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pomt-15210 | There is debate among constitutional scholars about whether the First Amendment will continue to protect faith leaders from being forced to perform marriages against their religious beliefs. | mostly false | /georgia/statements/2015/aug/12/david-ralston/ralston-misfires-comment-about-debate-over-faith-l/ | Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, R-Blue Ridge, says June’s 5-4 Supreme Court ruling legalizing same-sex marriages is motivating him to pursue passage next year of a "pastor protection" bill. A working version of the bill reads: "No minister of the gospel or cleric or religious practitioner ordained or authorized to solemnize marriages according to the usages of the denomination, when acting in his or her official religious capacity, shall be required to solemnize any marriage in violation of his or her right to free exercise of religion." It was drawn up shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 26 in Obergefell v. Hodges that the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to same-sex marriage. The decision has been met with resistance in some states. "In Georgia, we're going to come down clearly on the side of the separation of church and state, and as long as you have constitutional scholars debating among themselves whether this is covered, then I think we need to remove all uncertainty and all doubt." Ralston said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on July 13, two days after he announced plans for his "pastor protection" bill. Ralston said his efforts are not connected to the "religious liberty" bills that have been at the center of some of the fiercest debates at the Capitol since 2014. Supporters see the "religious liberty" legislation as an extra layer of protection against government intrusion on religious beliefs, while critics say it would enable businesses to discriminate against gay customers. But what of the speaker’s claim of a debate among constitutional scholars? PolitiFact decided to dig deeper. First, a little background. Ralston was meeting with House Republicans on Jekyll Island in July when he first disclosed his plans to introduce a "pastor protection" bill in the 2016 General Assembly session. Several states have passed or are considering nearly identical bills, and two of these bills just became law in Texas and Oklahoma . Ralston says that in his House district in North Georgia, "there’s a lot of unease in the faith community over the reach and ramifications" of the Supreme Court’s decision. "What we are trying to do is dispel the unease, dispel the uncertainty and replace it with clarity," he told a radio reporter last month. What do scholars say? As soon as Ralston announced plans for the bill, some began to question: Was it necessary? Anthony Michael Kreis, a constitutional scholar at the University of Georgia, said nothing in the gay marriage ruling affects the religious freedom protections provided faith leaders under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. They still have the right to refuse to perform any marriage ceremony, Kreis said. Based on Ralston’s statement, suggesting a debate among constitutional scholars, we went in search of other opinions. We contacted constitutional law scholars in Georgia and across the country, including George Washington University law professor Ira C. Lupu and Georgia State University constitutional law professor Eric J. Segall. All said the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment prevents any minister, priest, rabbi or any other cleric from having to perform any religious ceremony - wedding or otherwise - against his or her faith. "Many, for example, will not perform interfaith weddings," said Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law expert and founding dean and distinguished professor of law at the University of California. The U.S. Supreme Court "has never said otherwise," Segall said. "And nothing in the same-sex marriage decision is to the contrary," he said. PolitiFact talked by telephone with Ralston, a lawyer by profession, and asked, "Do you believe they (faith leaders) are protected under the First Amendment?" "Arguably they are," the speaker said. He voiced concern that, with a U.S. Supreme Court that evolves, this could one day be an issue litigated in federal court. He also repeated his stance that, within the faith community, "there’s certainly uncertainty and unease." But, he acknowledged, "I don’t think it is the reality." He went to say: "We also have to deal with the perception." In a recent op-ed piece, Ralston wrote that "the Pastor's Protection Act will make absolutely clear our state government does not view clergy as state actors." Lupu, a nationally recognized scholar in constitutional law, said a civil marriage, based on its definition, "is not a matter that has historically been the domain of religious leaders -- certainly not the exclusive domain." "Think about divorce laws and how far they depart from Catholic or Orthodox Jewish teaching," he said. Lauren Sudeall Lucas, a constitutional law expert and Georgia State University law professor, said the high court in Obergefell v. Hodges was careful to emphasize that it is "the state" that cannot refuse to recognize same-sex marriages. Lupu said he knows of no constitutional scholar who believes that the state can dictate to a pastor regarding who qualifies for religious marriage. "So if Ralston says the Pastor Protection Act is legally necessary and adds something to the substance of the law, then he is speaking falsely," Lupu said. "If he says ‘I know it's not necessary, but it will provide reassurance to some,‘ that cannot be a falsehood, because it will indeed do that." Our ruling Georgia House Speaker David Ralston has announced he will propose a pastor protection bill, spelling out that faith leaders in the state have the right to refuse to perform any marriage ceremony that goes against their religious convictions. "In Georgia, we're going to come down clearly on the side of the separation of church and state, and as long as you have constitutional scholars debating among themselves whether this is covered, then I think we need to remove all uncertainty and all doubt," Ralston said in an interview two days after announcing plans for the bill. We don’t claim to have reached every constitutional scholar. But we could find no evidence that there are any constitutional scholars who believe the ruling diminishes the First Amendment protections of religious freedom or forces religious leaders to marry people against their personal religious beliefs. Ralston, himself, acknowledges that. But he says there’s unease in the community and a "perception" to contend with. That’s a different argument for the bill. We rate his statement Mostly False. | null | David Ralston | null | null | null | 2015-08-12T00:00:00 | 2015-07-13 | ['None'] |
goop-01402 | George Clooney Getting Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston Back Together? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/george-clooney-brad-pitt-jennifer-aniston-back-together-untrue/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | George Clooney Getting Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston Back Together? | 11:24 am, March 13, 2018 | null | ['Brad_Pitt', 'George_Clooney'] |
tron-02983 | Queen Elizabeth Offers to “Take Back” America | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/queen-elizabeth-offers-take-back-america/ | null | politics | null | null | ['2016 election', 'donald trump', 'foreign leaders', 'hillary clinton', 'satire'] | Queen Elizabeth Offers to “Take Back” America | Oct 31, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-09179 | “The Democrats have over 20 field agents to our zero." | half-true | /texas/statements/2010/jun/04/tom-mechler/challenger-gop-chair-says-democrats-have-20-field-/ | Republicans hold all 29 statewide elected offices in Texas. Check. Plus, no Republican has lost statewide since ‘94, Republicans hold solid majorities in the Texas Senate and Texas congressional delegation and the GOP could widen its edge in the Texas House in November’s elections. Check, check, check and (maybe) check. Such pro-Republican realities didn’t deter a candidate for the chairmanship of the Republican Party of Texas from sending out a press release May 27 generally charging the current chair, Cathie Adams of Dallas, with poor management. Tom Mechler of Amarillo also let loose with this: “The Democrats have over 20 field agents to our 0.” Really? The GOP's forces outnumbered? Before imagining wild scenarios—operatives speeding country roads, texting on the straightaways—keep in mind that a political “field agent” is simply a person entrusted with representing a party, interest group or candidate in a region or community. Agents are an entity’s eyes and ears, expected to track what matters to local residents and to fan support for their client in election years, like this one. Responding to our inquiry, Mechler spokesman Russ Duerstine, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, told us the state GOP let its only field organizer go early this year, a claim that a party spokesman declined to address. Later, Mechler said he reached his count, which he called an estimate, by looking at Texas-based workers for Republican and Democratic political groups, which seemed like a reasonable methodology. Starting our own check, we perused the major parties' websites. The Texas Democratic Party site lists 19 staff members though no one with a title indicating they work outside of its Austin headquarters. The state GOP’s site lists six staff members, likewise no one with a title suggesting they’re in the field. Next, we contacted the parties. GOP spokesman Bryan Preston declined comment on the party's field staff, while Kirsten Gray, spokeswoman for the Democrats, said in an email the party now has no field staffers but some staff members occasionally go into the field. End of story? Not. In April 2009, the Democratic National Committee dispatched an organizer, Luke Hayes, to Texas to direct the state’s chapter of Organizing for America, the national group that succeeded then-Sen. Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign committee, Obama for America. At the time, the Austin American-Statesman said there was speculation in Democratic circles about the national party putting up to 30 organizers into Republican-leaning Texas. That apparently hasn’t happened, though an Austin Democratic activist, Eugene Sepulveda, posted a blog in August saying he’d attended an event including “12 or 14” Texas-based OFA field organizers. Hector Nieto, spokesman for Organizing for America – Texas, declined to say how many staffers are in the state. Separately, though, we looked through DNC financial filings with the Federal Election Commission. The committee’s “disbursements” filing for April, the latest report available, shows salaries paid to 11 individuals with Texas addresses; add Hayes, whose listed address is in the Bronx, and there appear to have been 12 DNC-paid staff members in the state. According to the filing, those payees were spread among Austin, Houston, Brownsville, Dallas, El Paso, Garland, La Feria and Lorena. A similar filing by the Republican National Committee revealed no committee-paid Texas workers in April, though a Dallas resident was paid consulting, speaking and training fees. So, the count of D-vs.-R organizers appears to be 12 to 0. But hold on. State Comptroller Susan Combs, a Republican seeking her third term in November, has announced she'll be helming the GOP's election-year get-out-the-vote committee, dubbed Victory 2010. On the Republican side, such committees usually enlist field staff. The GOP's 2008 "victory" committee paid six field workers, according to Leanne Ivey, that committee's senior adviser. Ivey said the workers were based in Fort Worth, Dallas, Houston (which had two), San Antonio and Central Texas. And Democrats have more afoot as well. The Texas Democratic Trust and Lone Star Fund funnel money to pro-Democratic groups. For the six months that ended Dec. 31, we identified about a dozen individuals or companies with Texas addresses that fielded payments from at least one of the entities, according to finance reports filed with the state and federal government. But no recipients were precisely listed as field staff. Finally, we’d be remiss if we overlooked field-staff hirings by the party’s well-funded candidates for governor. GOP Gov. Rick Perry’s campaign told us he has 10 regional field directors. Democratic nominee Bill White’s campaign didn’t volunteer its field staff level. Spokeswoman Katy Bacon said in an email: “That’s competitive information, kind of like the recipe for Dr Pepper.” We visited again with Mechler, who said for his count, he assumed that 75 percent of the individuals funded in Texas by the Lone Star Fund and Texas Democratic Trust were field workers. He stood by his 20-to-0 ratio, calling it a fair estimate. We're comfortable saying Democrats have up to a dozen people working in the field. And the state GOP has no one. Also, it's possible some workers in both parties aren't identified as field staff in finance reports. It's also likely that future hires will change the ratio of ground troops. Based on available information, Mechler is right about his party for now, but overstates Democratic Party numbers. We rate his statement Half True. | null | Tom Mechler | null | null | null | 2010-06-04T15:06:17 | 2010-05-27 | ['None'] |
chct-00222 | FACT CHECK: Could Hillary Clinton Still Become President? | verdict: false | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/01/21/fact-check-could-hillary-clinton-still-become-president/ | null | null | null | Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 9:31 AM 01/21/2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00520 | Nationally, the unemployment rate for veterans is far greater than the national unemployment rate, and Wisconsin is "one of those rare examples where unemployment is actually lower for veterans than it is for the population as a whole and certainly lower than it is nationally." | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2015/jun/23/scott-walker/scott-walker-says-wisconsin-fares-better-nation-ve/ | Gov. Scott Walker is touting his record on veterans as he tours the country preparing to make a presidential bid. At a "Politics and Pies" event May 30, 2015 in New Hampshire, Walker boasted of the success veterans have had finding jobs in Wisconsin. "Nationally the unemployment rate for veterans is far greater than the national unemployment rate," Walker said, adding Wisconsin is "one of those rare examples where unemployment is actually lower for veterans than it is for the population as a whole and certainly lower than it is nationally." Are Wisconsin veterans doing that well in the Wisconsin job market? To support his claim, Walker's team sent a report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics about veteran and non-veteran employment. This is the best way to make the comparison, as opposed to measuring veterans vs the overall workforce. Let’s see how it breaks down. The national picture: Walker said "nationally, the unemployment rate for veterans is far greater than the national unemployment rate." But the national unemployment rate for veterans is actually lower than the rate for non-veterans. For veterans, the rate was 5.3 percent, compared to 6 percent for non-veterans. That's true historically as well. A report from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs shows that from 2000 to 2013, veterans had lower unemployment rates than non-veterans. The Wisconsin picture: Walker also said in Wisconsin "unemployment is actually lower for veterans than it is for the population." Wisconsin's rate for veterans was 4.1 percent while the rate for non-veterans was 5.4 percent. So, the state's veterans are employed at higher rates than their civilian counterparts. How rare is it? In his claim, Walker said Wisconsin’s situation was a "rare" one. But 32 other states also had veteran unemployment rates lower than non-veterans. That’s not all that rare. Wisconsin vs. national: Finally, Walker said Wisconsin's veteran unemployment rate was "certainly lower than it is nationally." Federal data confirms this aspect of the claim, with Wisconsin's veteran unemployment rate at 4.1 percent, while nationally the rate was 5.3 percent. So, the data he provided supported two of the four aspects to his claim. More about the data Comparing the fraction of vets who are unemployed in the state to the fraction of unemployed vets nationally makes sense, said Steven Deller, a professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. But unemployment rates don’t necessarily show the whole picture. The data takes an average from the last year’s monthly Current Population Survey of 60,000 households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics. People who have worked at a regular job in the previous week are considered employed, while people who are jobless, looking for a job and available for work are considered unemployed. But the approach doesn’t account for workers who are underemployed or employed outside their field, and doesn’t take into account discouraged workers who stopped looking for a job. BLS does calculate other unemployment rates, though they are not often cited by politicians or the media. One is known as the U-6, which takes the total of the unemployed, all persons marginally attached to the labor force and involuntary part-time workers. A rule of thumb puts the U-6 rate as double the conventional unemployment rate. The U-6 rate for Wisconsin is 12.1, while the national rate is 13.8. BLS economist Steve Hipple calculated an estimated U-6 rate for veterans nationally at 9.7 percent. BLS doesn’t publish state U-6 rates specifically for veterans, . Our rating Walker said "Nationally, the unemployment rate for veterans is far greater than the national unemployment rate," and Wisconsin is "one of those rare examples where unemployment is actually lower for veterans than it is for the population as a whole and certainly lower than it is nationally." Data from BLS supported two of the four aspects of his claim and experts cautioned about use of raw statistics. Our definition for Half True is a statement that is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. That fits here. | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2015-06-23T11:41:27 | 2015-05-30 | ['Wisconsin'] |
