. Fitzpatrick, paraphrasing Raimondo, wrote: "Venture capitalists prefer to spread risk among a portfolio of 20 to 30 companies, but this $75-million loan guarantee is a big chunk of the state's new $125-million Job Creation Guaranty Program." Then he quoted Raimondo as saying, "This strategy is like, 'put all your chips on red and cross your fingers. It makes me nervous.'" But neither example shows Raimondo actively fighting the project. We asked Raimondo's campaign if it had any evidence of the candidate trying to block the deal. Spokeswoman Joy Fox said Raimondo met with Stokes and separately with Karl Wadensten, the only EDC member to vote against the proposal. We checked with Wadensten. He said he asked her about the pending deal during commercial breaks when he had her on his WPRO radio show. Asked about Raimondo's claim that she fought the deal, he responded, "With who? That's what I'm trying to figure out. With who? I had already made up my mind at that point." He said he couldn't recall how strongly she advised against the deal. Our ruling Gina Raimondo says, "I fought 38 Studios from the beginning." It's clear Raimondo had concerns about the deal. But calling something "a gamble," saying a deal makes you "nervous" and urging someone to "proceed very carefully" signals opposition but doesn't rise to the level of fighting. We couldn't find -- and her campaign couldn't produce -- any evidence that she actively tried to block the 38 Studios loan or that she specifically told anyone in authority that the deal should be rejected. To say she "fought 38 Studios" is a big stretch. We rate her claim as Mostly False. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, email us at politifact@providencejournal.com. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | null | Gina Raimondo | null | null | null | 2014-10-30T00:01:00 | 2014-10-07 | ['None'] |
pomt-14126 | We have been focusing so much, especially the Texas Department of Transportation, on that 97 percent of people in single-occupancy vehicles. | false | /texas/statements/2016/may/06/sylvester-turner/sylvester-turner-overstates-number-solo-drivers/ | When Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced Carrin Patman as the new chairwoman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of Harris County board, he emphasized the vital role Patman would play in reducing Houstonians’ dependence on cars. "We have been focusing so much, especially the Texas Department of Transportation, on that 97 percent of people in single-occupancy vehicles," he said. Since Turner became mayor in January 2016, he’s emphasized public transit and other ways of fighting congestion in contrast to building more highways, a traditional focus of TxDOT. Turner, introducing Patman, brought up TxDOT’s focus on single-occupancy vehicles because he disagrees with the strategy of building roads to ease traffic congestion. We wanted to check his facts. Are 97 percent of people in single-occupancy vehicles? Origin of the 97 percent statistic The 97 percent statistic wasn’t limited to the March 4, 2016, event at City Hall. In fact, it’s been a regular part of Turner’s stump speeches of late, according to Houston Chronicle transportation reporter Dug Begley. He also mentioned the number at an announcement for other Metro appointments March 18, 2016, and at the Texas Active Transportation and Trails Conference in Houston on March 9, 2016, Begley said. We called the mayor’s staff to see where the 97 percent figure came from. His press team referred us to the city’s Planning and Development Department, which they said wrote Turner’s March 4 speech. By phone, Suzy Hartgrove, the planning department’s public affairs manager, told us the statistic referred to drivers in all of Texas -- not just Houston -- and that it had come from TxDOT Commissioner Bruce Bugg of San Antonio. Hartgrove said Bugg brought up the statistic at a January 25, 2016, meeting in to discuss traffic congestion in the Houston region. By email, Hartgrove forwarded Bugg’s slide show from a Jan. 28, 2016, presentation to Houston TranStar, the body that coordinates city and state agencies to respond to Houston-area traffic incidents. A slide in the presentation says that Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio were "home to 97 of the top 100 most congested roadway segments in Texas in 2015." In the email Hartgrove forwarded to us, planning department staff discussed how Bugg’s 97-of-100 point may have been misinterpreted in its drafting of Turner’s remarks. We turned to TxDOT; Austin-based spokeswoman Veronica Beyer responded by email, saying that Bugg "never used the words ‘single-occupancy vehicle.’" On the other hand, Beyer said, Bugg has offered a few similar statistics, including that "97 percent of Texans who choose to travel do so by car, truck or van." What that statistic means When Turner first started bringing up this statistic in January, the Houston Chronicle took a close look at his facts. In Jan. 28, 2016, remarks before the Texas Transportation Commission, Turner said that "TxDOT has noted that 97 percent of Texans currently drive a single-occupancy vehicle for their daily trips." That comment differs slightly from his statement at hand -- it refers to daily trips, not 97 percent of all people. Begley’s analysis of that number in an annotated transcript of the speech helps with the number we’re looking at, too: "This number is commonly used in various ways but is misapplied most of the time," the Chronicle said. "In a 2006 study by Texas A&M University, it was stated 95.4 percent of workers over age 16 use a car, van or truck to get to work. However the number included carpoolers and only covered trips to [and] from work, as opposed to all driving. According to the Census Bureau, 79.9 percent of commuters drive alone to work in the state. Around 11 percent share a ride to work. About 4 percent work at home and 1.6 percent statewide use public transit." The upshot: "Solo drivers dominate any breakdown of how Texans travel, but it is not as high as many people claim," the story said. Beyer, from TxDOT, also offered some backup that points to these numbers from the Chronicle as the most reliable. She sent us a chart from the U.S. Department of Commerce indicating that in 2013, 96.1 percent of Texans who commuted to work chose a car, truck or van. Notably, that figure folded in carpools so it wasn’t referring solely to single-occupancy vehicles. How many people are in single-occupancy vehicles? Absent other data, then, we suspect it’s not quite 97 percent of people driving single-occupancy vehicles. So, how many are driving solo? It’s hard to say exactly. We have the numbers on commuters from the Census Bureau: 79.9 percent of Texas workers in 2013 drove alone to work. For all driving, however, it’s tougher to pinpoint how many people driving solo. We reached out to the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University, which connected us with Phil Lasley, a researcher there. Lasley told us by phone that it is difficult to get numbers related to all trips. Surveys that measure that data are rarely done, he said. Lasley was looking at the Census data that says 79.9 percent of people drive alone to work. Lasley, asked if that number would be higher or lower if it took into account all driving, said he thought it would be higher. "People who carpool are generally going to work. People wouldn’t jump in a carpool to go to the dry cleaners or pick up kids from school," he said. During the school day especially, when many people are on the road getting errands done, drivers tend to be by themselves, he said. Lasley also pointed out that trips to and from work -- which is the data the 79.9 percent refers to, and the closest survey result we found to generally gauge single-occupancy drivers -- only made up 16 percent of all trips in Texas from April 2008 to April 2009, according to the 2009 National Household Travel Survey, the most recent (the 2016 survey is underway). Most driving was for social and recreational trips, errands and shopping before commuting. The average vehicle in that time frame, driving for all purposes, had 1.67 people in it, according to the National Household Travel Survey. Our ruling Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, decrying traditional emphases on road building to ease traffic congestion, said 97 percent of people drive single-occupancy vehicles. This figure looks like it was based on a misread of another official’s declarations. And while we found little data about how many of us always drive solo, Census research suggests that about 80 percent of commuters drive alone, but commuting accounts for less than 20 percent of total driving, according to the latest survey we could find. It is 100 percent time to park this stat; we rate his claim False. FALSE – The statement is not accurate. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/de2b979b-980b-4bba-bfa4-22db6680f96d | null | Sylvester Turner | null | null | null | 2016-05-06T16:10:18 | 2016-03-04 | ['None'] |
goop-02031 | Meryl Streep’s Diva Behavior Shut Down By Steven Spielberg? | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/meryl-streep-diva-steven-spielberg-post-movie/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Meryl Streep’s Diva Behavior Shut Down By Steven Spielberg? | 5:57 pm, December 14, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
abbc-00218 | The ousting of former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has exposed simmering discontent within the Liberal Party over its attitude towards women, amid claims female MPs were bullied during the August leadership spill and suggestions from outside the party that Julie Bishop, then deputy leader, was overlooked for the top job due to her gender. | in-between | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-27/fact-check3a-has-the-liberal-party-failed-to-achieve-gender-pa/10256464 | Ms McGowan is jumping the gun. The Coalition has not yet achieved 50 per cent female membership of government boards, but this target was only set in March 2016. In the two years since, the Government has boosted female representation on boards. Data available at the time of Ms McGowan's claim, for December 2017, shows women had achieved a record 44.5 per cent board membership. This is up from 40.5 per cent recorded in June 2016, three months after the Government set the target, and from 42.7 per cent in June 2017. In total, this amounts to an increase of 4 percentage points in 18 months. Under the Coalition, between June 2016 and December 2017, female representation increased by an average of 0.22 percentage points per month. Under Labor, between June 2010 and June 2013, the average monthly increase was 0.2 percentage points. The proportion of women on boards fell back under former Coalition prime minister Tony Abbott. However, Ms McGowan's claim relates to the period since March 2016 when the Turnbull government set the 50 per cent target. On current trends, that target would be met by January 2020. Experts consulted by Fact Check said that while governments effectively control the selection of board appointees, there are constraints on how quickly they can change the composition of government boards. These include, for example, fixed terms for current board members, which typically last three to five years. Professor Meredith Edwards said that given these constraints, the rate achieved since introducing Mr Turnbull's 50 per cent target was quite good. During 2016-17, the proportion of new board appointments that went to women was 46.2 per cent, down slightly from 46.5 per cent in 2015-16, and lower than the record 47.6 per cent achieved in 2012-13, Labor's last year of government. | ['women', 'federal-government', 'australia'] | null | null | ['women', 'federal-government', 'australia'] | Fact check: Has the Coalition been unable to reach its target of 50 per cent women on government boards? | Wed 26 Sep 2018, 10:50pm | null | ['Malcolm_Turnbull', 'Liberal_Party_of_Australia'] |
pomt-00835 | Job growth in the United States is now at the "fastest pace in this country's history." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/mar/24/david-simas/white-house-aide-says-job-growth-now-fastest-pace-/ | With the economy finally seeming to turn a corner, the Obama administration has been more aggressive recently about touting its accomplishments in creating jobs. But a claim made by one White House official recently was novel enough to catch our attention. The claim was made on CNN’s New Day by David Simas, the assistant to the president and director of the White House’s office of political strategy and outreach. "We're more than happy to compare the record of this administration over the past six years that inherited the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression and is in the fifth year of record job creation, which is the fastest pace in this country's history," Simas told CNN’s Alisyn Camerota. Is job growth at the "fastest pace in this country's history"? We took a closer look. We found that he actually had mangled his talking point: He meant to talk about how many months of consistent growth there’s been, not how fast the pace is. We’ll look at both metrics. Because the current recovery began 69 months ago, we looked at total job gains during the first 69 months of each of the previous recoveries, going back to World War II. (Employment data is not easily comparable further back than that.) We ignored the first dip of the double-dip recession in the early 1980s; we counted only from the end of the second dip. Here are the results: End month of recession Percent increase in nonfarm employment in first 69 months from end of recession October 1945 25 percent October 1949 18 percent May 1954 11 percent April 1958 12 percent February 1961 21 percent November 1970 13 percent March 1975 18 percent November 1982 19 percent March 1991 11 percent November 2001 5 percent June 2009 8 percent This shows that far from being the "fastest" job growth in history, the pace of growth after the Great Recession was actually the second slowest out of these 11 time periods. "I don't see any way to claim that the speed of growth in this recovery, even recently, is any kind of record," said Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist. Indeed, that's how many Americans seem to feel about the current recovery. "Accounting for the severity of the recession, the speed of the jobs rebound was disappointing, especially in the first three or so years of the recovery," said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution. So what’s going on? The White House told PolitiFact that Simas was referring to something else -- that the ongoing streak of 60 months of private-sector job growth is the longest on record. Here, the White House has a point. Sinclair agreed that the United States is currently enjoying the "longest string of consistently positive monthly job growth since the payroll employment data we typically rely on began being reported in 1939. The late 1980s comes close, but there was a pesky one-month fall in employment in June 1986. Similarly, in the 1990s, there were a couple of small dips." Overall, it’s the duration of this recovery -- rather than the rate of growth for job creation -- that has made it impressive. Our ruling Simas said job growth in the United States is now at the "fastest pace in this country's history." He would have been right if he’d stuck to the duration of the recovery: At 60 months and counting, it’s the longest post-war recovery, though earlier recoveries would have been longer had brief blips not intruded. However, looking at how Simas phrased it on CNN, he’s wrong: The current recovery actually ranks second-to-last among post-World War II recoveries when judged by the rate of growth in jobs. We rate the claim False. | null | David Simas | null | null | null | 2015-03-24T16:35:41 | 2015-03-18 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-11157 | Republican candidate for California governor Travis Allen "gave campaign donations to Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and Barbara Boxer." | mostly true | /california/statements/2018/may/25/john-cox/did-gop-candidate-california-governor-really-donat/ | Did Travis Allen, arguably the most conservative candidate for California governor, donate campaign money to three of the state’s leading liberal Democrats? That’s the Republican-on-Republican attack levied by John Cox’s campaign for governor in a recent TV ad that goes after Allen, an Orange County assemblyman who’s positioned himself as a GOP populist. Here’s the full text of the ad, which includes three attacks on Allen: Narrator: "For Republicans, the race for governor is crystal clear: There’s conservative businessman John Cox, leading the opposition to Jerry Brown’s Sanctuary State and chairman of the initiative campaign to repeal the gas tax. Then there’s career politician Travis Allen. He gave campaign donations to Jerry Brown. Gavin Newsom and Barbara Boxer. And on the floor vote, Allen refused to join Republicans opposing driver licenses for illegal aliens. The conservative choice is clear: John Cox for governor." The ad was paid for by John Cox for Governor 2018. We’ll examine the other two attacks on Allen in future fact-checks. In this piece, we’ll focus on the claim he donated to top Democrats. Background on GOP rivals Recent polls show growing support for Cox’s campaign for governor, less than a week after President Trump endorsed the San Diego businessman. A survey released Wednesday night from the Public Policy Institute of California shows Newsom, the state’s lieutenant governor, leading Cox, 25 percent to 19 percent. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was third, at 15 percent, followed by Allen with 11 percent, State Treasurer John Chiang at 9 percent and former state schools chief Delaine Eastin with 6 percent. Cox and Allen have sparred at campaign events over who is the most conservative candidate. They’ve both criticized California’s Democratic leadership over the gas tax increase and sanctuary state protections. The top two candidates in the June 5 primary, regardless of party affiliation, will move on to the November runoff. Donating to Democrats? The ad accuses Allen of donating to three of the state’s top Democrats. The irony, of course, is that Allen’s run for governor has centered on criticizing those same politicians, particularly Brown and Newsom. We found clear evidence supporting the claim, though Cox’s ad ignores the fact that the contributions took place nearly a decade ago, before Allen ran for elected office, and that he also donated to Republicans. Campaign finance records show that in October 2010, Allen donated $1,000 to Jerry Brown for Governor, through Wealth Strategies Group, his wealth management firm in Huntington Beach. In August 2010, Allen gave $100 to Gavin Newsom for Lieutenant Governor. And, in October 2010, he donated $250 to Barbara Boxer for Senate. SOURCE: Campaign finance records from the California Secretary of State's website. Asked about this, a spokeswoman for Allen’s campaign said in an email that the contributions took place "before Travis was an elected official, as a businessman, he purchased tickets to some events." A November 2017 Mercury-News article summarized these and additional donations Allen made to Democrats in 2010 and 2011. He told the paper at that time: "As a businessman I was invited to some events by friends, and I purchased tickets to these events. Attending these events, however, opened my eyes to the damage the Democrats were doing to California, and brought about my decision to do everything in my power to stop them, including running for public office." Similar claim In April 2016, PolitiFact California rated Mostly True a similar claim about then Presidential candidate Donald Trump donating to Democrats. Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, at the time Trump’s rival for the Republican presidential nomination, claimed Trump "has given $12,000 to Jerry Brown, Gavin Newsom and Kamala Harris." Campaign finance data showed the claim was accurate, though we noted Cruz left out that the donations took place long before Trump announced his run for president. The contribution to Jerry Brown took place in 2006, while the donations to the other Democrats took place in 2009, 2011 and 2013. Our ruling In a recent TV ad, John Cox’s campaign for governor claimed rival GOP candidate Travis Allen donated to three of California’s top Democrats. Campaign records prove the claim, though the contributions took place a decade ago, before Allen entered politics. The statement is accurate but needs this clarification. We rate it Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | John Cox | null | null | null | 2018-05-25T11:02:26 | 2018-04-23 | ['Jerry_Brown', 'California', 'Barbara_Boxer', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Gavin_Newsom'] |
goop-02042 | Keanu Reeves Did Say “Bitcoin Will Destroy Global Elite,” | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/keanu-reeves-bitcoin-destroy-global-elite-fake-news/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Keanu Reeves Did NOT Say “Bitcoin Will Destroy Global Elite,” Despite Fake News | 6:18 pm, December 12, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02028 | Monsanto Says Genetically Modified Ants Could Replace Honey Bees | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/monsanto-says-genetically-modified-ants-could-replace-honey-bees/ | null | insects | null | null | null | Monsanto Says Genetically Modified Ants Could Replace Honey Bees | Jun 24, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14874 | Obamacare isn't helping anyone. | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/11/carly-fiorina/carly-fiorina-says-obamacare-isnt-helping-anyone/ | The Affordable Care Act -- Obamacare to some -- is a perennial target of Republicans. But at the GOP presidential debate in Milwaukee, Carly Fiorina made a particularly strong statement about the law’s ineffectiveness. "Look, I'm a cancer survivor, okay?" Fiorina told moderator Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network. "I understand that you cannot have someone who's battled cancer just become known as a pre-existing condition. I understand that you cannot allow families to go bankrupt if they truly need help. But, I also understand that Obamacare isn't helping anyone." Fiorina’s staff did not respond to an inquiry, but during the debate, she listed a number of problems she has with the law. "It is crony capitalism at its worst," she said. "Who helped write this bill? Drug companies, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies. … Health insurance has always been a cozy, little game between regulators and health insurance companies." Fiorina also said that "Obamacare is crushing small businesses, it is not helping the families it was intended to help. So, let us