afck-00246 | “We are proud of our Top 10 ranking in the World Economic Forum competitiveness report with respect to financial services.” | mostly-correct | https://africacheck.org/reports/did-zuma-get-his-sona2016-facts-straight/ | null | null | null | null | null | Did Zuma get his #SoNA2016 facts straight? | 2016-02-11 07:51 | null | ['World_Economic_Forum'] |
hoer-00174 | Swiffer Wetjet Pet Death Email | bogus warning | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/swiffer-pet-death.html | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Swiffer Wetjet Pet Death Email Rumour | June 2006 | null | ['None'] |
afck-00139 | “We have connected a record 6 million Kenyans to electricity.” | misleading | https://africacheck.org/reports/fact-checking-kenyas-deputy-president-maize-imports-debt-electricity-police/ | null | null | null | null | null | Fact-checking Kenya’s deputy president on maize imports, debt, electricity & police | 2017-05-21 02:49 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14089 | Almost 100,000 people left Puerto Rico last year. | mostly true | /global-news/statements/2016/may/17/jack-lew/treasury-secretary-lew-says-about-100000-people-le/ | Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew is urging Congress to pass legislation to deal with Puerto Rico’s debt crisis, saying that without action the economy and welfare of the U.S. territory will continue to deteriorate. During an interview on the Bloomberg network, Lew said that Puerto Rican hospitals are ill-equipped to deal with the spread of the Zika virus, that schools are closing and that the failing economy is driving people out. "You have broad economic stress causing people to leave the island," Lew said May 3, 2016. "Almost 100,000 people left Puerto Rico last year." For an island with a total population around 3.5 million, that’s a serious exodus. We decided to see if Lew was right. Looking at the data Census data shows a small, but steady increase in the number of people leaving Puerto Rico for the mainland. More than 360,000 people went from Puerto Rico to the United States btween 2010 and 2014. However, the Census data isn’t out for 2015, which is the year Lew was talking about. So where did Lew get that figure? The estimate comes from the U.S. Department of Transportation, which tracks passengers departing from and arriving to the island. The Treasury Department has relied on this data before, according to department spokesperson Daniel Watson. The data show about 90,000 more people left Puerto Rico for the United States than came in. Census vs. Passenger data Create bar charts *The American Community Survey showing total out-migration of Puerto Rico to the US mainland **T-100 Domestic Market Data (US Carriers) None of this data includes people leaving Puerto Rico for somewhere other than the United States. Islanders mostly tend to head to the mainland, however, countries in Latin America, the Dominican Republic and Spain have been attracting Puerto Ricans as well. So the total number of migrants leaving the island is actually larger. Recent qualitative interviews by researchers from the Center for Puerto Rican Studies found that the people leaving Puerto Rico in the greatest numbers are nurses, paramedics, police officers, teachers, college professors and lawyers. They are often recruited and going to states with growing Hispanic populations in need of bilingual professionals. The surge in departures has led to the social media tag #yonomequito ("I am not going anywhere"). On Facebook this movement has been liked by 70,000 people. Our ruling Lew said that "almost 100,000 people left Puerto Rico last year." That appears to be close. Airline data suggests about 89,000 more people departed Puerto Rico for the United States then entered it in 2015. While that’s not a perfect estimate to measure out-migration, all the population trends suggest Puerto Rico is experiencing a surge in out-migration, as residents leave for better jobs and prospects in the United States. Lew’s statement is Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/560a7d4a-b482-4617-b070-ebed036363f7 | null | Jack Lew | null | null | null | 2016-05-17T10:38:46 | 2016-05-03 | ['None'] |
pomt-11052 | We’ve already started (the border wall). We started it in San Diego. | mostly false | /california/statements/2018/jun/26/donald-trump/has-construction-already-started-trumps-border-wal/ | Amid chants of "Build the Wall!" at a recent rally in Nevada, President Trump repeated the claim that construction has "already started" on the border wall in California. Here’s what Trump said, in context, at the Nevada rally on June 23, 2018: "We have to have strong borders. We’re going to have the (border) wall. We’re gonna have the wall. We’ve already started it .... (Audience cheers) "We’ve already started it. You know, we started it in San Diego." (Audience chants: "Build that Wall! Build that Wall! Build that Wall!") "Now we’re gonna have the wall. And we started it. We have $1.6 billion. We’ve started it. We’re fixing it. And we’re building new. And we’re starting it. … We’re getting the wall built." Has construction really started on Trump’s signature campaign promise: Building "a big, beautiful wall," on the U.S.-Mexico border? Trump has made similar statements in the past. In this fact check, we’ll focus on his claim: "We’ve already started (the border wall). We started it in San Diego." President Trump made his claim during a rally in Nevada on June 23, 2018. Projects at the border There are projects underway to replace fencing along the border in San Diego and further east in Calexico. Those call for new and taller, bollard-style barriers, which include a comb-like array of steel posts that border patrol agents can see through, some of which were planned long before Trump ran for office. A recent appropriation by Congress of $1.6 billion allows for the replacement of the old fencing, but not for the construction of any sort of concrete wall prototype as Trump requested. "The one thing we don’t fund is the one issue we all campaigned on — a border security wall — and that is not in the legislation," Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, founder of the House Freedom Caucus, said of the omnibus bill, according to an April article by FactCheck.org. In San Diego, the project underway will replace 14 miles of scrap metal fencing that’s now eight-to-10 feet high with the bollard-style barrier. That replacement will be 18-to-30 feet in height and include an anti-climbing plate, according to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection news release announcing the start of construction on June 1, 2018. The press release calls it the third "border wall construction project," which is misleading. That’s because none of the projects that have already started will produce the solid, 30-foot high concrete barrier Trump promised during his 2016 presidential campaign. More specifically, they won’t include any of the eight border wall prototype designs ordered by the Trump administration. "... this isn’t Trump’s wall" The same goes for the 2.25-mile barrier replacement project east of San Diego in Calexico. "First and foremost, this isn’t Trump’s wall," Jonathan Pacheco, a spokesman for the Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector, which includes Calexico, told the Los Angeles Times in March 2018. "This isn’t the infrastructure that Trump is trying to bring in. … This new wall replacement has absolutely nothing to do with the prototypes that were shown over in the San Diego area." Plans for the Calexico project, which also include a bollard-style structure, began in 2009 under the Obama administration and were funded in 2017, under Trump, according to the Times. A spokesman for the Border Patrol’s San Diego Sector said they could not specify when planning started for the San Diego project. "These were funded under FY2017 so planning was before or during that time," Ralph DeSio, the agency’s San Diego-based spokesman, wrote in an email. The White House did not respond to a request for evidence supporting the president’s statement. The reality of what’s being built at these sites, and how it differs from Trump’s campaign promise, hasn’t stopped the president from distorting the facts. In April, PolitiFact National rated Mostly False Trump’s similar statement: "We’ve started building the wall." It found Trump’s words "leave the impression that construction is underway for the border wall he promised, and that $1.6 billion is helping pay for it. That’s not the case." It concluded that "it’s disingenuous to claim" the projects underway "amount to the border wall Trump has long promised." Our ruling President Trump recently claimed: "We’ve already started (the border wall). We started it in San Diego." His statement gives the wrong impression that border fence replacement projects in California, including those in San Diego and Calexico, are the same as the solid, 30-foot-high concrete wall he promised during his run for president. The $1.6 billion authorized by Congress for these projects does not allow for the construction of any sort of wall prototype requested by Trump. Instead, the projects underway include arrays of steel posts, between 18 and 30 feet high, that allow border patrol agents to see through. The planning for at least some of these projects, which will replace shorter scrap metal fencing, started long before Trump ran for office. Congress, however, agreed to pay for them under Trump’s administration. We also grant that Trump at the Nevada rally added: "We’re fixing it. And we’re building new." This could be interpreted as a slight acknowledgement that the projects aren’t exactly what he promised, but they don’t add much clarity to what overall is a misleading statement. We rate Trump’s claim Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2018-06-26T14:45:28 | 2018-06-23 | ['San_Diego'] |
pomt-01222 | In Wisconsin, unions can essentially give "unlimited" contributions to political parties, but business can't give any. | mostly true | /wisconsin/statements/2014/nov/21/robin-vos/wisconsin-unions-can-give-unlimited-funds-politica/ | Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos sounded euphoric on Milwaukee radio on Nov. 5, 2014, the morning after the mid-term elections. "How are you?" he was asked by conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes. "Charlie, I literally could not be better," Vos replied. Not only had Republican Gov. Scott Walker won re-election, but gains in the Assembly meant Republicans would enjoy their largest majority in that chamber since 1957. In the interview, Vos laid out a number of his priorities for the next legislative session, which starts in January 2015. One proposal would allow business contributions to the political parties. "Right now, if you are the Democratic Party, you can take unlimited union money, in many ways, but there's a prohibition on business being able to give to a political party," Vos claimed. "I’d like to get rid of that and create a level playing field." Vos presumably was singling out the Democratic Party because it typically gets more support from unions than the GOP does. We’ll check both parts of his claim -- that in Wisconsin, unions can essentially make unlimited contributions to political parties, while businesses can’t make any. Unions State law allows unions to contribute directly to political parties (and to candidates, for that matter). But since at least 2008, no union has used its "treasury" funds to directly make a contribution to a political party, according to the state Government Accountability Board, which oversees state elections. There is a strong disincentive to contribute that way. If they did, unions would have to register with the state as a political committee and would have to disclose all their sources of revenue and all their disbursements. Instead, what unions typically do is create political action committees, which in turn make contributions to political parties (and candidates). A union can give a PAC the equivalent of $20 per union member per year without having to disclose the names of the union members. Or, the union can give unlimited amounts to PACs, as long as the union members’ names are disclosed. PACs, though, are limited to contributing $6,000 per year to a political party. So, unions are allowed to contribute directly to political parties -- but, in practice, they don’t. They are allowed to give unlimited amounts of money to a political action committee, but a PAC is limited to how much it can give to a party. Business The second part of Vos’ claim is that "there's a prohibition on business being able to give to a political party." In Wisconsin, campaign contributions must originate from individuals. That means business owners -- those who own sole proprietorships or partnerships -- can make contributions to political parties (as well as to candidates and political action committees). That is, as long as the source is personal funds and not funds from the business -- and as long as they follow the limit for a particular race. But Wisconsin prohibits corporations, including limited liability companies, from making contributions to parties, candidates or PACs. Like unions, corporations can form political action committees to solicit campaign contributions from individuals. But as we’ve noted, unlike unions, corporations can’t make contributions to PACs. Vos told us he’d like to see state law changed so that it treats corporations like unions -- in other words, allowing corporations to make the same kind of political contributions as unions do. Our rating Vos said that in Wisconsin, unions can essentially give "unlimited" contributions to political parties, but business can't give any. The law allows unions to make unlimited contributions to the parties, but in practice, they make no such direct contributions at all. Rather, they give to political action committees, which in turn are limited in what they can give to parties. Business owners using their personal funds can contribute to political parties, within limits, but corporations can't make any such contributions. We rate the claim Mostly True. To comment on this item, go to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel website. | null | Robin Vos | null | null | null | 2014-11-21T12:00:00 | 2014-11-05 | ['Wisconsin'] |
snes-03130 | Rep. Chris Collins, a member of President-elect Donald Trump's transition team, compared civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis to "a spoiled chimp who got too many bananas and rights." | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chris-collins-john-lewis-spoiled-chimp/ | null | Junk News | null | David Emery | null | Chris Collins Says John Lewis Is ‘Like a Spoiled Chimp That Got Too Many Bananas’? | 16 January 2017 | null | ['Donald_Trump', 'John_Lewis_(U.S._politician)'] |
pomt-03917 | Says that except for foreign policy, Ron Paul’s voting record and his voting record are virtually identical. | true | /georgia/statements/2013/feb/25/paul-broun/broun-claims-parallel-ron-pauls-voting-record/ | Outspoken Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Paul Broun announced earlier this month his intentions to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Georgia Republican Saxby Chambliss. Since announcing, Broun has been careful to publicly present himself as a collegial congressman. In public comments, Broun has touted his willingness to work with more liberal lawmakers to solve some of the country’s biggest problems. This is a far cry from Broun’s typical fiery demeanor and anti-Obama rhetoric that has come to symbolize his congressional leadership. In a fundraiser letter that surfaced recently, Broun went back to his roots. The four-page letter includes a rant against President Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders for "running roughshod" over the Constitution. In the letter, Broun makes a point of emphatically laying out his conservative beliefs and voting record. He also calls other conservatives like former Florida congressman Allen West and U.S. Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky his friends. Broun also aligns himself with Rand Paul’s father, former Texas congressman and Libertarian Ron Paul: "Truth be told," Broun says in the letter, "except for foreign policy, Ron Paul’s voting record and mine are virtually identical." Politicians frequently align themselves with other party favorites, with varying results. PolitiFact Georgia examined whether Broun was correct about his voting record, and similarity to Ron Paul. Both Broun and Paul have embraced conservative positions on issues such as the role of government and government spending. In addition to their political opinions, the men share medical backgrounds. Paul was a military flight surgeon who went on to become an obstetrician-gynecologist. Broun practiced general medicine and operated a business based strictly on house calls. Paul served in the U.S. House on three separate occasions. His latest term, from 1997 to 2013, overlapped about six years with Broun’s congressional tenure, which began in 2007. Using the congressional tracking site, VoteSmart.org, PolitiFact reviewed 383 votes made by both men during their concurrent time in office, beginning in July 2007. That search revealed 42 times that the congressmen voted different ways on the same bill. Taking into account Broun’s foreign policy caveat, the number drops to 23 opposing votes. PolitiFact Georgia assumed votes involving defense topics as foreign policy. Based on those numbers, 6 percent of votes cast by Broun differed from those cast by Paul. We called and emailed questions about the letter to Broun’s staff for comment, but received no response. "Paul has this image of being conservative, so it’s not surprising that they would agree on many things except foreign policy," said Kennesaw State University professor Kerwin Swint. "On foreign policy, Paul is to the left of Obama." Last week, TheTeaParty.net, a conservative grassroots group, endorsed Broun in the U.S. Senate race. Broun will be up against well-funded "establishment moderates" and "deep-pocketed country club fundraisers like Karl Rove," organization founder Todd Cefaratti said in a news release, but that Broun’s campaign will have the support of thousands of citizens worried about the country’s future. Broun said except for foreign policy, his voting record and Ron Paul’s voting record were virtually identical. The men’s congressional terms overlapped from 2007 to January 2013. During that time, PolitiFact Georgia found that the congressmen’s votes differed just 6 percent of the time after the foreign policy exclusion. We rated Broun’s statement True. Staff writer Karishma Mehrotra contributed to this article. | null | Paul Broun | null | null | null | 2013-02-25T06:00:00 | 2013-02-13 | ['None'] |
pomt-09799 | The Obama administration "was successful in rushing a massive spending bill through Congress in just two days — after which it sat on the president's desk for three days, while he was away on vacation." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/15/thomas-sowell/sowell-claims-stimulus-was-rushed-through-congress/ | In a recent column in Investor's Business Daily , economist and political commentator Thomas Sowell said that President Barack Obama was trying to rush his health care bill through Congress. Sowell cited the quick passage of the economic stimulus bill in February 2009 as proof that Obama is too hasty in passing major legislation. Sowell wrote that "the administration was successful in rushing a massive spending bill through Congress in just two days — after which it sat on the president's desk for three days, while he was away on vacation." We wondered if Sowell was right, so we checked the bill's timeline. It's important to note that the bill had been under discussion for at least two months before it was formally introduced. When Obama announced his selection of economic advisers on Nov. 24, 2008, he said he had asked his team to come up with a stimulus plan to help struggling automakers, stabilize the financial system, create jobs and invest in infrastructure. A search of Thomas , the Library of Congress Web site that tracks legislation, shows that H.R. 1, the economic stimulus bill known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, was formally introduced in the House on Jan. 26. (In fact, four days before the bill was formally introduced, it was discussed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.) On Jan. 28, two days after the bill was introduced, it was passed by the full House in a party-line vote. The Senate took longer. Senators received the bill Jan. 29 and passed it Feb. 10. Then, the House and Senate had to work out their differences in a conference committee. It finished work on Feb. 12. Finally, on Feb. 13 — almost three weeks after the bill was introduced in the House — the final version was approved by both houses. So it took nearly three weeks to pass Congress, not two days as Sowell claims. And the bill had been under discussion since at least November. The second part of Sowell's claim was that that bill "sat on the president's desk for three days, while he was away on vacation." We checked with the White House, and a spokeswoman told us the president received the bill on Feb. 16, 2009, and signed it into law the very next day. The Thomas Web site confirmed that. Although the bill was cleared for the White House by the Senate on Friday, Feb. 13, it wasn't formally presented to the president until the following Monday, Feb. 16. He signed it Feb. 17. Obama did spend that weekend in Chicago to celebrate Valentine's Day with first lady Michelle Obama, but the bill had not been formally presented to him, contrary to Sowell's claim that it was sitting on his desk. (Sowell did not respond to an e-mail from PolitiFact.) Congress acted quickly on the stimulus bill — after all, the purpose was to rapidly pump money into the economy — but it took far longer than the two days that Sowell claimed. And Obama signed the bill the day after he received it, not three days later as Sowell claimed. We rate his claim False. | null | Thomas Sowell | null | null | null | 2009-09-15T14:39:16 | 2009-09-08 | ['United_States_Congress', 'Barack_Obama'] |
snes-04976 | A photograph depicts a sign on a unisex Kroger bathroom addressing recent controversies about gender and restroom use. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kroger-unisex-bathroom-sign/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Kroger Unisex Bathroom Sign | 31 March 2016 | null | ['None'] |
huca-00025 | "We have fully restored the interim federal health program for our Syrian refugees who will soon be on their way to Canada. Both the basic benefits and the supplementary benefits will be available to all of them." | some baloney | https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/12/16/baloney-meter-did-the-government-restore-health-benefits-to-syrian-refugees_n_8817254.html?utm_hp_ref=ca-baloney-meter | null | null | Immigration Minister John McCallum | Stephanie Levitz, The Canadian Press | null | Liberal Claim On Restoring Health Benefits To Syrian Refugees Contains 'Some Baloney' | 12/16/2015 08:16 EST | Dec. 9. 2015. | ['Canada', 'Syria'] |
goop-02306 | Drake “Heartbroken” Rihanna “Blew Off” His Birthday Party? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/drake-birthday-party-rihanna/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Drake “Heartbroken” Rihanna “Blew Off” His Birthday Party? | 9:52 pm, October 24, 2017 | null | ['Rihanna', 'Drake_(rapper)'] |
snes-06278 | Sesame Street muppets Bert and Ernie are live-in lovers, and they're about to get married. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/open-sesame/ | null | Entertainment | null | Snopes Staff | null | Are Bert and Ernie Gay? | 14 December 1997 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04029 | Ted Nugent called Colin Kaepernick a "chimp" when discussing the President's support for the athlete's protest. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ted-nugent-kaepernick-chimp/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Ted Nugent: ‘I Don’t Get How a Chimp Gets to Invoke Human Rights’ | 15 September 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04087 | Since 1968, "more Americans have died from gunfire than died in … all the wars of this country's history." | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jan/18/mark-shields/pbs-commentator-mark-shields-says-more-killed-guns/ | Since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., supporters and opponents of gun control have thrown out statistics to support their point of view. Here’s one that caught our eye, offered by liberal commentator Mark Shields on the Dec. 21, 2012, edition of the PBS NewsHour. Shields told host Judy Woodruff, "You know, Judy, the reality is -- and it's a terrible reality -- since Robert Kennedy died in the Ambassador Hotel on June 4, 1968, more Americans have died from gunfire than died in … all the wars of this country's history, from the Revolutionary through the Civil War, World War I, World War II, in those 43 years. ... I mean, guns are a problem. And I think they still have to be confronted." Is the death toll that high? Let's examine each half of his comparison. Deaths from warfare We found a comprehensive study of war-related deaths published by the Congressional Research Service on Feb. 26, 2010, and we supplemented that with data for deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan using the website icasualties.org. Where possible, we’ve used the broadest definition of "death" -- that is, all war-related deaths, not just those that occurred in combat. Here’s a summary of deaths by major conflict: Revolutionary War 4,435 War of 1812 2,260 Mexican War 13,283 Civil War (Union and Confederate, estimated) 525,000 Spanish-American War 2,446 World War I 116,516 World War II 405,399 Korean War 36,574 Vietnam War 58,220 Persian Gulf War 383 Afghanistan War 2,175 Iraq War 4,486 Total 1,171,177 Another 362 deaths resulted from other conflicts since 1980, such as interventions in Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Somalia and Haiti, but the number is not large enough to make a difference. Gunfire deaths The number of deaths from gunfire is a bit more complicated to total. Two Internet-accessible data sets from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention allow us to pin down the number of deaths from 1981 to 1998 and from 1999 to 2010. We’ve added FBI figures for 2011, and we offer a number for 1968 to 1980 using a conservative estimate of data we found in a graph in this 1994 paper published by the CDC. Here is a summary. The figures below refer to total deaths caused by firearms: 1968 to 1980 377,000 1981 to 1998 620,525 1999 to 2010 364,483 2011 32,163 Total 1,384,171 We should note that these figures refer to all gun-fire related deaths -- not just homicides, but also suicides and accidental deaths. In 2011, about one-quarter of firearm-related deaths were homicides, according to FBI and CDC data. Using total firearm-related deaths makes the case against guns more dramatic than just using homicides alone. When we rated a previous Facebook post, we lowered an otherwise True claim to Mostly True because it said that "nearly 100,000 people get shot every year." We found that the number of gun deaths and non-fatal injuries added up to 104,852, but we concluded that the term "get shot" could suggest victims who got shot by someone else rather than by their own hand. We don’t see a similar problem with the way Shields’ comment was phrased -- namely, "died from gunfire." Our ruling Since Shields’ comparison was otherwise accurate, with about 1.4 million firearm deaths to 1.2 million in war, we rated his claim True. | null | Mark Shields | null | null | null | 2013-01-18T11:27:57 | 2012-12-21 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-11184 | Say Maxine Waters told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that her first act as president would be to "impeach Donald Trump." | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/17/blog-posting/no-maxine-waters-comment-anderson-cooper-meme-made/ | Maxine Waters may be just one of 435 members of Congress, but President Donald Trump has elevated the profile of the California Democrat. In March, at a campaign rally in southwestern Pennsylvania, Trump called Waters — a fierce opponent and the president’s ideological opposite — "a very low-I.Q. individual." "You ever see her?" Trump continued, to boos aimed at Waters. "You ever seen her? You ever see her? 'We will impeach him! We will impeach the president!' But he hasn't done anything wrong. ‘It doesn't matter, we will impeach him!’ She's a low I.Q. individual. You can't help it. She really is." Given Waters’ role as a foil for Trump, she has become fodder for social media posts by Trump’s allies. One we came across was the following post that appeared on May 15, 2018, on the Facebook page "Judge Jeanine Pirro has Fans." This Facebook group bills itself as an independent fan page for Pirro, a Fox News host who is closely allied with Trump. According to the Facebook group’s "about" page, "Judge Jeanine Pirro is out spoken and always on target. This site will expound on what the Judge is talking about and report what mainstream media won't." The group counted 713,110 followers when we first saw the post. The post shows what appeared to be a screenshot of a CNN appearance by Waters with host Anderson Cooper. The chyron at the bottom of the screen said, "Maxine Waters 2020," and the meme offered the following dialogue: Anderson: "If elected what would your first act as President be?" Waters: "Well Anderson, I would impeach Donald Trump." The group shared the image by saying, "And we pay her a salary!" The problem: Waters never said anything of the sort. The image appears to be from a real newscast on April 19, 2017, when Cooper interviewed Waters about Bill O’Reilly’s departure from Fox News. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com But the chyron "Maxine Waters 2020" is fake. The original chyron said, "Bill O’Reilly Out at Fox News." The meme aims to make it look like Waters actually said that she would impeach Trump if elected president, which would be nonsensical. Obviously, there would be no need to impeach Trump if she either defeated him or succeeded him after he left office. Also, it’s up to Congress to impeach the president. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com Waters has called for investigations that could lead to Trump’s impeachment, but on several occasions — including an interview with the platform Cheddar and a rally at the U.S. Capitol — she called for Trump’s impeachment directly. When she denied on MSNBC in April 2017 that she had called for Trump’s impeachment, we rated her claim Pants on Fire. We found no evidence that Waters is seriously considering a run for president. While she has occasionally joked about it, she shot down the idea during an appearance on The View in August 2017. (Her office did not respond to an inquiry for this article; nor did the administrator for the Pirro fan site) Snopes.com noted that the meme appeared elsewhere before the Pirro fan site picked it up. The faked dialogue seems to have initially started as a joke in a May 11 tweet, and a version with the Cooper-Waters visual was retweeted May 14 by Fox News host Brian Kilmeade (he added: "genius"), earning more than 900 retweets and more than 3,000 likes. Our ruling Viral social media posts said Maxine Waters told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that her first act as president would be to "impeach Donald Trump." This exchange never happened; it appears to have emerged as a joke that was eventually attached to a screenshot of an unrelated interview. In any case, the comments are nonsensical and may have more to do with making Waters look unintelligent than with the actual impeachment process. We rate it Pants on Fire. See Figure 3 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2018-05-17T17:30:52 | 2018-05-15 | ['Anderson_Cooper', 'CNN', 'Maxine_Waters', 'Donald_Trump'] |
pomt-04853 | Says Texas GOP platform calls for end to teaching "critical thinking" in public schools. | half-true | /texas/statements/2012/aug/11/gail-collins/gail-collins-says-texas-gop-platform-calls-schools/ | New York Times columnist Gail Collins’ latest book, "As Texas Goes," takes the state to task for, well, being Texas. And her Aug. 1, 2012, column did pretty much the same. Casting the nomination of Ted Cruz for U.S. Senate as a harbinger of doom, Collins wrote that Texas "does tend to treasure the extreme" in politics, saying, "The current Republican state platform calls for an end to the teaching of ‘critical thinking’ in public schools." Collins is actually a bit late to this party: Major liberal websites launched assaults on this part of the 2012 platform (adopted June 8) as early as June 26, and Comedy Central’s "Colbert Report" satirized it July 17. Mainstream media weighed in, too. A July 9 Washington Post blog entry was headlined "Texas GOP rejects ‘critical thinking’ skills. Really." Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts wrote July 21: "The Texas GOP has set itself explicitly against teaching children to be critical thinkers." Austin American-Statesman opinion columnist Ken Herman reported July 21 that the party’s deputy executive director, Chris Elam, told him the platform subcommittee did not intend to indicate that the party opposed critical thinking skills. We began our research by trying to contact Collins but did not hear from her. Her column gives no information about her claim beyond that single sentence. We pulled the complete wording of the "Knowledge-Based Education" plank from the 2012 platform: We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority. Next, we contacted Elam, who told us by email that party chairman Steve Munisteri had given a good explanation in a July 24 interview with Austin’s KVUE-TV. Munisteri told KVUE, "The platform plank is against a specific type of teaching called 'outcome-based education.' "The reason why critical thinking is mentioned is some places try to disguise the program of outcome-based education and just re-label it as 'critical thinking.' " That’s supported by the wording in the platform. Following the lead of a July 6, 2012, Chronicle of Higher Education blog post on the Texas platform fracas, we looked back to the 2010 platform. Its "Knowledge-Based Education" plank said, "The primary purpose of public schools is to teach critical thinking skills, reading, writing, arithmetic, phonics, history, science, and character … We oppose Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and similar programs." Both platforms support critical thinking when it comes to "controversial theories" such as evolution, which "should be taught as challengeable scientific theories ... Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind." Next, we set out to see if we could determine whether opposing outcome-based education is also, de facto, opposing critical thinking in the larger sense. The debate over outcome-based education caught fire in the 1990s as outcome-based curricula were installed in U.S. school districts. In the Lexis newspaper archive and on the web, we saw a dozen news stories and opinion pieces from as many states -- Texas included -- describing public concern about the new approach. Opponents said the outcome-based approach was antithetical to critical thinking. They claimed it "dumbed down" curricula and influenced students to adopt liberal attitudes because the "outcome" of their studies was predetermined by academia. Supporters claimed it encouraged -- in fact, taught -- critical thinking. Rather than testing students on facts learned by rote memorization, they said, it required children to demonstrate that they had learned to analyze the material. So what the heck is it? The news stories we read indicate outcome-based education takes different forms nearly everywhere it’s applied. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram gave a description in an Oct. 30, 1996, news story about opposition to OBE-like elements in the state’s planned education overhaul: Under outcome-based education, academic and personal goals are set for students before they can graduate. The program stresses that children are not allowed to fail, so they might be given the same test or report over and over until they do the work satisfactorily. It also may eliminate traditional grades, competitive student assessments and distinct subjects and grade levels. Methods of implementing outcome-based education include awarding group grades instead of individual grades and eliminating honors programs. The "founding father" of OBE, education reformer William Spady, gave an example in an interview for the December 1992/January 1993 issue of Educational Leadership magazine, published by ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development). Asked whether an outcome might be "The student will be able to list the five causes of the Civil War," Spady replied: "No, sorry; that is not an exit outcome. But, ‘Identify and explain the fundamental causes and consequences of the Civil War’ would be an enabling outcome worth pursuing en route to some larger exit outcome." Today, a divide remains between the "OBE teaches kids to think" side and the "OBE suppresses thinking" side. We didn’t find allusions to "critical thinking skills" being used as a code phrase for OBE, but did note that a Feb. 15, 1994, news story in the Dallas Morning News said some educators were avoiding the name "outcomes-based education": Because of the controversy, many educators are going to great lengths to avoid being associated with outcomes-based education. "We've always had outcomes," said state school board member Diane Patrick. But "we'd be foolish to call it outcomes-based education right now. That would be very unwise." Our ruling As Collins says, the Texas GOP platform does state that the party opposes "critical thinking." But Collins leaves out some important context. The platform makes it clear that its opposition is centered on one type of education model: outcome-based education. That’s just the kind of situation addressed in PolitiFact’s definition of Half True: "The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context." By those lights, Collins’ statement is Half True. | null | Gail Collins | null | null | null | 2012-08-11T06:00:00 | 2012-08-01 | ['None'] |
pomt-06786 | Says that he did "not exactly" say that communities have the right to ban mosques. | false | /georgia/statements/2011/aug/17/herman-cain/cain-says-he-did-not-exactly-say-communities-have-/ | Just when we thought metro Atlanta’s Herman Cain had moved past the controversy over his opinions on Islam, he tumbled right back into the fray. The GOP candidate and former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza generated headlines in March when he said he would not hire a Muslim for his Cabinet. Cain later denied he made that statement, a claim we rated Pants on Fire. In July, Cain ignited another controversy after he told anchor Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" that he thinks communities have the right to ban mosques. Wallace brought up the issue when he moderated Thursday’s GOP debate in Ames, Iowa. "You said that communities have the right to ban Muslims from building mosques, before you later apologized. ... How do you reassure people that you know enough to be president of the United States, sir?" Wallace asked. After some back and forth, Cain replied with this: "The first point that you raised, about saying that communities have a right to ban mosques, no, that's not exactly what I said. Unfortunately, the people who helped you put that together have misquoted me. I have gone on record, and I put it in a press release that's available at my office that simply says that if anyone misunderstood my intent, I apologize for that. But never will I apologize for saying that Sharia law does not belong in the courts of the United States of America." That’s "not exactly" what Cain said? Then what did he say? We contacted a campaign spokeswoman for comment but did not receive a response. Undeterred, we looked at a transcript and video of the July 17 "Fox News Sunday" episode where Cain supposedly said communities have the right to ban mosques. Cain’s remarks came as Wallace pressured him to explain his opposition to a mosque proposed for Murfreesboro, Tenn., southeast of Nashville. He had recently said it was an attempt to "sneak" Shariah law into the U.S. legal system. WALLACE: Don't Americans have a right of whatever religion under the Constitution, which you speak so much about, to free speech and freedom to worship? CAIN: To the people in Murfreesboro, it is hallowed ground. They are objecting to the intentions of trying to get Sharia law. [...] WALLACE: But couldn't any community then say we don't want a mosque in our community? CAIN: They could say that. So in this exchange, Cain agreed that any community can "say" that they don’t want a mosque in their community. But did Cain mean that they have a right to ban a mosque? A few seconds later, Cain expanded on his position: WALLACE: So, you're saying that any community, if they want to ban a mosque ... CAIN: Yes, they have the right to do that. That's not discriminating based upon religion -- against that particular religion. There is an aspect of them building that mosque that doesn't get talked about. And the people in the community know what it is and they are talking about it. So not only can a community "say" they oppose a mosque in their town. Cain told Wallace that if a community wants to block a mosque because they oppose Sharia law becoming part of the U.S. legal system, they have "the right" to do so. He even specified that this doesn’t count as religious discrimination. Now, Cain mentioned during Thursday’s debate that he issued an apology on his "Fox News Sunday" comments, so we took a look at it. We thought it might say that the media misinterpreted him or that he really didn’t think that a community has a right to ban a mosque. It did not. The closest he came was this: "I am truly sorry for any comments that may have betrayed my commitment to the U.S. Constitution and the freedom of religion guaranteed by it. Muslims, like all Americans, have the right to practice their faith freely and peacefully." So where does this leave us? While Cain did not "exactly" say that "communities have the right to ban mosques," he made this same point. Then he drove it home by adding that this does not count as religious discrimination. Cain comes awfully close to earning a Pants on Fire. In fact, if he said that he "never said" that communities have the right to ban a mosque, his trousers may well have burst into flames. But Cain was careful. He said it was not "exactly" what he said. This inched his statement ever so slightly away from patent absurdity. As a result, his claim is merely False. | null | Herman Cain | null | null | null | 2011-08-17T06:00:00 | 2011-08-11 | ['None'] |
pomt-04995 | Says federal debt "doubled during the Bush administration." | mostly true | /texas/statements/2012/jul/19/paul-sadler/paul-sadler-says-national-debt-doubled-under-georg/ | Former Texas state Rep. Paul Sadler answered a debate question June 26, 2012, with a call to stop expanding government programs until the federal debt is under control. Squaring off in Dallas with retired teacher Grady Yarbrough, his opponent in the July 31, 2012, runoff for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, Sadler said, "Until we get our financial house in order, we cannot continue to spend money. We just can’t." The U.S. has "never seen national debt like this," Sadler said. "It doubled during the Bush administration." We decided to see if Sadler’s claim about debt under President George W. Bush holds up. Sadler sent us an email with several presidents’ names linked to numbers, such as "Bill Clinton 1.4," and told us the numbers’ sources were the U.S. Treasury, Financial Management Service, Bureau of the Public Debt, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Office of Management and Budget. The same figures and sources, listed in the same order, appear on a July 28, 2011, New York Times chart illustrating how much of the federal debt accumulated under each president since 1981. According to the chart, the Bush administration began with a $5.8 trillion gross federal debt, which grew by $6.1 trillion to reach $11.9 trillion -- an increase of 105 percent, or slightly more than double. The Times ascribed the increase in debt to "tax cuts, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, (the) economic downturn in 2001 and recession starting in 2007." Following a suggestion from Treasury spokesman Matthew Anderson, we found that plugging the fiscal years of Bush’s presidency -- October 2001 through September 2009 -- into the Treasury’s online calculator gives debt figures that tally with the Times graphic. While that period begins nearly nine months into Bush’s presidency, it also aligns with the years over which he held budgetary sway. Gross federal debt, though, is only one measure of how much the government owes. Because Sadler’s numbers match the Times chart, we started with that statistic, which includes money the federal government owes itself, including for programs such as Social Security and Medicare, in addition to public debt. Public debt itself is another commonly used measure. Debt held by the public is money borrowed from investors outside the federal government, in the form of Treasury notes and other securities. Which to use? We consulted Oregon State University political scientist Robert Sahr, who studies U.S. debt, policy, presidents and inflation. Sahr suggested we use public debt, and emailed us part of a textbook’s explanation of why net public debt, rather than gross debt, is seen as a better measure of how much government is borrowing: "To understand why, suppose you decided to lend yourself $1,000 this year — you take money from your left pocket and lend it to your right pocket. Clearly this has no effect on your overall wealth. Similarly, one branch of the government borrowing from another creates an asset (a trust fund) as well as a debt, and these exactly offset. Net debt held outside the government is the relevant measure." We returned to the Treasury calculator and found that during Bush’s fiscal years, public debt rose from $3.3 trillion to $7.6 trillion -- up 130 percent, clearly more than double. Also, we asked Sahr whether he agreed that debt doubled under Bush. Adjusted for inflation, he said, public debt did not double, though it came close. Sahr produced a spreadsheet for us with fiscal year-end debt numbers from the federal Office of Management and Budget. Among the results: As with the Treasury calculator, 2001-2009 public debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars went up 130 percent. Adjusted for inflation (to 2011 dollars), though, the increase was 88 percent. Returning to gross federal debt, which was Sadler’s basis: Sahr’s spreadsheet showed the same 105-percent increase in non-inflation-adjusted dollars as the New York Times chart. In 2011 dollars, though, the increase was 70 percent. Some news analyses have compared changes in debt using inauguration dates. We checked those with the Treasury calculator, finding that from Bush’s first inauguration, January 20, 2001, to the day President Barack Obama took office, January 20, 2009, gross federal debt in non-inflation-adjusted dollars rose from $5.7 trillion to $10.6 trillion, up 86 percent. The calculator didn’t have an amount for public debt January 20, 2001, but says the non-adjusted figure was $6.3 trillion January 20, 2009. When we checked back in with Sadler, he objected to adjusting the debt changes for inflation, saying by email: "I seriously doubt any holder of the debt or your bank would allow you to adjust your debt for inflation. The amount owed is the amount owed - you don't get to adjust it for inflation." Sahr said later: "Sure, you’re paying in current dollars. But if you’re looking at the change in debt over eight years, part of the change is the change in the value of the dollar over those years." A final note: Such accounting and tallies can be read as blaming Bush alone for the increases. As PolitiFact has noted numerous times, such assumptions are overly sweeping. Many factors are at play, including Congress, which votes on many spending decisions affecting the debt. Our ruling We see how Sadler reached his conclusion. In raw terms, both the public debt and gross federal debt more than doubled during the fiscal years corresponding to Bush’s presidency. However, adjusting for inflation, gross debt increased 70 percent over those years, while public debt increased 88 percent. That’s not quite doubling. We rate Sadler’s claim Mostly True. | null | Paul Sadler | null | null | null | 2012-07-19T17:36:15 | 2012-06-26 | ['None'] |
tron-02981 | Huma Abedin Hid Hillary Clinton Emails in “Life Insurance” Folder | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/huma-abedin-hid-hillary-clinton-emails-life-insurance-folder/ | null | politics | null | null | ['2016 election', 'conspiracy', 'hillary clinton', 'the clintons'] | Huma Abedin Hid Hillary Clinton Emails in “Life Insurance” Folder –Unproven! | Nov 1, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00557 | Ninety-seven percent of Americans do not receive subsidies for health care under the Affordable Care Act. | true | /georgia/statements/2015/jun/15/austin-scott/scott-correct-majority-dont-receive-premium-subsid/ | (Editor's note: An earlier version of this fact-check included an incorrect number for the $1.7 billion in monthly tax credits potentially at risk for 6.4 million people in Georgia and 33 other states in the lawsuit King v. Burwell.) The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule later this month in a lawsuit that could wipe out premium subsidies for millions of Americans under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law. About 6.4 million people in Georgia and 33 other states who use the federal marketplace could be at risk of losing a total of $1.7 billion in monthly tax credits and face net premium increases of 287 percent, according to a state-by-state analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Many in the GOP, particularly Tea Party Republicans, are likely to resist extending the subsidies, even temporarily, The Washington Times reported June 5. Those Republicans are much more worried about angering their base by appearing to concede on Obamacare than they are about having a handful of constituents lose their subsidies, the newspaper said.. "Ninety-seven percent of Americans aren't receiving those subsidies," Georgia Congressman Austin Scott told reporters. That statistic caught the eye of a PolitiFact reader who asked us to do some checking. "Is that claim accurate?" the reader wrote. . We promised to do some checking. First a little background about the closely watched lawsuit, King v. Burwell. The plaintiff, King, argues that because the health care law refers to "an exchange established by the state," individuals in states with federally run exchanges are not eligible for subsidies. Others contend that the clear intent of the ACA -- the most significant overhaul of U.S.healthcare since passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 -- is to allow individuals to obtain subsidized insurance regardless of whether they obtain it through a state or federal exchange. Currently, 34 states rely on the federal exchange and could lose subsidies if the Supreme Court rules in favor of King. Florida could be the most affected, with 1.3 million residents losing monthly subsidies worth a combined $206 million a month, according to forecasts. In Georgia, 412,385 people could lose subsidies, with a total monthly value of $113 million, the Kaiser Family Foundation analysis showed. States such California and New York, which set up their own exchanges, would be untouched by the ruling. So what about Scott’s statement that 97 percent of Americans aren’t receiving ACA insurance subsidies. We reached out to Ryann DuRant, Scott’s communications director. She told us Scott’s statement was based on calculations that were done using data from the Kaiser Family Foundation analysis, reports in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and population information from the U.S. Census. This includes: about 6.4 million people who receive federal subsidies to buy insurance;, estimates of all insurance subsidies, state and federal combined,totalling about nine million; the national population estimate of about 318 million. (We calculated 2.83 percent or just shy or 3 percent with subsidies, leaving about 97 percent of Americans without subsidies) We asked the Kaiser Family Foundation in D.C.to independently run the numbers for us. Chris Lee, a communications officer with the foundation, said about 2.7 percent of Americans receive ACA tax credits. His calculation is based on information that slightly more than 8.6 million of the nation’s 321 million residents have received advance premium tax credits, or subsidies, to buy their insurance, Lee said. That would mean about 97.3 percent of Americans aren’t receiving subsidies to buy insurance. DuRant told us Scott is co-sponsoring a bill, introduced June 4, to repeal ObamaCare and "address healthcare for all Americans. "So in no way was this to discount the 3 percent or the 97 percent," she said. ‘We are concerned with 100 percent of Americans and with lowering health insurance premiums for 100 percent of