allow states to manage high risk pools. Let us try the one thing in health insurance we've never tried, the free market. Let us ensure that as patients, and customers, that we have information to shop wisely for our health care." Reasonable arguments can be made against the law and its many provisions. But is no one at all getting any actual help from the law? We decided to take a closer look. Here are some of the provisions of the law and estimates of how many people have benefited from each. The estimates are from Charles Gaba, who has spent several years crunching the numbers for usage of the law at the blog ACAsignups.net. Gaba’s estimates are current through November 2015 unless noted: • Americans currently enrolled in policies bought on the ACA’s online exchange: 9.5 million, of which roughly 8 million are receiving subsidies under the law. Another 2.5 million were enrolled in such policies during 2015 but have since dropped their coverage. • Net number of Americans added to Medicaid due to the law: 15 million. This includes 10 million added through direct expansion of Medicaid under the law, 4 million new but previously eligible beneficiaries who signed up for Medicaid after the ACA passed, and about 1 million transferred to Medicaid from existing, state-based programs. • Number of young adults age 19 to 26 who have been able to stay on their parents’ insurance due to the law: Possibly 1 million to 3 million, but the numbers change so often it’s hard to get a solid number. Of the 25 million-plus total from these three categories, Gaba estimates, roughly 17 million are newly insured specifically because of the law -- approximately 5 million through the exchanges, 11 million through Medicaid, and 1 million assorted others. Here are a couple of more ways people are benefitting: • Americans no longer at risk for coverage denial due to pre-existing conditions: As PolitiFact has previously reported, between 19 percent and 50 percent of Americans fall into this category, or between 60 million and 160 million people. • Americans no longer at risk of being kicked off policies for developing expensive medical conditions: Smaller than the previous categories, but unknown. There is some overlap between these categories. But whatever the number is, it’s in the tens of millions -- and most of those people, Gaba said, "would disagree that it's ‘not helping anyone.’ " Jonathan Oberlander, a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, added two additional categories of Americans who have benefited from the ACA: • Medicare Part D beneficiaries, who are getting better prescription drug coverage: 39 million Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in the program. These and other Medicare beneficiaries are also getting such new benefits as free preventive screenings and an annual wellness checkup. • Americans with private insurance who now have access to preventive services at no charge: Unknown, but likely in the millions. Another way to look at it holistically is to gauge the net impact on national uninsurance rates. They have fallen sharply since the law has been put into practice, as this chart from the Kaiser Family Foundation illustrates: "The statement is utter nonsense. Put simply, it is a wild exaggeration that amounts to a lie," Oberlander said. "You can certainly debate the overall impact and desirability of Obamacare. But to say it isn’t helping anyone is to ignore both reality and overwhelming evidence to the contrary." Policy experts who have mixed feelings about the law or oppose it outright say that some of these benefits have come at too high a cost, or have left more people significantly hurt than significantly helped. For instance, Gail Wilensky, who ran Medicare and Medicaid under President George H.W. Bush and who has provided unofficial advice to Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign, said the law has squeezed out many of the more limited-benefit and catastrophic-coverage plans that beneficiaries may have liked, forcing them to pay for more expensive policies. "This has been a problem for people above 300 percent of the poverty line who get small subsidies, and it’s been a real problem for people above 400 percent of the poverty line who get no subsidy," Wilensky said. Michael Tanner, a scholar at the Cato Institute, said there have been both winners and losers, and that he expects that "the losers far outnumber the winners." That said, both Wilensky and Tanner agreed that Fiorina went too far in saying that "Obamacare isn't helping anyone." "People on expanded Medicaid or who were previously uninsured and substantially subsidized in the exchange are better off than they were," Wilensky said, even if "they may or may not be as well off as they could be." Tanner added that, despite his qualms with the law, "you can’t truthfully say that no one has benefited. Even if you believe that the previously uninsured are paying too much for crummy policies under the ACA, as I do, I don’t think you can say that none of them have benefited at all. That’s a pretty low bar, of course. If you flew across the country dumping money from an airplane, some people would benefit." Our ruling Fiorina said that "Obamacare isn't helping anyone." Even taking the low end of estimates, tens of millions of Americans have benefited from the ACA, in big ways (such as securing insurance for the first time) or smaller ways (paying less for drugs under Medicare Part D). One does not have to buy into every aspect of the law or feel comfortable with its overall price tag to acknowledge that lots of people have benefited from it. We rate Fiorina’s statement Pants on Fire. | null | Carly Fiorina | null | null | null | 2015-11-11T18:18:57 | 2015-11-10 | ['None'] |
pose-01174 | Districts would choose methods of assessing prekindergarten students at the start and finish of each school year from a list of approaches developed by the state. | compromise | https://www.politifact.com/texas/promises/abbott-o-meter/promise/1264/require-school-districts-prekindergarten-assess-st/ | null | abbott-o-meter | Greg Abbott | null | null | Require school districts with prekindergarten to assess student performance twice annually | 2015-01-20T14:00:00 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13833 | Independent analysts say (Donald Trump) would add $30 trillion to the national debt. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/13/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-says-according-analysts-donald-tru/ | Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have found common ground criticizing Donald Trump’s policy agenda, with Sanders formally endorsing Clinton as the Democratic nominee for president at a rally in New Hampshire. "Compare what Sen. Sanders and I intend to do with Donald Trump's plan," Clinton said. "His tax plan would make our current system even worse. Independent analysts say he would add $30 trillion to the national debt in order to give a massive gift to the wealthiest Americans, Wall Street money managers and our largest corporations. But after all, what else should we expect from someone who calls himself ‘The King of Debt?’ " We wondered whether Clinton was right that "independent analysts say (Donald Trump) would add $30 trillion to the national debt." As we have previously noted, the figure originated in a report from the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center, a nonpartisan group that, among other things, regularly analyzes the broader economic effects of presidential candidates’ tax proposals. In its report, the center found that "including interest costs, the proposal would add $11.2 trillion to the national debt by 2026 and $34.1 trillion by 2036." This estimate assumes no major spending cuts would be made, which tracks with the historical pattern, the authors said. The Clinton campaign also noted that Trump has never specified any cuts to offset his plan. So Clinton has a point that the $30 trillion-plus figure has been used by an independent organization. Still, it’s worth noting a couple caveats. • That analysis uses a 20-year time frame. When groups like the Tax Policy Center analyze the budgetary impact of policy proposals, they typically use a fixed "window" of time to measure the effects. Usually, it’s a 10-year window. In this case, the center offered both a 10-year window and a somewhat more unconventional 20-year window. Over 10 years, the center projected, Trump’s policies would increase the debt by $11.2 trillion. Over 20 years, they would increase the debt by $34.1 trillion. So Clinton cherry-picked the bigger one for her talking point -- a figure that was three times as big, and which used an unconventional window of time. Regardless of the time frame she used, failing to indicate a time period for the figure is somewhat misleading, said Roberton Williams, a Tax Policy Center fellow. • Clinton overlooked a study with a smaller projected debt increase. Another study of Trump’s policies, by the economic forecasting firm Moody’s, offered three scenarios, depending on whether one takes Trump’s policy proposals at face value, whether he enacts them with some compromises, or whether he ends up unable to enact much of his agenda. All the scenarios look at the impact of the resulting policies over 10 years. The first scenario produces additional debt of $9.7 trillion above current policies. The second produces a debt increase of $6.9 trillion above current policies. And the last produces a debt increase of less than $1 trillion above current policies. That final scenario is about 3 percent of the amount Clinton cited in the speech. Our ruling Clinton said that "independent analysts say (Donald Trump) would add $30 trillion to the national debt." The number does come from an independent, nonpartisan report. But Clinton didn’t cite the 20-year time frame for her statement, an important omission. And, she ignored smaller (though still substantial) projected increases from independent analysts. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate the statement Half True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/8a31cb99-354b-40e1-a2c7-4eae5158d98b | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2016-07-13T15:05:52 | 2016-07-12 | ['None'] |
tron-01513 | Clinton Sent Ambassador Stevens to Benghazi to Retrieve Stinger Missiles | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/clinton-sent-ambassador-stevens-benghazi-retrieve-stinger-missiles/ | null | government | null | null | ['barack obama', 'hillary clinton', 'international', 'national security'] | Clinton Sent Ambassador Stevens to Benghazi to Retrieve Stinger Missiles | Oct 18, 2016 | null | ['Bill_Clinton'] |