Americans." The GOP-controlled Congress has repeatedly expressed interest in passing legislation to fully repeal and replace ObamaCare, and Scott’s bill is one of several options that is available. .Our ruling U.S. Rep. Austin Scott said 97 percent of Americans don’t receive subsidies for health care under the Affordable Care Act. His numbers are close. We rate his statement True. | null | Austin Scott | null | null | null | 2015-06-15T00:00:00 | 2015-06-05 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-06051 | Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich all say they would cut foreign aid to Israel — and every other country — to zero. | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jan/11/barack-obama/barack-obama-campaign-says-romney-perry-gingrich-w/ | On an outreach page on its website, the Barack Obama-Joe Biden re-election campaign takes aim at three Republican presidential candidates for their stances on aid to Israel -- a hot-button topic for members of both parties. "Stand against ‘zeroing out’ aid to Israel," the web page says. "Republican candidates for president Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich all say they would cut foreign aid to Israel — and every other country — to zero. Stand up to this extreme isolationism and join the call to reject the Romney-Perry-Gingrich plan." A reader asked us to check out the claim, so we did. We began by asking for backup materials from the Obama campaign. The campaign sent us a series of links to debate transcripts and news articles. All flow from a series of statements made at a Nov. 12, 2011, foreign-policy themed debate among the Republican presidential candidates. Let’s first review what the candidates said during the debate, which was moderated by CBS News’ Scott Pelley and National Journal’s Major Garrett. The issue came up at four different points. First, Perry answered a question from Pelley about Pakistan. Perry: "Listen, I think we're having an interesting conversation here, but the deeper one (is about) foreign aid. And we need a president of the United States working with a Congress that sends a clear message to every country. It doesn't make any difference whether it's Pakistan or whether it's Afghanistan or whether it's India. "The foreign aid budget in my administration for every country is going to start at zero dollars. Zero dollars. And then we'll have a conversation. Then we'll have a conversation in this country about whether or not a penny of our taxpayer dollar needs to go into those countries. And Pakistan is clearly sending us messages, Mitt. It's clearly sending us messages that they -- they don't deserve our foreign aid that we're getting, because they're not being honest with us. American soldiers' lives are being put at jeopardy because of that country. … It's time for us as a country to say no to foreign aid to countries that don't support the United States of America." Later, Garrett posed a question to Gingrich: Garrett: "Speaker Gingrich, you presided as speaker over several foreign aid budgets for the United States. … You have seen, at times, the proper role of the United States through foreign aid and other interventions. I want to know if you agree with -- Governor Perry about starting at zero?" Gingrich: "What he said made absolutely perfect sense. … Consider the alternative. You're giving some country $7 billion a year .... or in the case of Egypt, $3 billion a year. So you start off every year and say, ‘Here's your $3 billion, now I'll start thinking’? You ought to start off at zero and say, ‘Explain to me why I should give you a penny.’... "The Pakistanis hid Bin Laden for at least six years in a military city within a mile of their national defense university. And then they got mad at the people who turned him over to us? And we think those are the acts of allies? I think that's a pretty good idea to start at zero and sometimes stay there." Then, later on, Pelley read a question from a viewer submitted by Twitter: "Does Gov. Perry's foreign aid starts-at-zero (policy) include Israel?" Perry: "Absolutely. Every country would start at zero. Obviously, Israel is a special ally. And my bet is that we would be funding them at some substantial level. But it makes sense for everyone to come in at zero and make your case. As a matter of fact, we ought to try that … with some of those agencies that I was trying to think the name of the other night. Starting at zero, zero-based budgeting … we've got to go there. And everyone has to come in and make (their) case." Finally, Romney expressed agreement with this approach during a subsequent exchange about Pakistan. Romney: "One of the things we have to do with our foreign aid commitments, the ongoing foreign aid commitments -- I agree with Gov. Perry. You start everything at zero." So each of the three Republican candidates cited on the Obama campaign website did express agreement with this approach to handing out foreign aid. And the candidates’ comments immediately set off a bipartisan tempest within Israel policy circles. The Republican Jewish Coalition tweeted its displeasure with Romney’s proposal, while the Democratic National Committee had former Rep. Robert Wexler of Florida hold a conference call to blast the idea, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Still, we find several problems with the way the Obama campaign translated this policy proposal into the claim we’re checking. It ignores nuances the candidates expressed during the debate The Obama campaign’s claim said the proposal outlined by Perry, and seconded by Gingrich and Romney, would "cut foreign aid to Israel — and every other country — to zero." It’s true that the proposal would reduce aid to zero, but only temporarily (and theoretically) as a starting point for discussions about what the final level should be. As Perry put it, "And then we'll have a conversation." It’s worth noting that handling foreign aid this way would have potentially problematic policy consequences, even if Israel’s aid package ultimately remained exactly the same size as previously. In August 2007, the Bush administration signed a "memorandum of understanding" that outlined a 10-year framework for U.S. military assistance to Israel. So implementing the Perry proposal without allowing a waiver for Israel would require reneging on the amounts of aid specified in that agreement, which diplomatically is not a trivial issue. Still, even during the debate itself, the candidates said only that they would use zero as a starting point for funding to Israel, not an end point. There would be nothing stopping negotiators from reducing funding to zero but then immediately deferring to the terms of the memorandum and leaving Israel’s promised funding level as is. They could even increase the levels beyond what the memorandum provides. Perry himself made this point during the debate, saying, "Obviously, Israel is a special ally. And my bet is that we would be funding them at some substantial level." It ignores statements the candidates made after the debate to explain their positions After critics seized on Perry’s proposal, a Perry aide e-mailed POLITICO columnist Ben Smith to say, "Perry believes Israel's an extraordinary friend and our greatest ally. … Under Rick Perry, Israel will set the bar for judging foreign aid to any country. Perry's Start at Zero is exactly the right policy -- no country stands to benefit more than Israel from merit-based foreign aid." Meanwhile, JTA reported that immediately following the debate, a Romney spokesman clarified that "he would exempt Israel from the policy." And Gingrich -- who in general has taken strong pro-Israel positions -- reiterated his support for the idea in an interview with the Jewish Channel but added that the memorandum of understanding would prevent Israel from being sent back to zero funding, even temporarily. "We have a 10-year commitment that we have to live out," Gingrich said. "So I think because we’ve made this long-term commitment, you wouldn’t be able to go back to zero." The Obama claim misuses the term "zeroing out" Budget experts we contacted agreed that that the Obama camp erred in using the term "zeroing out" to describe what Perry was proposing. "Zeroing out" means that funding will be terminated. The actual term for what Perry suggests is "zero-based budgeting." "Nothing the candidates said indicated that Israel would get a cut," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a group that analyzes federal spending. "Zero-based budgeting just means funding levels must be justified year-to-year, rather than starting from a baseline. Funding for a particular program, in this case aid to Israel, could well end up being more than the previous year, or it could be less. The campaign is taking advantage of the word ‘zero’ without putting it in the proper budget context." Roy T. Meyers, a political scientist and budget expert at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, agreed. "The Obama campaign statement is misleading, to say the least," Meyers said. Our ruling The Obama campaign said, "Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich all say they would cut foreign aid to Israel — and every other country — to zero." We find that a ridiculous distortion of their positions on this extremely sensitive issue. First, the plan discussed in the foreign policy debate means only that future aid levels for Israel would be subject to negotiations, starting from a baseline of zero rather than the current level. A funding level of zero would be only a theoretical starting point, not an end point, just as easily leaving Israel with higher funding rather than lower. Second, to varying degrees, the candidates pledged that they personally would either advocate "substantial" funding for Israel (Perry), an exemption from the policy for Israel (Romney), or an automatic waiver due to agreements already in force (Gingrich). None of the candidates actually said they supported making Israel’s funding level zero. Finally, the Obama campaign misleadingly used the term "zeroing out" instead of accurately describing it as "zero-based" budgeting, making the three-sentence statement wrong in three different ways. Pants-On-Fire! | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2012-01-11T19:00:38 | 2012-01-11 | ['Israel', 'Newt_Gingrich', 'Mitt_Romney', 'Rick_Perry'] |
pomt-05464 | Georgia’s HOPE scholarship is "still the richest scholarship program in America." | half-true | /georgia/statements/2012/apr/23/michael-adams/politifact-calling-hope-richest-program-goes-too-f/ | The HOPE scholarship program may be shrinking, but the financial aid it gives Georgia’s best students is second to none, the head of this state’s flagship university said recently. Legislators cut HOPE in 2011 to rein in spending that was growing faster than the state could afford. The scholarship, which helps pay for in-state college tuition, began providing less money to all but the highest-performing students in August. Adams thinks HOPE needs a long-term fix, but it’s still generous, he said in an April 15 article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. HOPE is "still the richest scholarship program in America," Adams said. Still? Despite all of the changes? HOPE now pays full tuition for only about 10 percent of recipients. The rest receive scholarships that cover 90 percent of tuition at 2010-11 academic year rates. That percentage will shrink over time. Tuition rose this school year and will climb again in August. A University of Georgia spokeswoman said that Adams based his statement on data from the National Association of State Student Grant and Aid Programs, which PolitiFact used to assess a March 2011 statement by Gov. Nathan Deal: "Georgia still has one of the richest programs in terms of scholarships for students to go to college," Deal said then. We rated his claim True. Georgia was near or at the top, depending on what measure you considered. For the past four decades, NASSGAP has kept track of how much money each state awards in postsecondary education scholarships and grants. When Deal made his statement, the most recent data available covered the 2008-09 school year. Back then, Georgia awarded nearly $567 million in total grant aid. We ranked fourth in the nation behind California, New York and Florida, according to the association. Divide that total by the number of students enrolled in undergraduate programs, and Georgia was second only to South Carolina. Georgia’s HOPE program was also the largest of its kind. NASSGAP classifies HOPE as a "non-needs-based" scholarship, which means it awards money on factors aside from a student’s financial need. Georgia awarded some $565 million in non-needs-based money, NASSGAP reported. This amount included funds for other non-needs-based scholarships, but HOPE spending accounted for a vast majority of it. Florida, which ranked second, gave out about $100 million less. But that was three years ago. Is HOPE "still" the richest scholarship in America, as Adams said? It’s tough to say with certainty. NASSGAP numbers have been updated, but its latest data dates from about two years ago. It does not reflect the HOPE cuts passed in the spring session of 2011. However, this data does hint at how HOPE currently compares to other programs. Georgia awarded about $672 million in non-needs-based scholarships such as HOPE during the 2009-2010 academic year. Once again, Florida came in second. But the gap between it and Georgia grew to nearly $250 million. Tennessee, South Carolina and Louisiana round out the top five with amounts between $135 million and $262 million. Georgia came in second on a per-capita basis as well. Other states give away larger pots of money, but not many of them. Nationally, about three-quarters of state grants are awarded based on financial need, said Frank Ballmann, a NASSGAP official. California gave away more than $1 billion in needs-based financial aid in the 2009-2010 school year. New York placed second at about $900 million. Still, Georgia’s program dwarfed almost all other state efforts that year. Pennsylvania, which was third place in needs-based aid, gave away about $413 million in needs-based aid. Now, let’s take a look at HOPE awards after the cuts. Totals for 2011-2012 are not yet available. The Georgia Student Finance Commission, which administers HOPE and other state scholarship and aid programs, is still giving out money, a commission official said. But projected amounts are available. After HOPE was cut, the Finance Commission’s budget was trimmed to reflect the changes. This updated budget allocates some $590 million for the HOPE grant, GED and scholarship programs. At this funding level, Georgia’s ranking may fall this school year. NASSGAP’s data shows that over the past 10 years, states have doubled the amount of money they give out, not cut it. But the numbers also suggest that HOPE will remain one of the nation’s most generous programs. This $590 million budget would have qualified HOPE for a slot somewhere in NASSGAP’s top five two years ago, all other things being equal. For Georgia to drop out of the top 10 this year, total grant aid awarded by lower-ranked states would have to grow by hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s unlikely in these austere times. Adams’ assertion that HOPE is "still the richest scholarship program in America" needs some context. Georgia’s program was the richest of its kind two school years ago, and it ranked high in other measures, although this state’s pot of money wasn’t the biggest overall. HOPE is likely to remain near the top this school year. Even with the cuts, other states are probably too far behind to catch up, for now. Adams earns a Half True. | null | Michael Adams | null | null | null | 2012-04-23T06:00:00 | 2012-04-15 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-13450 | Says Ted Strickland supported giving $150 billion to Iranian regime that persecutes women, Christians and gays. | false | /ohio/statements/2016/sep/15/american-unity-pac/pac-blames-ted-strickland-iran-deal-he-didnt-vote/ | A conservative group that supports gay rights accused Democratic Senate candidate Ted Strickland of supporting the Iran deal despite the country’s cruelty to women, Christians and gays. As the video flashes images of women wearing hijabs and children in distress, the words "Ted Strickland: $150 billion for Iran" appear. The script says, "In Iran, a woman’s life is worth half her husband’s. Christians, persecuted. It’s illegal to be gay. People stoned, beaten and hanged for what they believe, how they were born, and who they love." Then the ad pivots to Strickland, and says that he "supported giving billions to that regime -- without concessions for human rights violations -- when we had leverage." The kicker: "Ted Strickland didn’t stand up for the vulnerable. That’s why we can’t trust him to stand up for us." The digital ad is paid for by American Unity PAC, a group that describes itself as "focused exclusively on protecting and promoting candidates for U.S. Congress who support freedom for all Americans, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity." Considering that Strickland was not in an elected office when Congress voted to approve the Iran nuclear deal in September 2015, it seems like an odd jab. We took a closer look at Strickland’s role. American Unity PAC did not respond to our inquiry. Strickland favored Iran deal The purpose of the Iran nuclear agreement was to reduce the likelihood and ability of Iran to develop weapons-grade nuclear material, and to prevent development of nuclear weapons. In exchange, the U.S. agreed to end its freeze on Iranian assets. What did Strickland have to do with the agreement? He was not in office at the time, having served as governor from 2007 to 2011. In August 2015, his Senate campaign released a statement in favor of the deal. "Everyone agrees we must prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and there is no question that this strong, enforceable agreement with the support of the UN Security Council is a far better way to achieve that goal than war," Strickland said. But the ad goes further to say Strickland supported $150 billion to Iran. PolitiFact visited this topic in August 2015, after Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said Iran gets "$150 billion" in the deal. PolitiFact rated that claim Half True. Much of the money Iran gets in the deal was Iran’s to begin with, but it was inaccessible due to international sanctions, said Tom Sutton, political science professor at Baldwin Wallace University. And the commonly repeated $150-billion figure is too high of an estimate. Sutton told PolitiFact Ohio, "The U.S. agreed to end the freeze on Iranian assets that was imposed after the 1979 Iranian revolution and hostage crisis. It totals, at most, $100 billion, not $150 billion." Leverage The ad says that the Iran nuclear deal gave the country billions "without concessions for human rights violations, when we had leverage." But there are separate, existing sanctions in place with regard to Iran’s human rights abuses. As the White House clarified, after the deal, "U.S. statutory sanctions focused on Iran’s support for terrorism, human rights abuses, and missile activities will remain in effect and continue to be enforced." The National Iranian American Council reported that even after the lifting of sanctions in the nuclear deal, "Iran will remain one of the most sanctioned jurisdictions in the world." The concessions that were made in exchange for constraints on Iran’s nuclear program "in no shape or form" diminish the U.S. ability to confront human rights violations in Iran, they said. "Supporting this agreement does not imply that Strickland supports all of the egregious, unjust practices of Iran highlighted in the ad," Sutton said. "By comparison, the United States under all presidents has maintained an alliance with Saudi Arabia, including weapons sales, but that does not imply sanctioning or support for gender segregation and the harsh punishments used in Saudi Arabia, like stoning adulterers." Sutton pointed out that several countries that have political and diplomatic relationships with the United States -- such as like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nigeria -- and are places where female genital mutilation has been documented. Maintaining those ties does not equate to a nod in support of female genital mutilation. Our ruling An American Unity PAC digital ad claims that Strickland supported giving $150 billion to Iran without a commitment from that regime to stop its harsh treatment of Christians, gays and women. Strickland said he supported the Iran nuclear deal last year during his campaign, but he didn't hold federal office when the deal was completed and he didn't vote in favor of it. There are other problems with the ad. For one, the $150 billion estimate is too high, experts say. Also, separate U.S. sanctions for human rights violations remain in place and continue to be enforced. And Strickland’s symbolic support of the deal wasn’t tacit approval of Iran’s persecution of women, non-Muslims, and homosexuality. We rate this claim False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/86ba6f86-061f-4d6a-aece-53fb53453cc0 | null | American Unity PAC | null | null | null | 2016-09-15T14:41:18 | 2016-08-30 | ['Iran', 'Ted_Strickland'] |
snes-02413 | A Russian man claiming to be Vladimir Putin's lover was found dead in Switzerland | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/putin-lover-dead-switzerland/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Was a Man Claiming to Be Vladimir Putin’s Lover Found Dead in Zurich? | 17 May 2017 | null | ['Russia', 'Vladimir_Putin', 'Switzerland'] |
vees-00263 | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Jay Sonza said the price of Jasmine rice went down | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/untvs-jay-sonza-did-not-say-price-jasmine-rice-went-down | null | null | null | null | Duterte,Rice | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Jay Sonza did not say the price of Jasmine rice went down | April 13, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02118 | The man who got involved…and saved his daughter’s life | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/involved/ | null | inspirational | null | null | null | The man who got involved…and saved his daughter’s life | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08390 | Says "John Loughlin voted to let people accused of domestic violence keep their guns." | mostly true | /rhode-island/statements/2010/oct/24/david-cicilline/says-loughlin-voted-let-people-accused-domestic-vi/ | The new spate of political ads that have flooded the airwaves seem better suited to Halloween than the Election Day that follows it. With haunting music and ominous narration, they sound more like ads for horror movies than political commercials. One example is a radio advertisement from David Cicilline's campaign that begins with the narrator's somber warning: "State Representative John Loughlin is running for Congress." A worried-sounding woman chimes in: "I heard his ideas are really out there." "How extreme is he?" asks a second elderly voice, full of alarm. "So extreme that John Loughlin voted to let people accused of domestic violence keep their guns." Pause. "Doesn't he know how dangerous that is?" a third frightened voice wants to know. We here at PolitiFact aren't easily spooked; we just like to know the truth. So we tuned out the dramatic flourish and got to work checking out the claim. The vote Cicilline's ad talks about was on a 2005 bill in the Rhode Island General Assembly -- now a law -- that allows judges to require those subject to permanent domestic violence restraining orders to surrender their firearms. Rhode Island was the 41st state to enact this law, as part of a push by domestic violence advocates to protect victims. After multiple amendments that carved out exemptions for police officers and active duty military personnel to keep their service weapons while on duty, the Rhode Island bill made it to the floor in June 2005. Once there, it underwent several more changes, one of them spearheaded by Loughlin, a representative from Tiverton, who successfully advocated to exempt on-duty National Guard members from the provision as well. The House bill passed in a 46-20 vote on June 22, 2005, with Loughlin voting no. The Senate approved the same legislation days later and the bill was signed into law in early July. The problem with the Cicilline advertisement's claim is that it incorrectly says the bill applies to those "accused of domestic violence." A restraining order is actually a civil document that can be obtained without accusing the subject of a specific crime. "It may be to prevent something from happening," explained Deb DeBare, executive director of the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence. "[The victim] may have been threatened or in fear of abuse, but no crime has been committed." Nowhere does the 2005 bill suggest one must be accused of a crime to have the statute apply. Cicilline overstates the scope of the bill that Loughlin voted against. But he is correct to suggest that if Loughlin's side had prevailed, those subject to domestic violence restraining orders would be allowed to keep their guns. We asked Loughlin's campaign manager to explain why he voted against the 2005 bill. Her answer: "John is a supporter of the Second Amendment and he voted against this bill because it was too broad and he was concerned that there was no distinction made between handguns and antique collectibles or family heirlooms." That may be true, but it doesn't change the accuracy of Cicilline's statement. We rate it Mostly True. | null | David Cicilline | null | null | null | 2010-10-24T00:01:00 | 2010-10-19 | ['None'] |
pomt-07266 | Says that several times in the last 15 years, Austin City Council candidates have won seats after trailing by more than 4,000 votes in the election prompting the runoff. | half-true | /texas/statements/2011/may/26/randi-shade/randi-shade-says-several-council-candidates-last-1/ | Austin City Council Member Randi Shade, suggesting history’s on her side, says past elections show she can rebound in her June runoff against Kathie Tovo, who nearly unseated her May 14. Five days after initial balloting that gave Tovo 46 percent and Shade nearly 33 percent, Shade told reporters "the margin between me and my opponent on Election Day was just over 4,000 votes... there have been several examples over the last 15 years where candidates have made up larger vote deficits than mine to win in a run-off." Several? In the four-person Place 3 race, Shade trailed Tovo by 4,316 votes,. After leaving a message with Shade’s camp, we hunted for comparable comebacks over the 15 years Shade referenced. In those years, according to the city’s online database summarizing City Council election results, five second-place finishers in general elections won their runoffs: Beverly Griffith (1996); Bill Spelman and Willie Lewis (1997); Raul Alvarez (2000); and Jennifer Kim (2005). However, only two closed a first-round gap of more than 4,000 votes. Spelman bested Manuel Zuniga after trailing by 8,813 votes in their initial race. Kim overtook Margot Clarke after Clarke ran 7,771 votes ahead in the general election. The other runoff victors earlier ran behind by about 1,100 to nearly 2,100 votes. Austin consultant Mark Littlefield, a Shade supporter, agreed that just the two candidates rebounded after lagging by more than 4,000 votes. He said Spelman is the sole council hopeful in the period who bounced back from a greater percentage deficit than the nearly 13.5 points separating Shade and Tovo in this year’s general election, though Kim was behind about 13 points in her first round. Shade spokeswoman Lynda Rife told us: "The meaty part (of Shade’s statement) is there’s precedent for coming back." Littlefield also noted that three of the comeback candidates drew a greater number of votes in the second round than they got facing crowded fields in their general elections--though turnout was diminished. Kim’s vote haul increased 21 percent, Spelman’s runoff total bumped up 41 percent and Griffith enjoyed a 71 percent improvement. Anything could happen in the Tovo-Shade runoff; we’re not making predictions. Per recent history, though, Shade’s claim is off. Two comparable comebacks do not amount to "several." And by percentage of votes cast, only one candidate in the last 15 years made up a deficit as large as Shade’s. We rate her statement Half True. | null | Randi Shade | null | null | null | 2011-05-26T06:00:00 | 2011-05-19 | ['None'] |
snes-05530 | Did Campbell’s Soup Insult a Customer Who Complained About a Commercial? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/campbells-customer-service-facebook/ | null | Humor | null | Dan Evon | null | Did Campbell’s Soup Insult a Customer Who Complained About a Commercial? | 25 November 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00554 | Will "remove enrollment caps for private school choice program and for virtual charter schools." | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/promises/walk-o-meter/promise/577/remove-enrollment-caps-for-private-school-choice-p/ | null | walk-o-meter | Scott Walker | null | null | Remove enrollment caps for private school choice program and for virtual charter schools | 2010-12-20T23:16:36 | null | ['None'] |
abbc-00296 | The claim: Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick says fewer big Australian companies are run by women than by men named Peter and companies run by men named Peter, Michael, David or Andrew outnumber those run by women four to one. | in-between | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-10-09/fact-check-women-running-big-companies/6783082 | The claim: Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick says fewer big Australian companies are run by women than by men named Peter and companies run by men named Peter, Michael, David or Andrew outnumber those run by women four to one. | ['business-economics-and-finance', 'australia'] | null | null | ['business-economics-and-finance', 'australia'] | Fact check: Do big companies run by a Peter, a Michael, a David or an Andrew outnumber those run by women four to one? | Thu 3 Mar 2016, 5:52am | null | ['Australia'] |
tron-02480 | Radical Islamic Group ISIS Beheading Christian Children in Iraq | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/isis-beheading-children/ | null | miscellaneous | null | null | null | Radical Islamic Group ISIS Beheading Christian Children in Iraq | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05509 | It's the first time in the nation this many members have been drawn (by a Legislature) into the same districts where it wasn't a court order. | mostly true | /florida/statements/2012/apr/13/will-weatherford/florida-holds-record-redistricting-incumbents-toge/ | Florida isn’t alone in its push to cut gerrymandering out of the once-in-a-decade process that determines districts for elected officials. Yet the "fair districts" reforms in Florida’s Constitution are unique — more than is widely known. We at PolitiFact Florida realized this while checking out a claim from incoming House Speaker Will Weatherford, who oversaw the House’s redistricting effort. "It’s the first time in the nation this many members have been drawn into the same districts where it wasn’t a court order," Weatherford told the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald on March 27, 2012, speaking of the House map. (The Senate’s maps are a different story.) "From my understanding, this is the largest amount of incumbents that were pitted against each other based off the Legislature voluntarily doing that in the history in the United States," he added. His assertion about the Legislature’s unparalleled feat of forcing sitting House members to run against each other resonated with us. What a bold (and specific) claim! Other states, like California and Arizona, have adopted independent commissions to handle redistricting instead of letting legislators draw the lines. In Florida, that power remains with lawmakers, who redrew the lines for the first time this year under orders from voters not to protect incumbents when crafting districts. The truth behind his claim is more complicated than we thought it would be. A lot of that has to do with a lack of nationwide data, and the fact that the dust from Florida’s redistricting battle isn’t settled. Susan MacManus, a University of South Florida political science professor, told us the true test of Florida’s "fair districts" experiment will be decided by the courts. "Nonetheless, I think the idea behind it was rather path-breaking, definitely," she said. • • • Weatherford told us he learned about his claim from House redistricting committee staffers and attorneys. "There are other states that have a committee or a commission that does it for them," Weatherford said, "but as far as the Legislature doing it to themselves, we just couldn’t find anything." A little background first: Many states have considered varying approaches to redistricting over widespread concerns of gerrymandering and incumbency protection. Some states, including California and Arizona, adopted special commissions to tackle the process. Florida went with "fair districts" requirements, which keep lawmakers at the wheel but say they can no longer draw federal or state districts to favor a political party or an incumbent, among other things. Voters approved the standards in 2010 over objections from legislators who said the requirements would be impossible to follow. The new maps sent several members moving across town or modifying political ambitions to avoid matchups with colleagues. In its mandatory review of the Legislature’s plans, the Florida Supreme Court accepted the House plan and rejected the state Senate’s, saying it failed to adhere to "fair districts." The Legislature’s map for congressional districts and its second attempt at a state Senate map await separate judicial reviews beginning this week. Another point of caution: Just because the House map hasn’t been challenged doesn’t mean it won’t. • • • So how many members does the House map affect? It’s not so easy to nail down. A Times/Herald report pinpointed 35 member vs. member (and in a couple cases, member vs. member vs. member) races. It did not count incumbents facing term limits, since they can’t run again anyway. But the Times/Herald relied on members’ home addresses as listed on voter registration forms, which leaves open the possibility that some members’ primary residences are in their new districts. Other estimates are higher. The Florida Democratic Party put the count as high as 58 — roughly half the chamber — in a court filing. The Florida House said it found 40 incumbent pairings through various news sources, or one-third of House members. • • • We consulted the country’s top redistricting experts, and none knew of a single source that tracks how many legislators had been drawn into the same district for different states after a redistricting cycle. "It’s a great project for a grad student somewhere," said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School associate professor who keeps tabs on redistricting efforts at the All About Redistricting website. As for Florida’s rules, Levitt said, no other state forces the Legislature to draw boundaries with a prohibition on favoring incumbents embedded in its Constitution. Other states have these limits in their statutes, or as nonbinding guidelines, but lawmakers can easily override those, he said. "Florida is the only one that lets its Legislature draw the lines that also has constitutional constraints against legislators helping themselves," he said. A couple of experts advised us to compare Florida’s results with those in Iowa and California. Still, they cautioned, we weren’t going to get an apples-to-apples comparison. No one does it quite like Florida, which may give Weatherford’s claim more merit. In Iowa, the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency designs the maps and presents them