pomt-08748 | The DeWine campaign is "receiving money from so many more people. (Cordray's) money is coming almost exclusively from the party, labor unions, and special counsel that he has given business to." | half-true | /ohio/statements/2010/aug/30/mike-dewine/mike-dewine-says-attorney-general-richard-cordrays/ | One notion that Democrats in Ohio and elsewhere haven’t been able to shake over the last generation or so is that their campaigns are funded by cigar-puffing party big wigs and labor bosses. In the race to become Ohio’s next Attorney General, Republican candidate Mike DeWine played up to just this kind of stereotype during an interview with ONN anchor Jim Heath on the Aug. 15 edition of Capitol Square. Heath asked DeWine if he was concerned about trailing Democratic Attorney General Richard Cordray in fundraising. Cordray reported he had $3.5 million at the end of July, while DeWine, a former U.S. senator, had $2.1 million. After explaining that recent campaign finance reports showed the fundraising gap narrowing, DeWine turned the focus back onto Cordray, insinuating that he is a tool of the Democratic party and labor union bosses with a much narrower base of support. "The good thing I think is that we are receiving money from so many more people," DeWine said. "His (Cordray) money is coming almost exclusively from the party, labor unions, and special counsel that he has given business to." Surely, Cordray has received donations from the state party, labor unions and lawyers who got special contracts that are routinely doled out by the attorney general’s office. But is it "almost exclusively" from those sources? And can DeWine really lay claim to a much broader grassroots fundraising base? It sounded like a perfect job for PolitiFact, so we rolled up our sleeves, printed out a stack of campaign finance reports from 2009 and 2010 and got to work with multiple highlighters at the ready. The easiest part to figure out was the total number of donations each candidate received. DeWine was absolutely right about getting money from "so many more people." He got 4,811 individual donations compared to 1,529 for Cordray through the July 2010 reporting period. Clearly, DeWine has a much wider donation base. This is fueled in part by DeWine having a lot more micro-donors — the Republican had 428 people who gave $10 bucks or less while Cordray only had 43 in the last two years. Overall, Cordray has raised about $3.28 million, with the biggest single source coming from money from county and state parties which totals about $1.25 million—about 38 percent of his fundraising total. Most of that $1.25 million came from the state party coffers which kicked in about $1.15 million. And -- just as DeWine had surmised on the television program -- labor unions accounted for another big chunk of change. Cordray has received about $500,000 from Big Labor—which works out to be about 15 percent of his $3.28 million pile. The trickiest part was to try to figure out how many folks who got special counsel contracts from Cordray’s office also gave money to his campaign. To figure this out, we asked the attorney general’s office for a list of lawyers with special counsel contracts, as well as those approved to do collections for his office. It turns out that a number of firms with contracts did contribute — a total of almost $195,000 by our count — or about 6 percent of what Cordray has raised. (To be fair, a number of folks with special counsel contracts haven’t given anything at all to Cordray.) Leading the way are the attorneys for Calfee, Halter & Griswold. Employees from that Cleveland-based firm have donated $24,350. Calfee, Halter & Griswold has contracts that could be worth up to $1.13 million working primarily on patent matters for Cleveland State University, Ohio State University, Ohio University, Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine as well as the Department of Development. Add it up and here’s what you get: State and county Democratic Party accounts, labor unions and law firms with special contracts gave about 60 percent of the money raised by Cordray during this election cycle. That’s a clear majority of the dollars raised by Cordray but a far cry from "almost exclusively" providing the funds, as DeWine had claimed. So while DeWine was absolutely right in saying that he has a wider base, he missed the mark in claiming that Cordray’s dough came "almost exclusively" from a trio of sources. As a result, we rate his claim to be Half True. Comment on this item. | null | Mike DeWine | null | null | null | 2010-08-30T10:45:00 | 2010-08-15 | ['None'] |
snes-00324 | During an interview Sarah Palin asked, "What has NATO ever done for us? Where were they in World War II, when America defeated the Nazis.” | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sarah-palin-nato-quote/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Did Sarah Palin Bash NATO Allies for Not Helping During World War II? | 18 July 2018 | null | ['United_States', 'Sarah_Palin', 'NATO', 'World_War_II'] |
pomt-10735 | All of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care, those are already available. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2007/nov/10/hillary-clinton/not-all-records-are-available/ | At the Democratic debate on Oct. 30, moderator Tim Russert asked Hillary Clinton about delays in releasing White House records from her husband's administration and her tenure as first lady. The question has swirled around in recent weeks as she runs for president, in large measure on her record as a policymaking first lady. She answered, in part: "Well, actually, Tim, the (National) Archives is moving as rapidly as the Archives moves. There's about 20-million pieces of paper there and they are moving, and they are releasing as they do their process. And I am fully in favor of that. Now, all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care, those are already available." Clinton must be misinformed. It's true that many of the documents from the unsuccessful health care effort that Sen. Clinton helmed are available, but there are several gaps in the record, such as her calendar and internal memos. Judicial Watch, a conservative think tank and longtime Clinton critic, is suing to have its Freedom of Information Act request on the records filled. Also missing from the records are any correspondence on health care between her and former President Clinton. That has been designated for review at the former president's request. It's not knowable whether the documents will be cleared in time for either the primary or general election, but given delays at the National Archives and in the reviewing process, it seems questionable. 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 | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2007-11-10T00:00:00 | 2007-10-30 | ['None'] |
pomt-11061 | Obama administration kept illegal Mexican kids in detention camps as ‘experiment’ | mostly false | /punditfact/statements/2018/jun/25/blog-posting/did-obama-detain-illegal-mexican-children-experime/ | Public outcry over President Donald Trump’s now-terminated family separation policy inspired several defenses of the practice, with many conservative politicians and pundits arguing that it was a continuation of policies from earlier administrations. According to one blog site, Trump’s policy was no worse than a pilot program put in place under President Barack Obama. "Obama administration kept illegal Mexican kids in detention camps as ‘experiment,’" said a June 16, 2018 headline from the Lid, an online blog. Facebook flagged this story as part of its efforts to combat false news and misinformation on Facebook's News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Citing a Feb. 11, 2015, report from the Washington Post, the Lid story compared Trump’s policy to Obama’s Juvenile Referral Process, a pilot program in south Texas that sought to cut down on smuggling by detaining and questioning unaccompanied minors — known as "circuit children" — suspected of helping Mexican drug cartels transport people and narcotics across the border. The story said Obama’s program resulted in border agents "tossing some of those kids into internment camps as an experiment." "Under Obama, young illegal immigrants were put in ‘facilities’ so they could be squeezed for any information they may or may not have about drug cartels," the story said. "A program to detain kids is okay under a Democratic Party president, but preventing kids from going to jail with their parents is considered un-American when the president is a Republican." We decided to check this claim out and see how Trump’s policy compared with the Obama program; we found significant differences between the policies and their outcomes. The Lid did not respond to a request for comment sent via Facebook Messenger. Trump’s policy Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued an April memorandum announcing a "zero-tolerance" policy, according to which all immigrants apprehended for illegally crossing the U.S. border were referred for federal prosecution. Many immigrants subject to the zero-tolerance policy were adults traveling with children. Due to a 2015 district court decision, children cannot be held in federal jails with adults facing prosecution. Previous administrations shied away from prosecuting adults with children and, after the 2015 decision, tended to release families rather than separate them. But the Trump administration, citing its zero-tolerance policy, was separating families and placing children in shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services until they could be released to a sponsor. More than 2,300 children were separated from adults between May 5 and June 9, according to the Department of Homeland Security. There was no law requiring the separation of families, and Trump was not "preventing kids from going to jail" by ordering it, as the Lid story suggested. The Juvenile Referral Process Obama’s Juvenile Referral Process operated from May 2014 to September 2015 as a pilot program meant to combat smuggling. The program was the brainchild of former Border Patrol agent Robert Harris, whose intelligence analysts estimated that 78 percent of guides smuggling migrants and drugs into the U.S. were Mexicans younger than 18. Mexican drug cartels often hire or conscript teenagers to smuggle people and drugs across the border because teenagers are not prosecuted if caught. Under laws governing treatment of "unaccompanied alien children," minors from Mexico and Canada can be immediately sent back to their country. Sometimes they are deported by bus the same day they are apprehended. Minors from other nations, by contrast, must be transferred within 72 hours to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement and placed in the least restrictive setting possible until they can be flown home. Mexican teenagers smuggling on behalf of drug cartels are known as "circuit children," and Harris told the Washington Post that several were caught and released multiple times before the Juvenile Referral Process, which was designed to deter repeat crossings. In short, Mexican children suspected of smuggling drugs were held by the U.S. government rather than immediately being sent home. "It was used for unaccompanied Mexican minors who had multiple apprehensions – up to 30 a year in a few cases – and thus were thought to be working on behalf of human and drug smuggling organizations," said Randy Capps, director of research for U.S. programs at the Migration Policy Institute. The pilot progam also was established to create "some type of consequence for children involved in smuggling, as they are usually just returned to Mexico and often cross again," said Maureen Meyer, director for Mexico and migrant rights at the Washington Office on Latin America. Under the program, Border Patrol worked with the federal prosecutors to determine whether to criminally prosecute a repeat border-crosser suspected of smuggling. Those not selected for prosecution were referred to the Office of Refugee Resettlement like minors from non-contiguous countries instead of being deported. While detained — sometimes for months — and awaiting the chance to appear before an immigration court, minors under the Juvenile Referral