to the Legislature for a vote. Lawmakers can approve or reject up to two maps from the agency and are allowed to amend a third map. They’ve never amended a map — "a restraint that’s rare to find anywhere in elected politics," Levitt said. The standards that staffers use to design their map are similar to what Florida adopted in 2010, said Ed Cook, Iowa Legislative Services Agency senior counsel. The agency kept tabs of the number of incumbent races created from redistricting cycles since 1981, the first that used the agency process. The results are close to our estimates for Florida. According to Cook, 27 members were drawn into districts with other incumbents in 2011; 39 in 2001; 40 in 1991; and 36 in 1981. With 100 members in the Iowa House versus Florida’s 120, Iowa has had a higher rate of incumbents pitted against each other as a result of redistricting than Florida. But Iowa’s experience doesn’t satisfy an important caveat of Weatherford’s claim — that lawmakers are the ones drawing the lines. They could draw the lines, but they don’t. There are no term limits in Iowa. "Florida moved much closer to the Iowa system with the amendments and the way they approached it," said Tim Storey, the National Conference of State Legislatures redistricting analyst. California is different, relying like five other states on an independent commission, not an agency, to draw its districts in effort to reduce gerrymandering. California’s latest redistricting cycle pitted a combined 32 incumbents from the state Assembly and Senate in districts against other members, according to redistricting consultant Paul Mitchell. Nine districts were in the House. So, not as many as our best estimates in Florida. But not exactly a great comparison either. Our experts said Weatherford’s claim seems more accurate than not. Florida is "pioneering" the world of forbidding legislators from drawing incumbent-friendly seats, Storey said. "He may be right," he said. "With the exception of Iowa, nothing else jumps to mind." Mitchell wasn’t familiar with Florida’s incumbent pairings but said, "That would be definitely unique, and it’s a strong point to be made." "Legislatures normally don’t do that," Mitchell said. "I don’t think the California Legislature would be able to pull that off." There may be more data on incumbent vs. incumbent races — at least for states with the most dramatic changes, California and Florida, when the election storm calms next year. "When the process winds down and elections get held in the new maps, the redistricting crowd will really turn its attention to what happened in California and Florida," Storey said. Our ruling Weatherford’s claim is reasonable to believe, according to our experts. We could not find direct evidence to contradict his claim, partly because Florida’s redistricting process is unique across the country. Even with data for incumbent matchups, as in Iowa and California, Florida doesn’t lend itself for an apples-to-apples comparison. Still, none of our experts expressed absolute certainty. A rigorous 50-state study has never been conducted. Given that element of doubt, we rate his statement Mostly True. | null | Will Weatherford | null | null | null | 2012-04-13T14:37:52 | 2012-03-28 | ['None'] |
pomt-13302 | Right now we are at 90 percent health insurance covered. That's the highest we've ever been in our country. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/09/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-says-90-percent-health/ | During the second presidential debate in St. Louis, a member of the audience asked a question about the shortcomings of Obamacare, as the Affordable Care Act -- President Barack Obama’s signature health care law -- is sometimes called. In her answer, Hillary Clinton defended the law, citing its provisions to end barriers to obtaining insurance for those who have preexisting conditions, and ending lifetime limits on coverage. "If we repeal it, as Donald has proposed, and start over again, all of those benefits I just mentioned are lost to everybody -- not just people who get their health insurance on the exchange," she said. "And then we would have to start all over again." She went on to say that the practical consequences of the law have been strong. "Now we're at 90 percent health insurance coverage," she said. "That's the highest we've ever been in our country." Is she correct? Yes. The most widely cited data comes from the U.S. Census Bureau, which tabulates statistics annually on what percentage of Americans are covered by health insurance. The most recent report came out in September 2016, covering the year 2015. The Census Bureau found that 90.9 percent of Americans had some type of health coverage, whether it was provided by their employer, purchased independently or through a government program such as Medicare or Medicaid. The remainder -- 9.1 percent of Americans -- were uninsured. Here’s the key table from the report: That was an improvement over the 89.6 percent in 2014, 86.7 percent in 2013, 84.6 percent in 2012, 84.3 percent in 2011, and 83.7 percent in 2010 -- the year the Affordable Care Act was passed, although the law didn’t start having a major impact for another few years. Meanwhile, between 1999 and 2009, the insured rate bounced from a low of 83.9 percent to a high of 86.9 percent, the furthest back the Census Bureau offers the statistic online. And at the time the 2015 data was released, it was framed as a record high for insurance coverage. Looking at it the opposite way, the uninsured rate fell from 16.3 percent in 2010 to 9.1 percent in 2015 -- a decline of nearly half over five years. Our ruling Clinton said, "Right now we are at 90 percent health insurance covered. That's the highest we've ever been in our country." According to Census Bureau data, that’s correct; it was just shy of 91 percent in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available. We rate the statement True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/491fb1b8-ab7c-4372-bd27-f484b5729ea7 | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2016-10-09T22:32:38 | 2016-10-09 | ['None'] |
pomt-08560 | Pepper ... kicked off a jock tax, imposing a levy on the sports and entertainment industry. | true | /ohio/statements/2010/sep/29/dave-yost/gop-auditor-candidate-dave-yost-says-opponent-davi/ | When LeBron James returns to Cleveland as a member of the Miami Heat during the upcoming NBA season, a small slice of his game-day check will be carved out and handed over to the city of Cleveland. Taxing the income of visiting professional athletes – the "jock tax," as some derisively call it – is a common practice around the country that was incorporated into Ohio law in 2000. Ohio’s cities with major professional sports franchises have been collecting the tax for years, but recently the jock tax has become an issue in the state auditor’s race, a closely watched election because the winner will sit on the five-member Apportionment Board that will redraw Ohio’s legislative districts next year. Republican Dave Yost, in his quest to paint Democratic opponent David Pepper as a serial taxer, has blamed Pepper for instituting a jock tax when he was a Cincinnati city councilman. (To be clear, the state auditor cannot levy taxes.) "Pepper also kicked off a jock tax, imposing a levy on the sports and entertainment industry," according to a video Yost’s campaign produced in August. PolitiFact Ohio asked Yost’s campaign to back up the claim. It pointed to legislation Pepper sponsored as a city councilman in 2002 that called on Cincinnati to begin collecting income taxes from visiting professional athletes and entertainers. The motion passed and Cincinnati began collecting the tax. Pepper, now a county commissioner in Cincinnati’s Hamilton County, denies responsibility for imposing the tax. Pepper instead blamed state lawmakers who included the jock tax in a comprehensive municipal tax bill passed in 2000. Pepper said that bill, HB 483, forced cities to tax those athletes’ earnings. We took a closer look at HB 483 and found a provision that prohibits cities from taxing the income of anyone who works in a city for 12 or fewer days in a calendar year. An exception to that rule, however, is "a professional entertainer or professional athlete … as may be reasonably defined by the municipal corporation," the bill reads. That means an Ohio city can tax a professional athlete’s pay, no matter how many days he works there. (The provision originally was part of another bill that passed in 2000, HB 477, but was thrown into HB 483 for technical reasons.) While Pepper argued state law requires Cincinnati to collect the jock tax, experts we talked to said the 2000 state law placed Cincinnati under no obligation to do so. "It’s up the city," said John Mahoney, deputy director of the nonpartisan Ohio Municipal League, which represents the collective interests of the state’s municipalities. Cities, under home rule powers, generally have the final say when deciding whose income to tax. State lawmakers can only limit this authority, Mahoney said. The Ohio Municipal League, he noted, worked with lawmakers on the issue during the legislative process. Don Mottley, a former Republican state representative who sponsored both HB 483 and HB 477 and chaired the House Ways and Means committee hearings on each bill, agreed with Mahoney. "There’s nothing in there that requires them to tax athletes and entertainers," Mottley said. "It just permits them to." Mottley left the General Assembly at the end of 2000 and began practicing law. He also is a former chairman of the Ohio State Bar Association’s taxation committee. He represented the Cincinnati Bengals before the Cincinnati City Council in 2002 in opposition of Pepper’s legislation. The Bengals feared Cincinnati’s tax on opposing players would prompt more NFL cities to pass similar laws, Mottley said. But Cincinnati was far from the first city to collect a jock tax. Cleveland has been collecting the tax for more than three decades, and Columbus, home to an NHL team and a Major League Soccer team, has been doing so since the mid-1990s. In his defense, Pepper said the video makes it seem as if he created a never-before-seen tax. Pepper said he wanted Cincinnati to be in step with state law that allowed it to tax visiting athletes’ income. He said city law mandates taxing all qualifying wage earners. It is true that Pepper did not create the jock tax: It was collected in other cities before he pushed for it in Cincinnati. And a claim in the video that "CNN called it one of the strangest taxes in America" is an overstatement. The jock tax was included in a 2005 CNNmoney.com article that described, in general terms, how athletes’ income is taxed in different states. The story did not mention Pepper or the city of Cincinnati. However, Pepper’s legislation, while beneficial to the city budget, did institute the tax collection in Cincinnati. And the experts we talked to said collecting the tax was the city’s prerogative. Pepper can’t duck responsibility for starting the tax in Cincinnati. We find the statement True. | null | Dave Yost | null | null | null | 2010-09-29T06:00:00 | 2010-08-10 | ['None'] |
snes-04870 | Prince invested in Nike in 1971, recruited NBA star Michael Jordan to the company in 1983, and designed the first Air Jordan shoe. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/prince-air-jordan-sneakers/ | null | Sports | null | Dan Evon | null | Prince Was Integral in the Development of Air Jordan Sneakers? | 24 April 2016 | null | ['Michael_Jordan', 'National_Basketball_Association', 'Nike,_Inc.', 'Air_Jordan'] |
abbc-00136 | The claim: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop claims that Australia's refugee intake in 2015-16, as a result of taking 12,000 people from Syria and Iraq, will be the single largest since World War II. | in-the-green | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-29/fact-check-syria-largest-refugee-intake-julie-bishop/6786074 | The claim: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop claims that Australia's refugee intake in 2015-16, as a result of taking 12,000 people from Syria and Iraq, will be the single largest since World War II. | ['20th-century', 'world-war-2', 'immigration', 'bishop-julie', 'australia', 'syrian-arab-republic'] | null | null | ['20th-century', 'world-war-2', 'immigration', 'bishop-julie', 'australia', 'syrian-arab-republic'] | Fact check: Will Australia's refugee intake in 2015-16 be the highest since WWII? | Tue 29 Sep 2015, 1:44am | null | ['Syria', 'Iraq', 'Australia', 'World_War_II'] |
pomt-04353 | Says Mitt Romney "just gave a speech a few weeks ago" and said "we should still have troops in Iraq." | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/23/barack-obama/obama-romney-said-troops-should-still-be-iraq/ | President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney sparred during the third presidential debate over how Obama ended the Iraq war, a decision he announced about a year ahead of their final matchup. The candidates at one point saw eye-to-eye on an exit strategy, Romney said, though they now disagree over Obama’s call to withdraw all troops by the end of 2011. "With regards to Iraq, you and I agreed, I believe, that there should be a status of forces agreement," Romney said during the Lynn University debate in Boca Raton, Fla. Obama cut in, saying, "That’s not true," prompting more cross-talk about the number of troops each wanted to remain and the lack of a status of forces agreement with the Iraqi government. Obama criticized Romney for saying in a speech "just a few weeks ago that you indicated that we should still have troops in Iraq." "No, I didn’t, I’m sorry -- I indicated that you failed to put in place a status of forces agreement at the end of the conflict --" Romney said before Obama jumped in again. "Governor, here’s one thing … I’ve learned as commander in chief. You’ve got to be clear, both to our allies and our enemies, about where you stand and what you mean," Obama said. "Now, you just gave a speech a few weeks ago in which you said we should still have troops in Iraq. That is not a recipe for making sure that we are taking advantage of the opportunities and meeting the challenges of the Middle East." We were interested in Obama’s claim that Romney recently said troops should still be in place in Iraq. First, we’ll note Romney’s point about how both candidates wanted some troops to remain as part of an agreement with the Iraqi government is fair. Before President George W. Bush left office in 2008, the Iraqi Parliament ratified a pact, or a status of forces agreement, with the U.S. that put the complete withdrawal of troops by the end of 2011. Still, officials on both sides expected some American troops to remain to help protect and train the Iraqis with security threats to their border, waterways and airspace, the New York Times reported. Over the course of 2011, Obama scaled down the number of troops he thought should be in place to between 3,000 and 5,000. In the end, the breaking point was not over the size of a remaining force, but over Iraqi officials not wanting to grant American soldiers immunity under Iraqi law. The result: No combat troops remained in Iraq. About 200 people in the military are there now, and they report to the U.S. ambassador, a U.S. Defense Department spokesman said. This does not include security contractors, for which the spokesman had no estimate. Some U.S. military officers saw Obama’s Oct. 21, 2011, announcement of a complete withdrawal as him "putting best face on a breakdown in tortured negotiations with the Iraqis," the New York Times reported. This brings us back to our check: Did Romney say the U.S. should have troops in Iraq to this day? He has not used those words, but it’s a reasonable inference of his public positions on the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. The Obama campaign directed us to Romney’s remarks on foreign policy at the Virginia Military Institute on Oct. 8, 2012. In that speech, like many times before, Romney criticized Obama for pursuing a total withdrawal from the country instead of securing a residual force. "In Iraq the costly gains made by our troops are being eroded by rising violence, a resurgent al-Qaida, the weakening of democracy in Baghdad and the rising influence of Iran," he said. "And yet America’s ability to influence events for the better in Iraq has been undermined by the abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence. The president’s tried, he tried, but he also failed to secure a responsible and gradual drawdown that would have better secured our gains." Romney did not specify in his foreign policy speech what he thought a reasonable residual force would be. But in a December 2011 interview with Fox News, he said "we should have left 10-, 20-, 30,000 personnel there to help transition to the Iraqi's own military capabilities." We could not find an instance in which Romney said how long troops should have been in place. The main takeaway from the debate exchange, a Romney spokesman said, is Obama did not fulfill his own plan to leave a residual force in Iraq after 2012. The Obama campaign says it is reasonable to say thousands of troops would still be in place had Romney has his way. "So those comments -- and with no clear plan forward on Iraq – mean troops would be there right now," wrote Kara Carscaden, Obama campaign spokeswoman, in an email. Our ruling According to Obama, Romney said in a recent speech "we should still have troops in Iraq." In a speech at the Virginia Military Institute, Romney said the United States has been "undermined by the abrupt withdrawal of our entire troop presence" and that Obama "failed to secure a responsible and gradual drawdown." So Romney wanted a sizeable presence of U.S. troops in Iraq past 2011 as part of a status of forces agreement, which the Obama administration sought but did not get with the Iraqi government. The agreement would have been part of an overall drawdown. We rate Obama’s claim Mostly True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2012-10-23T17:34:57 | 2012-10-22 | ['Iraq'] |