Process faced questioning from U.S. authorities about their affiliations. Most minors who completed the program were eventually deported after seeing an immigration judge, according to a 2015 report from the Washington Office on Latin America. Denise Gilman, a law professor who directs the immigration clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, said conditions under the Juvenile Referral Process were not great. "It was a small pilot program for sure, although the detention facilities were certainly problematic and the length of detention uncertain," she said. Gilman noted that other facilities in Karnes City and Dilley, Texas, which the Obama administration used as licensed childcare facilities to detain families seeking asylum, did "resemble internment camps." She said this practice was "carefully circumscribed" by the end of the Obama administration as a result of legal challenges. But those facilities were separate from the process created under the Juvenile Referral Process, which handled only unaccompanied "circuit children" and placed them in the same Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities used for unaccompanied minors from non-contiguous countries. According to the Office of Refugee Resettlement website, these facilities are state-licensed and provide a range of care — including foster care, group homes, shelter, staff secure, secure and residential treatment centers — and they offer classroom education, health care, socialization and recreation opportunities, mental health services, legal services and case management. Meyer said these children were usually placed in the "‘secure’ juvenile detention centers that are more restrictive" because of their criminal activities. "I never heard of any Mexican child in a ‘detention camp,’" she said. Still, human rights advocates objected to the Juvenile Referral Program as an intelligence-gathering enterprise that could jeopardize minors’ post-deportation security. Violent drug cartels often retaliate against members suspected of talking with law enforcement by taking action against them or their families. Our ruling An online blog claimed, "Obama administration kept illegal Mexican kids in detention camps as 'experiment.'" The statement sounds far more sinister than the facts in evidence. The "experiment," the Juvenile Referral Process, detained older unaccompanied minors suspected of smuggling drugs or other immigrants across the border. These minors otherwise would have been immediately deported. They were housed in Office of Refugee Resettlement facilities in order to extract intelligence and cut down on smuggling. The pilot program lasted for slightly more than one year. Finally, the minors were not experimented on; rather, the program itself was a test. The statement has an element of truth, but leaves out critical context that would give a different impression. We rate this statement Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2018-06-25T12:27:16 | 2018-06-16 | ['Mexico', 'Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-05268 | In the state of Rhode Island 25 percent of our current physicians are graduates of for-profit medical schools. | false | /rhode-island/statements/2012/may/29/joseph-mcnamara/ri-rep-joseph-mcnamara-says-25-percent-rhode-islan/ | State Rep. Joseph M. McNamara has been out front supporting a virtually unheard of idea in America: a for-profit medical school. McNamara, a Warwick Democrat who chairs the House Health, Education and Welfare Committee, is pushing a bill that would place a "Rhode Island School of Osteopathic Medicine" on the same local stage now dominated by Brown University’s nonprofit Warren Alpert Medical School. In advocating for the school, McNamara took to the House floor recently. Responding to insinuations from a Brown dean that for-profit schools produced less competent doctors, McNamara told fellow legislators "in the state of Rhode Island 25 percent of our current physicians are graduates of for-profit medical schools." And, McNamara said, no one’s suggesting they’re any less qualified than doctors from nonprofit schools. We’re aware of the growing number of for-profit colleges and universities around the country, particularly on the web. But for-profit medical schools are much rarer. We wondered whether so many of Rhode Island’s doctors could be graduates of such schools. So we called McNamara and asked where he got his 25 percent figure. McNamara said it was cited in a letter he received from Steven C. Rodger, the principal proponent of the for-profit medical school. Rodger is president and CEO of R3 Education, a Massachusetts-based holding company that runs three for-profit medical schools in the Caribbean offering MD degrees. Rodger had earlier told McNamara’s committee that the new Rhode Island school would help ease the state’s shortage of primary care physicians, create up to 300 new jobs and generate more tax revenue, while charging significantly lower tuition than other medical schools. When McNamara faxed us Rodger’s letter, we immediately saw a couple of problems with his statement. The most obvious: the letter doesn’t say what McNamara said on the House floor, that 25 percent of Rhode Island’s doctors graduated from for-profit schools. Instead, it says Rhode Island has "over 25 percent of its active physicians workforce comprised of IMG’s," an acronym for international medical graduates. In other words: more than a quarter of Rhode Island’s doctors, according to the letter, graduated from international medical schools. That doesn’t mean they are all for-profit schools. We called Rodger to find out where his figure came from. He pointed us to the 2011 State Physician Workforce Data Book, published by the Association of American Medical Colleges. That report includes a table (actually prepared by the American Medical Association) showing that 908 of Rhode Island’s 3,513 active physicians in 2010 graduated from international medical schools, or 25.8 percent. That places Rhode Island 11th in the country in terms of the percentage of doctors who graduated from international medical schools. But again that doesn’t get to McNamara’s statement that a quarter of the state’s doctors graduated from for-profit medical schools. The United States has only one for-profit medical school, according to several sources:Rocky Vista University College of Osteopathic Medicine, in Parker, Colo., which opened in 2008. There are more than 2,246 medical schools around the world (including 137 accredited U.S. schools), according to the Foundation for Advancement of International Medical Education and Research. That’s a nonprofit group associated with the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, a private Philadelphia organization that certifies the readiness of international medical students into U.S. graduate programs. Rodger said he believes that most international medical schools, such as the three his company runs, are for-profit ventures, but he didn’t have any hard facts. His letter to McNamara made the same general statement without any attribution. PolitiFact Rhode Island tried to verify if that was true by checking with the Association of American Medical Colleges, the American Medical Association, the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine and finally the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates. None could say how many international medical schools were for-profit. Our ruling McNamara concedes he misspoke on the House floor. He said "25 percent of our current physicians are graduates of for-profit medical schools." He meant to say that a quarter of Rhode Island’s doctors graduated from international medical schools. McNamara says he was relying on information Rodger presented: "We [legislators] assume that people give us information that is accurate." But Rodger did provide accurate information -- as far as it went -- McNamara just cited it inaccurately. We rule his statement False. (Get updates from PolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on our PolitiFact Rhode Island Facebook page.) | null | Joseph McNamara | null | null | null | 2012-05-29T00:01:00 | 2012-05-15 | ['Rhode_Island'] |
pomt-13912 | The National Park Service has "an annual budget that is less than the city of Austin." | true | /texas/statements/2016/jun/24/jonathan-jarvis/national-park-service-director-correct-its-budget-/ | From the mountains to the valleys and to the oceans, the U.S. government spends less money running parks than Austin devotes to city government, a federal honcho told Congress. Jonathan Jarvis, director of the National Park Service, prefaced his June 14, 2016, mention of Austin with some agency self-celebration, telling the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: "The NPS manages many of our nation’s most iconic and beloved landscapes and historic sites. We are responsible for managing more than 400 individual parks with more than 84 million acres of land, stretching from Acadia National Park in the State of Maine to the National Park of American Samoa in the South Pacific. The NPS also manages numerous wild and scenic rivers and national trails; programs that recognize our nation’s historic structures; and programs that help local governments and organizations provide recreational opportunities and protect open space. We are seeing record-breaking visitation -- more than 300 million last year -- and the resulting economic activity created by the parks topped $16 billion." "We are accomplishing all of this," Jarvis said next, "on an annual budget that is less than the city of Austin, Texas." Right off, Jarvis seemed right on the numbers. For the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, 2015, the park service’s budget amounts to $3.4 billion, which folds in $2.85 billion appropriated by Congress plus expected fee revenue, a park service spokesman, Jeff Olson, advised by email. The service has 22,000 employees, he said. Olson, asked how Jarvis came to single out Austin, said that in preparing for the House hearing, Jarvis "was looking for another government entity's budget with which to compare the NPS." Jarvis settled on Austin for his comparison after looking online for the budgets of various cities, Olson said. For the same fiscal year, the Austin City Council approved a $3.5 billion budget, according to the published city budget. A city spokesman, David Green, conceded the numerical differences though he indicated that comparing the total budgets obscures vast differences between the federal agency and Austin city government. "While it is accurate to say Austin’s $3.5 billion budget is larger than that of the National Park Service," Green said by email, "it is difficult to make a direct comparison. The City of Austin has over 13,000 employees spread across more than 40 departments – including our own Water and Electric utilities – that provide daily direct service to more than 900,000 residents. The scope and mission of the city is simply too varied to make an apples-to-apples comparison," Green said. Olson, reacting to Green’s analysis, said by email: "It may be difficult to compare Austin to the NPS. While the city serves 900,000 residents, the NPS serves more than 300 million visitors each year, many of them from Austin, no doubt." A federal wrinkle? We asked a pro-parks group, the National Parks Conservation Association, about Jarvis’ claim. By email, spokeswoman Kati Schmidt said association experts pegged the service’s fiscal 2016 budget at $3.377 billion "after adding appropriated funds plus fees and other mandatory funding." But Schmidt also illuminated additional money coming to the park service for federal road projects. "Park service roads also benefit from Highway Trust Fund dollars for maintenance totaling $268 million this year," Schmidt wrote. That $268 million would drive up the agency’s total expected 2016 spending to $3.645 billion by our calculation--which would exceed Austin city government’s $3.5 billion budget. But hold on: We ran this thought past the park service’s Olson who said by phone it’s fair to say the additional roads money is being spent by the agency. Yet Olson said by email the $268 million is part of the U.S. Department of Transportation budget. The association’s Schmidt further told us the park service’s "resources/facilities also benefit at times from a variety of other random smaller sources like state grants and private donations (both monetary and in-kind), but we don’t have any sum total of all funding sources that benefit the" system. "These other sources are not technically part of the NPS budget so in terms of Jarvis’ reference to an ‘annual budget,’ indeed the claim appears to be defensible," Schmidt said. Citing insufficient knowledge about the city’s budget, Schmidt declined to speculate about whether the director made a fair apples-to-apples comparison. Some differences beyond budget totals It’s worth noting the park service and Austin’s city government draw on divergent revenue sources. Congress, which spends tax revenue, appropriated 84 percent of the park service’s budget. In contrast, just 24 percent of the city’s 2015-16 budget, or $818 million, was penciled in to come from tax revenue. On the other hand, the city budget shows $1.9 billion in revenue from "utility charges," largely meaning income from the sale of electricity, water and wastewater services; that chunk of money covers 54 percent of the city budget. Notably, too, the city has a capital improvements budget supported by debt, grants and fund transfers. In 2015-16, the Austin City Council appropriated $629.6 million for such projects; that amount is not part of the $3.5 billion total budget, city spokeswoman Alicia Dean told us by phone. So, the city plans to spend more than $4 billion in fiscal 2016, counting the regular and capital improvements budgets. Olson told us the park service’s 2016 budget folds in more than $192 million budgeted by the agency for comparable construction and repair/rehabilitation purposes. Put another way, he said, that money is part of the $3.4 billion total budget. Our ruling Jarvis said the National Park Service has an annual budget that is less than the budget for the city of Austin. For the fiscal year through September 2016, this is so by $100 million--though there are arguably plenty of differences between the agency and Austin city government that keep this comparison from meaning a great deal. We rate the 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. | null | Jonathan Jarvis | null | null | null | 2016-06-24T18:47:18 | 2016-06-14 | ['Austin,_Texas', 'National_Park_Service'] |
goop-00848 | Oprah, Janet Jackson Movie: What Ever Happened To It? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/oprah-janet-jackson-movie-not-true/ | null | null | null | Michael Lewittes | null | Oprah, Janet Jackson Movie: What Ever Happened To It? | 12:39 am, June 10, 2018 | null | ['Oprah_Winfrey', 'Janet_Jackson'] |
pomt-12446 | The Republican replacement for Obamacare does not give massive tax cuts to wealthy Americans. | false | /wisconsin/statements/2017/may/12/sean-duffy/republican-replacement-obamacare-does-not-contain-/ | Regarding taxes, headlines about the Republican replacement for Obamacare were blunt: GOP Health Care Bill Will Result In A Huge Tax Cut For The Rich -- Forbes One Certainty of GOP Health Plan: Tax Cuts for the Wealthy -- New York Times Republican health-care bill will 'cut the hell out of taxes' for the rich, says Warren Buffett -- CNBC Indeed, Buffett, the billionaire investor, said his personal tax bill would be 17 percent lower under the plan —a cut of about $680,000 on his tax bill of a little less than $4 million. So, it was puzzling to hear this exchange on May 9, 2017 between Erik Bilstad, a radio host at WTMJ in Milwaukee, and U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis.: Bilstad: Congressman, does this bill give massive tax cuts to wealthy Americans? Duffy: No; no. Duffy’s next words were a bit confusing, as he appeared to argue that in repealing Obamacare tax hikes, the GOP bill would benefit non-wealthy people, too: I mean, what happened was, if you look at even the medical device tax. Well, you can say the makers of medical devices may not be taxed, for example, but we all know that those medical device makers pass that tax on to middle-, average- and low-income Americans. They are the ones who actually pay that tax. I think that’s just a Democrat -- they’re throwing everything at the wall. Who wouldn’t expect Democrats, at every turn they could, to go, "Tax breaks for the wealthy"? Well, that’s what they do. The upshot is: Duffy said the GOP replacement for Obamacare does not give massive tax cuts to wealthy Americans. As we’ve covered in a previous fact-check, there’s no question that people at the top of the income scale would be singled out for tax cuts that, over 10 years, are estimated to be worth what can be considered a massive amount: hundreds of billions of dollars. The bill In a major political victory for President Donald Trump and U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the GOP bill was narrowly approved by the House of Representatives five days before Duffy’s statement. Even Republicans, though, say the legislation will likely be changed in the Senate. The House version would repeal nearly all taxes contained in Obamacare and make other tax changes. No official estimates have been done on the current version of the bill, which was changed after the original bill was voted down by the House in March 2017. But the tax cut figures are expected to be similar. The tax cuts Obamacare imposed a series of tax increases, primarily in an effort to provide health coverage to nearly all Americans. Some of those were aimed squarely at the wealthy. We found U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., went too far when he said that under "Trumpcare," as some Democrats call the GOP health bill, "$600 billion worth of tax breaks will go to the wealthiest in this country." Our rating was Half True. The tax breaks don’t help only the wealthiest -- but people on the high end of the income scale certainly benefit. Estimates on the original bill by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, which is staffed by independent professionals, put the value of the tax cuts at $600 billion over 10 years (2017 through 2026). Fully $275 billion would go only to high-income earners -- families with $250,000 or more in income ($200,000 for singles). That would be accomplished by repealing two of the key tax increases that fund Obamacare: a 3.8 percent tax on investments (capital gains, dividend and interest income) and a 0.9 percent Medicare surtax. According to the nonprofit Tax Policy Center: 85 percent of the benefits of repealing the investment tax would go to the top 1 percent of income earners. Ultimately, repealing the investment and the Medicare taxes would mean a 2 percent increase in income for the top 1 percent -- or $43,000 per year. Duffy’s staff argued that the GOP plan does not include tax cuts because it merely repeals tax increases, and that the tax increases themselves were never portrayed as "massive." But the $43,000 in additional income that the top 1 percent would get from the tax reductions begins to approach the median household income in the United States -- $55,775 per year. As for Duffy’s reference to repealing a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical device makers, that could result in lower prices for average consumers. And some other tax changes in the GOP health plan would benefit the middle class. But that doesn’t negate the fact that other tax breaks specifically help the rich. Our ruling Duffy says the Republican replacement for Obamacare does not give massive tax cuts to wealthy Americans. The bill that some call "Trumpcare" includes the repeal of tax hikes that specifically target the rich. Indeed, over 10 years, hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts would benefit only those earning $200,000 a year or more. We rate Duffy’s statement False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Sean Duffy | null | null | null | 2017-05-12T05:00:00 | 2017-05-09 | ['United_States', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act'] |
pomt-04515 | We’re now spending 42 percent of our economy on government. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/03/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-us-now-spending-42-percent-our-ec/ | During the first presidential debate in Denver, Mitt Romney warned that the U.S. risks harming its economy if government spending continues at its current pace. "Spain spends 42 percent of their total economy on government," Romney said. "We’re now spending 42 percent of our economy on government. I don’t want to go down the path to Spain." We looked into the scale of government in a previous item, which we’ll update here with the most recent figures. The Office of Management and Budget produces a table every year that tracks total government expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product. Here are the statistics for the past few fiscal years in question: Fiscal year 2007: 30.9 percent Fiscal year 2008: 32.6 percent Fiscal year 2009: 37.1 percent Fiscal year 2010: 35.4 percent Fiscal year 2011: 35.4 percent So by this measurement, Romney’s 42 percent figure is a little high. However, there is another measurement that backs up Romney’s claim. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development -- a group that includes most of the world’s advanced industrialized countries -- found that government expenditures accounted for 42 percent of the U.S. economy in 2009 (compared to 45.8 percent for Spain). Since the OMB data showed that government spending as a share of the economy peaked in 2009 before declining, likely because it was the first year of the recession, it seems reasonable to assume that the percentage will drop for subsequent years once the next OECD calculations are released. Still, it’s likely that Romney’s 42 percent figure is pretty close to accurate. However, using only the big-picture numbers tells only part of the story. Here’s the breakdown of spending for 2011, according to OMB: Federal expenditures for defense and international accounts: 5.0 percent Federal net interest expenditures: 1.8 percent Federal Social Security and Medicare expenditures: 8.6 percent Federal payments to individuals exclusive of Social Security and Medicare: 7.1 percent Federal spending in all other categories: 1.9 percent State and local government: 11.0 percent Total: 35.4 percent So payments to individuals accounted for almost half of federal expenditures. Why is this important? It’s a question of control, Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution told us when we originally looked at this question. These transfer payments, as they are known, "can be more or less freely spent by private individuals," Burtless said. "Your mom can spend her Social Security check any way she wants -- on food, shelter, vacations at Disney World or deposits in her bank account or her favorite mutual fund. Even cash public assistance recipients have pretty wide freedom over how they spend their welfare checks." Some transfer payments are more restrictive, such as food stamps or Medicare and Medicaid benefits, but these still allow some degree of consumer choice. "This distinction is important for a simple reason," Burtless said. While lawmakers and government officials have direct say over many types of government expenditures, "their say over government transfers is a lot more restricted." In addition, he said, many government transfer payments "are paid for with earmarked taxes – FICA and unemployment insurance taxes. When we get transfers from the government under Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance, we’re getting back the money that we or our employers contributed when we were working." While these are undoubtedly government expenditures, one could argue that they are actually pass-throughs of payments from the American public to itself. And it’s worth noting that Social Security and Medicare -- the drivers of government growth -- are among the most popular of all government programs. (PolitiFact has noted that Burtless contributed $750 to Obama’s campaign in 2011. However, in 2008 he provided advice on aspects of labor policy to the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and he has worked as a government economist and served on federal advisory panels under presidents of both parties.) Our ruling Depending on which data set you use, Romney’s numbers are either correct or close. But they don’t tell the whole story. A large share of the spending has come not from the cost of government employees, buildings and equipment but from transfer payments that individual Americans ultimately control (and, in many cases, under programs which they had paid into to begin with). On balance, we rate Romney’s statement Mostly True. | null | Mitt Romney | null | null | null | 2012-10-03T23:11:43 | 2012-10-03 | ['None'] |
pomt-13853 | We’re losing as many people to heroin and opioid overdoses as we lost to the AIDS epidemic at its peak. | mostly false | /new-york/statements/2016/jul/08/andrew-cuomo/fewer-people-are-dying-heroin-and-opioid-overdoses/ | Before signing legislation to combat New York State’s growing heroin and opiate addiction problem, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo compared the epidemic’s death toll to the number of people who died during the peak of the AIDS crisis. Cuomo, who created a heroin and opioids task force this year, said the number of people dying from a heroin or opiate overdose today is comparable to the number of people who died from AIDS at its worst. "Over the past 10 years we’ve lost 10,000 people to heroin overdoses and the numbers are increasing exponentially. It is spiking. It is becoming more and more available, especially among the younger community, it’s becoming more and more accepted, and it is truly, truly a frightening and staggering increase. We’re losing as many people to heroin and opioid overdoses as we lost to the AIDS epidemic at its peak. That’s how bad this is. Think about that: The AIDS epidemic – one of the worst things that society has had to deal with, and the loss of life is just about the same with this heroin epidemic. So the numbers are staggering, and it’s frightening, and it’s getting worse," Cuomo said, referring to the country’s growing problem with heroin and opiates. Cuomo’s office said the governor was referring to New York State residents when citing the loss of 10,000 lives over the past 10 years. In comparing recent heroin and opioid deaths to the AIDS death toll, Cuomo’s office said he was referring to national figures. So did the number of deaths from heroin and opioid overdoses actually match AIDS at its peak? Prescription Drug Overdoses vs. Heroin and Opioid Overdoses The number of people in the U.S. who died from a drug overdose in 2014 was 47,055, which rivals the worst year of the AIDS epidemic. But only about 60 percent - 28,647 - were from heroin and opioid overdoses, according to 2014 data from the Centers for Disease Control. The federal agency hasn’t finished compiling 2015 numbers yet, and no other government entity has released anything more recent. Deaths From AIDS That doesn’t come close to the deaths from AIDS at the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1995. The CDC’s mortality database, confirmed by a CDC representative, shows 43,115 deaths directly caused by AIDS that year. That’s different from the number of people who died with AIDS, which counts people who died following an AIDS diagnosis regardless of whether their deaths were related to the disease or not. What about overdoses after 2014? From 2014 to now, have the number of people who died from a heroin or opiate overdose increased to match the number of deaths from AIDS in 1995? To reach that level, data would have to show an increase of about 50 percent in the number of deaths from heroin and opioid overdoses between then and now. When contacted, the CDC would not speculate on whether such an increase was likely. In Erie County, deaths from heroin or opioid overdoses more than doubled between 2014 and 2015, according to the Erie County Health Department. Dr. Gale Burstein, the Erie County health commissioner, attributed the spike partly to what’s now being dealt on the streets. Dealers now often mix fentanyl, a painkiller, with heroin to increase potency. Cuomo’s office confirmed he was referring to the latest national data in his claim. In a phone conversation, a representative from the CDC said the agency has not finished compiling data for 2015. We base our ruling on the 2014 heroin and opioid overdose numbers. Our Ruling Cuomo, in a press conference in Buffalo, said, "We’re losing as many people to heroin and opioid overdoses as we lost to the AIDS epidemic at its peak." About 28,000 people died from a heroin or opioid overdose in 2014. About 43,000 people died from AIDS in 1995. Cuomo’s comparison is a reach. If he had been referring to the total number of drug overdoses, his claim would have been fine. There are more people dying from drug overdoses overall than the number who died from AIDS at the peak of the AIDS crisis. But the number of deaths from heroin and opioids alone continues to rise, more than doubling in Erie County alone between 2014 and 2015. We rate this claim as Mostly False. | null | Andrew Cuomo | null | null | null | 2016-07-08T15:25:08 | 2016-06-22 | ['HIV/AIDS'] |
pomt-04401 | Says Mitt Romney suggested that "employers should be able to make the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage." | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/17/barack-obama/obama-says-romney-suggested-employers-should-be-ab/ | President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney clashed over contraceptives coverage in their second debate, with Romney ultimately declaring, "the president's statement of my policy is completely and totally wrong." That sounded like a request for some fact-checking. So, was Obama totally wrong? The issue emerged in the Oct. 16, 2012, debate at Hofstra University after a question from the audience about how the candidates intended to fix income inequality for women. Obama touted signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, then said: "Now, there are some other issues that have a bearing on how women succeed in the workplace. For example, their health care. You know a major difference in this campaign is that Gov. Romney feels comfortable having politicians in Washington decide the health care choices that women are making. "I think that's a mistake. In my health care bill, I said insurance companies need to provide contraceptive coverage to everybody who is insured. Because this is not just a -- a health issue, it's an economic issue for women. It makes a difference. This is money out of that family's pocket. Gov. Romney not only opposed it, he suggested that in fact employers should be able to make the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage." Romney later responded: "I'd just note that I don't believe that bureaucrats in Washington should tell someone whether they can use contraceptives or not. And I don't believe employers should tell someone whether they could have contraceptive care or not. Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives. And the president's statement of my policy is completely and totally wrong." It's worth noting that they were talking past each other. Obama was referring to whether an employer should dictate whether employees’ insurance covers contraceptives. Romney sidestepped the issue about insurance coverage and said he opposes a different concept — whether employers can tell someone whether they can have contraceptive care. For this fact-check, we’re asking whether Romney has suggested that "employers should be able to make the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage." The Blunt amendment Obama’s support for his claim centers on something called the Blunt amendment. Early this year, congressional Republicans made a big push to roll back a provision by Health and Human Services under Obama’s health care law that requires most employers to provide birth control coverage without any out-of-pocket costs, with a limited exception for certain religious institutions. In the Senate, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., sponsored an amendment that would exempt employers from providing any service that went against their "beliefs or moral convictions." At the time, the issue put the Obama administration on the defensive and the president himself appeared at the White House briefing room to explain a work-around for religious affiliated hospitals, universities and the like. A few weeks later, with a vote on the Blunt amendment pending, Romney was asked where he stood. He told a Boston radio interviewer "Of course I support the Blunt amendment." CNSnews.com, a conservative news service, put the question directly to the Romney campaign. "Will Mitt Romney, on day one, rescind this mandate in its entirety — as the Catholic Church has urged the current administration to do — so that individuals, employers and insurers who have a ‘moral or religious objection to contraception or sterilization’ will not be forced to violate the tenets of their own faith or act against their consciences?" Romney campaign spokesman Ryan Williams responded: "Yes. Gov. Romney would rescind the mandate in its entirety." In April, Romney reiterated his opposition to the rule at a meeting of the National Rifle Association. He said, "As president, I will abolish it." So the Obama campaign argues if Romney supports an employer’s ability to decline to provide a service that goes against "beliefs or moral convictions," that means he supports employers making "the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage." Romney’s response We asked the Romney campaign to explain his objection to Obama’s claim. Here's a statement from spokeswoman Andrea Saul: "Gov. Romney’s statement speaks for itself. He does not believe that bureaucrats in Washington or employers should tell a woman whether she can use contraceptives, and no policy that he has proposed or supported would do so. To the contrary, he has repeatedly made clear that he believes all women should have access to contraception and make such personal choices themselves. The disagreement between the governor and President Obama on this issue is over whether the federal government should impose a nationwide insurance mandate for contraception. The president wants bureaucrats to make that decision for all Americans, even where it violates their religious liberty. Gov. Romney does not." The statement acknowledges that Romney opposes a nationwide mandate for contraception coverage. In the absence of a federal mandate, that would sometimes leave the decision to employers whether to offer coverage for birth control. (Before Obamacare, some 27 states already required such coverage, though we’re not sure how many had religious exceptions.) Our ruling Obama said Romney "suggested" that "employers should be able to make the decision as to whether or not a woman gets contraception through her insurance coverage." Romney says he doesn’t believe bureaucrats or employers should make the call whether a woman can use contraceptives. But his support for the Blunt amendment endorses the approach that employers should be able to make the decision about whether contraception is covered by employees’ insurance. We rate Obama’s claim True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2012-10-17T13:26:05 | 2012-10-16 | ['None'] |
pomt-00524 | The Confederate battle flag in South Carolina was first flown at the statehouse in 1961. "It was flown as a symbol of massive resistance to racial desegregation." | mostly true | /punditfact/statements/2015/jun/22/eugene-robinson/confederate-flag-wasnt-flown-south-carolina-state-/ | The Confederate flag flying outside of South Carolina’s statehouse has sparked debate across the nation following the brutal shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. At the center of much of the fervor is what the flag stands for. For some, the flag is a symbol for a shared Southern heritage. For others, the flag is linked to the Confederate War Memorial, which sits next to it and honors fallen Confederate soldiers. And yet others, such as Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, see the flag as a symbol for racial oppression and prejudice. "Do you know when that flag was first flown at the Columbia statehouse in Columbia?" he asked during an interview on Meet the Press June 21. "1961 … it was a middle finger directed at the federal government. It was flown there as a symbol of massive resistance to racial desegregation. Period." "It was only after Brown vs. Board, after Little Rock, after desegregation began, that South Carolinians put up the flag on the statehouse, that other states in the South adopted the battle flag as part of their state flags," Robinson said. "So it was massive resistance." Here we wanted to to answer two questions. One is simple, when did the Confederate battle flag first fly above the South Carolina statehouse? And second, why? The first time it flew Daniel Hollis, a member of the commission responsible for planning South Carolina’s Confederate War Centennial, recalled the exact day the flag was first hoisted during an interview published in 1999. Hollis said the flag itself went up on April 11, 1961, for the opening of the Civil War centennial "at the request of Aiken Rep. John A. May." "May told us he was going to introduce a resolution to fly the flag for a year from the capitol. I was against the flag going up," Hollis said, "but I kept quiet and went along." The resolution was approved in 1962, but never included a date for the flag’s removal. "It just stayed up," Hollis said. "Nobody raised a question." Hollis died in 2008. The flag’s changing meaning So, yes, the flag didn’t start flying until 100 years after the start of the Civil War. But why the flag was flown is -- like the flag itself -- subject to some debate. Robinson cited a study conducted by the state Senate of Georgia to help make his case. Although the study focuses on the history and evolution of Georgia’s state flag, it also explores the different Confederate flags that have existed and how those flags have been used by states. The study pays special attention to what the different flags mean. "It must be understood how the meaning of the battle flag has changed since the Civil War and explore what it meant at the time Georgia and other states adopted it or paid homage to it," the report reads. The study says that "from the end of the Civil War until the late 1940s, display of the battle flag was mostly limited to Confederate commemorations, Civil War re-enactments, and veterans’ parades. The flag had simply become a tribute to Confederate veterans." However, in 1948, the meaning of the flag began to change. That year, Dixiecrats flew the flag at their convention in Birmingham, Ala., as "a symbol of Southern protest and resistance to the federal government." In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board that segregation in education was unconstitutional. Georgia changed its state flag to embody the Confederate battle flag two years later. The period also saw Rosa Parks refuse to give up her seat on the bus (1955), the forced integration at Little Rock, Ark. (1957), and student sit-ins across the South (1960). We asked K. Michael Prince, author of Rally 'Round the Flag, Boys: South Carolina and the Confederate Flag, if he could pinpoint the root cause behind the raising of the Confederate battle flag in South Carolina. "As far as I've been able to determine, the bare facts … provide no clear evidence either way," Prince said. "It's possible that nobody had anything else in mind other than commemorating the war. But we would be remiss not to take the larger context into consideration in judging the meaning of the display," Prince said. Specifically, Prince cites arguments that broke out between a New Jersey centennial delegation and South Carolina. The National Civil War Centennial Commission meeting was to be held at a segregated hotel in Charleston, and a black delegate from New Jersey was denied admittance. New Jersey threatened to boycott all Charleston events in response. Eventually, a compromise was reached through the efforts of President John F. Kennedy. The meeting was moved to Charleston Naval Base where segregation was not in effect. "The official opening of the Civil War Centennial became a divided event, with dual headquarters and dual programs," Prince wrote in his book. "Except for a few luncheon speeches and the events held at Fort Sumter, centennial function followed separate (but equal) tracks." The dispute between New Jersey and South Carolina would go on to become the "Number 1 Story of the Year" in South Carolina’s Sumter Daily Item. Our ruling Robinson stated that when the Confederate flag was first flown over South Carolina’s statehouse in 1961, and it was hoisted as a symbol of "massive resistance to racial desegregation." Robinson is right on the date. The flag first flew over the statehouse to mark the opening ceremonies of a Civil War Centennial celebration. Whether it was raised as a deliberate symbol of a "resistance to racial desegregation" is not completely clear. Experts and research find a circumstantial link between the spread of the flag and the racial divisions of the 1950s and 1960s. We rate Robinson’s claim Mostly True. | null | Eugene Robinson | null | null | null | 2015-06-22T16:03:01 | 2015-06-21 | ['South_Carolina', 'Confederate_States_of_America'] |
pomt-13556 | Since President Obama came into office, another 2 million Hispanics have joined the ranks of those in poverty. … The number of Hispanic children living in poverty increased by 15 percent in that short period of time. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/aug/25/donald-trump/donald-trump-offers-misleading-statistics-about-hi/ | Furthering his efforts to reach out to minorities, Donald Trump at a rally in Tampa decried how Hispanics have fared economically under President Barack Obama. "Hispanic citizens have been suffering under this president," Trump said Aug. 24, 2016. "Since President Obama came into office, another 2 million Hispanics have joined the ranks of those in poverty. Two million have joined the ranks of poverty, not of wealth. I want you to join the ranks of people that are making phenomenal livings. ... The number of Hispanic children living in poverty increased by 15 percent in that short period of time." To test the accuracy of Trump’s comment, we turned to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which tracks poverty by age and race, among other characteristics. The most recent full year for which data has been published is 2014. Overall Hispanic poverty The data shows that Trump is on target if you start the clock in 2008, the year before Obama took office. Between 2008 and 2014, the number of Hispanics in poverty rose by a little over 2.1 million. But using that time span means using the year before Obama took office -- not "since" he took office -- and it also cherry-picks the data to largely precede the severe recession that began before Obama took office. Starting the clock in 2009 produces a smaller increase (754,000). If you started the clock in 2010, Hispanic poverty decreased by 418,000. Meanwhile, Trump’s comment also uses raw numbers of people in poverty, when statisticians usually prefer poverty rates, since rates take into account changes in the overall population being studied. If you use poverty rates instead of raw numbers, then Hispanic poverty has risen slightly since 2008 (0.4 percentage points), but has fallen by 1.7 points since 2009 and by 2.9 points since 2010. The chart below shows that Hispanic poverty rates have been declining for the latter part of Obama’s tenure. So Trump has presented a misleading picture of overall Hispanic poverty trends. Hispanic child poverty As for the Hispanic child poverty figures, the Census Bureau does show an increase of 15 percent in raw numbers between 2008 and 2014. But the same caveats from the previous statistic apply -- namely, starting at 2008 is problematic. If you instead start the clock in 2009, the increase in raw numbers was less than 1 percent, and if you start in 2010, it fell by 5 percent. As for the poverty rate among Hispanic children, it’s up by 1.3 percentage points since 2008, but down by 1.9 percentage points since 2009 and down 3 points since 2010. So, here too, Trump’s statistic is misleading. Our ruling Trump said that "since President Obama came into office, another 2 million Hispanics have joined the ranks of those in poverty. … The number of Hispanic children living in poverty increased by 15 percent in that short period of time." The numbers are close to accurate only if you start counting in 2008, before Obama took office and before the full effects of a recession that Obama inherited. And overall, the comment ignores that since the recession hit, Obama has overseen a general decline in Hispanic poverty. The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/1470c814-acc9-4771-b28f-79ed83d914a8 | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-08-25T11:30:33 | 2016-08-24 | ['Barack_Obama', 'Hispanic'] |
Subsets and Splits
SQL Console for pszemraj/multi_fc
Filters dataset entries containing 'law' in categories, tags, or reason fields, providing basic topic classification but offering limited analytical insight beyond simple keyword matching.
Healthcare Related Entries
Retrieves sample records containing healthcare-related keywords but doesn't provide meaningful analysis or patterns beyond basic filtering.