snes-01276 | President Donald Trump posted a suggestive comment on Twitter about his daughter's "skintight" dress. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-inappropriate-comment-daughter-tiffany/ | null | Politics | null | Dan Evon | null | Did Donald Trump Tweet About Daughter Tiffany’s ‘Skintight’ Dress? | 2 January 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01422 | Is Jennifer Aniston Starting A 'Celebrities For Trump' Group? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-jennifer-aniston-starting-a-celebrities-for-trump-group/ | null | Junk News | null | Arturo Garcia | null | Is Jennifer Aniston Starting a ‘Celebrities for Trump’ Group? | 20 November 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00211 | Barack Obama and Joe Biden will use all diplomatic means at his disposal to achieve change in China's manipulation of the value of its currency, a practice that contributes to massive global imbalances and provides Chinese companies with an unfair competitive advantage. | compromise | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/226/urge-china-to-stop-manipulation-of-its-currency-va/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Urge China to stop manipulation of its currency value | 2010-01-07T13:26:52 | null | ['China', 'Joe_Biden', 'Barack_Obama'] |
snes-01573 | After only nine months in office, President Trump and family had already spent $147 million on personal travel, amounting to one-and-a-half times as much as President Obama and family spent in the eight years of the latter's presidency. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-trump-travel-costs/ | null | Politics | null | David Emery | null | Is Trump Spending More Taxpayer Dollars on Personal Travel than Obama Did? | 16 October 2017 | null | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-06500 | Says "any attempt to try to compare" the Massachusetts health care law with the federal health care law is "completely, intellectually dishonest. Governor Romney did not raise one tax in doing what he did." | mostly false | /new-jersey/statements/2011/oct/13/chris-christie/chris-christie-calls-comparisons-between-health-ca/ | Standing beside Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Gov. Chris Christie had three strong words to describe any comparisons between Romney’s health care reform in Massachusetts and the national health care reform law: "Completely, intellectually dishonest." A week after ruling out his own candidacy, Christie on Tuesday traveled to New Hampshire to endorse Romney, the former Massachusetts governor. During a press conference, the discussion turned to the two health care reform measures. "Any attempt to try to compare what happened in Massachusetts and what the president has done to the United States of America with his plan is completely, intellectually dishonest," Christie said. "Governor Romney did not raise one tax in doing what he did in trying to improve the health care system in Massachusetts." Here’s what PolitiFact New Jersey found: Christie is right that Romney’s plan did not raise taxes, but there are too many similarities between the two reforms to dismiss any comparisons as "completely, intellectually dishonest." First, let’s talk taxes. Enacted in March 2010, the federal law imposed taxes on drug manufacturers, health insurers, medical devices and indoor tanning services, among other tax increases. The Massachusetts law signed by Romney in 2006 did not enact taxes, but was primarily financed through federal dollars. "It’s a lot easier to not raise taxes if you have the federal government paying a large share of the tab when you’re a state," said Alan Weil, the executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy. Also, in 2008 -- after Romney left office -- Massachusetts raised the cigarette tax and imposed additional fees on private companies to help finance health-care costs. Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, said though the tax increases weren’t part of the initial health care law, they did help fund it. So, he said, "it’s not fair to say there’s no taxes raised." Like the federal law, the Massachusetts law imposes a fine on individuals who do not purchase health insurance. Some experts argued that such a penalty is a tax. "It’s government collecting money that you owe through your taxes," said Michael Doonan, executive director of the Massachusetts Health Policy Forum. "I would consider this a tax." But Ed Haislmaier, a senior research fellow in health policy studies at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said, "In both the Massachusetts reform and Obamacare, the individual mandate is not a tax, but a penalty enforced through the tax system." Still, the national health care reform was based on the Massachusetts plan, and the two have much in common. The core elements of the Massachusetts law include the "same essential design" as the national health care reform, according to John McDonough, a professor of public health practice at the Harvard University School of Public Health. "Regardless of the tax issue, to suggest then that there is no basis to compare the two sets of reforms is not valid," McDonough, who was involved in the passage and implementation of the Massachusetts law, said in an email. Here are a few examples of the similarities between the two reforms: Individual mandate: At the heart of both measures is the requirement that residents have health insurance, with exemptions for certain individuals. Otherwise, residents could face a tax penalty. Employer requirements: The Massachusetts law requires employers with at least 11 full-time workers to contribute toward health insurance coverage, or pay a penalty per employee. Under the federal law, if employers with at least 50 full-time employees don’t provide coverage, they must pay a fee to cover the cost of tax credits used by their workers to purchase insurance. Medicaid expansion: Both measures expand Medicaid in different ways. The national health care reform expands Medicaid to all non-Medicare eligible individuals under 65 years old who meet certain income requirements. In Massachusetts, the state’s Medicaid program was expanded to cover children with family incomes up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Insurance exchanges: Both measures establish insurance exchanges where individuals and small businesses can purchase insurance. "All of the basic elements are really, frankly quite similar," said Sarah Iselin, president of the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation. Our ruling Christie dismissed comparisons between the federal health care law and the Massachusetts health insurance reform as "completely, intellectually dishonest," saying the state plan "did not raise one tax." The state reform did not include tax increases, but it includes several core elements similar to those in the national reform. To deny that those similarities exist would be dishonest. We rate the statement Mostly False. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. | null | Chris Christie | null | null | null | 2011-10-13T05:15:00 | 2011-10-11 | ['Massachusetts'] |
pose-00475 | Will "double science and research funding for clean energy projects including those that make use of our biomass, solar and wind resources." | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/495/double-federal-spending-for-research-on-clean-fuel/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Double federal spending for research on clean fuels | 2010-01-07T13:27:00 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01097 | FBI Classifies All Motorcycle Owners as Gang Members | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/fbi-classifies-all-motorcycle-owners-as-gang-members/ | null | crime-police | null | null | null | FBI Classifies All Motorcycle Owners as Gang Members | Mar 29, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
wast-00072 | Just to state this: Justice Kennedy's son gave a billion dollar loan to Trump when no one would give him a dime, and Justice Kennedy has been ruling in favor of the Trump Administration position for 2 years as the Court decides 5-4 case after 5-4 case. | 4 pinnochios | ERROR: type should be string, got " https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/07/12/untangling-the-links-between-trump-deutsche-bank-and-justice-kennedys-son/" | null | null | Neera Tanden | Salvador Rizzo | null | The thinly sourced theories about Trump's loans and Justice Kennedy's son | July 12 | null | ['Anthony_Kennedy'] |
chct-00022 | FACT CHECK: Trump Flew To Montana For A Rally - Here Are 3 Checks On His Claims | none | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/10/19/fact-check-trump-rally-montana/ | null | null | null | Brad Sylvester | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 6:00 PM 10/19/2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03825 | Says Virginia, Florida and Georgia are the three states that are the principal source for gun trafficking. | mostly true | /georgia/statements/2013/mar/20/jim-moran/congressman-says-3-states-lead-nation-gun-traffick/ | The gun-debate rhetoric has been constant in the months since the Newtown shooting in Connecticut in December. Elected officials at every level have pitched gun control proposals, including President Barack Obama, whose $500 million package of gun legislation includes an assault weapons ban and universal background checks for gun buyers. Last month, U.S. Rep. Jim Moran talked about Newtown and gun proposals during floor debate about gun violence. In discussing background checks and gun trafficking, Moran urged his fellow lawmakers to "act responsibly" and approve some of the gun control measures. "In Virginia, we are one of the three states that are the principal source for trafficking of guns. Florida and Georgia are the other two," Moran said during a floor discussion of the issues. PolitiFact Georgia wondered if the Peach State, and the other two states, actually held this unfortunate distinction. And what about Texas? With its close proximity to Mexico and that country’s history of illegal gun activity, surely the Lone Star State was high on the gun trafficking list. Moran made his comments alongside fellow Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif. Speier was shot five times in 1978, while serving as a staff member to then-U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan. The two officials were part of a rescue attempt of constituents from the People’s Temple compound in Jonestown, Guyana. Ryan was killed by gunfire on the mission. Moran’s office pointed us to a September 2010 "Trace the Guns" report by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a self-described coalition of more than 900 U.S. mayors that works to help law enforcement target illegal guns. The study is based on "crime gun trace data" from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. According to the report, for the years 2007 through 2009, the states of Florida and Virginia ranked second or third among all states as the source for recovered firearms used in crimes in other states. Georgia ranked first each of those years, as well as in 2006, when Texas held the third position, beating out Florida. During those four years, nine of the top 10 source states for the trafficked guns -- Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Texas, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and California -- remained the same. In 2009, the top 10 states supplied 49 percent of the crime guns that crossed state lines. The study authors note that states with larger populations, like those in the top 10, can be expected to be a source of more crime guns. Controlling for population produces a crime gun "export rate," the number of recovered crime guns purchased in states other than the purchase state, per 100,000 people. Using the export rate calculations, state rankings on the trafficking list change. Virginia and Georgia dropped to Nos. 7 and 10, respectively, in 2009, the data year included in the report. Florida ranked 29th, just above the national average. Topping the per capita list were Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky, which occupied the top three positions. The three states of Virginia, Florida and Georgia, mentioned by Moran, have similarities that influence their gun trafficking rankings, said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. "Not all gun sales in these states are regulated, the states don’t tend to have any type of regulatory oversight of gun dealers and they are all along the I-95 corridor," he said. That interstate corridor, running along the eastern seaboard from Maine to Florida, is seen as a pipeline for illegal goods. Webster’s center recently completed a book, "Reducing Gun Violence in America," examining the relationship of gun sales regulations and the rate at which guns cross borders into the hands of criminals. "There is a lot of profit to be made in the far Northeastern states where the laws are much stricter," Webster said. "A gun that can be bought in these three states at a retail price of $100 can be sold for $400 in New York City," he said. PolitiFact Georgia also found a 2011 study conducted by Brown University economist Brian Knight that explored the state-to-state flow of illegal firearms in the country and examined the role of state gun regulations. That study, also based on ATF crime gun data, found that guns flow from states with less restrictive gun laws into states with restrictive laws. For example, the report found that the largest firearm suppliers to New York are Florida, Georgia and Virginia. Gun control organizations have given the three states that Moran mentions low ratings for their gun laws. On the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence’s 2011 scorecard, Virginia received a 12; Georgia received an 8; Florida got a 3 on a scale to 100 on the strength of the states’ gun laws. Similarly, the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence gave all three states D’s in its 2012 "Gun Laws Matter" report grading state gun laws. Earlier this month, a U.S. Senate committee passed a bill that makes gun trafficking a federal crime with up to 25 years in prison for people who legally buy guns but give them to others who use them in crimes. And last month, members of both parties in the U.S. House introduced a gun proposal that would increase penalties on the illegal purchase and transportation of guns. So what’s the draw? U.S. Rep. Jim Moran said that the states of Virginia, Florida and Georgia are the principal source for gun trafficking, and urged his congressional colleagues to pass some of the proposed gun control measures. Based on crime gun data recorded by the ATF and cited in several studies and publications, those three states hold the top three spots from 2007 to 2009 for crime guns that are trafficked to other states. In 2006, Texas overtook Florida for the third spot, but Georgia held the top position throughout the four-year period. Adjusting for population, Virginia and Georgia still rank in the top 10 gun-exporting states, but Florida drops to No. 29. Moran’s statement is accurate but lacks that important detail. Ultimately, the data and experts tie the gun trafficking to states’ gun laws, and these three states have laws that are less restrictive than others surrounding them. We rated Moran’s statement Mostly True. | null | Jim Moran | null | null | null | 2013-03-20T06:00:00 | 2013-02-27 | ['Georgia_(U.S._state)', 'Virginia'] |
goop-00887 | Heidi Klum Begging To Replace Kim Cattrall In ‘Sex And The City 3,’ | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/heidi-klum-replace-kim-cattrall-sex-city-3-sarah-jessica-parker-not-true/ | null | null | null | Michael Lewittes | null | Heidi Klum NOT Begging To Replace Kim Cattrall In ‘Sex And The City 3,’ Despite Claim | 12:26 pm, June 4, 2018 | null | ['Heidi_Klum', 'Kim_Cattrall'] |
snes-02864 | Pope Francis said that it was 'better to be an atheist than a bad Catholic.' | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pope-francis-bad-catholics/ | null | Politics | null | Dan Evon | null | Did Pope Francis Say It Was Better to Be an Atheist Than a Bad Catholic? | 28 February 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00477 | President Donald Trump was photographed during the G7 summit sitting down opposite Germany prime minister Angela Merkel with his arms crossed. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/real-photograph-g7-leaders/ | null | Politics | null | Arturo Garcia | null | Is This a Real Photograph of G7 Leaders? | 11 June 2018 | null | ['Germany', 'Angela_Merkel', 'G7', 'Donald_Trump'] |
tron-01443 | Asparagus Cures Cancer | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/asparagus/ | null | food | null | null | null | Asparagus Cures Cancer | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11646 | The Legionella bacteria is in most water systems in Illinois. | half-true | /illinois/statements/2018/jan/16/bruce-rauner/rauner-says-legionella-bacteria-most-water-systems/ | In 2015, during Bruce Rauner’s first year as governor, a virulent outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease at the state-run Illinois Veterans’ Home in downstate Quincy killed 12 residents and sickened dozens of others. Since then, according to recent news reports, the facility has been plagued by more illness and deaths from Legionnaires’, which experts say is usually linked to the inhaling of a bacteria that thrives in poorly maintained water systems. It was also reported by WBEZ that Rauner administration officials delayed public disclosure of the 2015 outbreak for nearly a week after discovering it. Critics claim the governor’s failure to act quickly to safeguard the water at Quincy after the initial incident displayed an indifference to the fate of the elderly military veterans who live there. Family members of victims have filed suit against the state over their deaths. Meanwhile, one potential Democratic challenger to Rauner’s re-election, J.B. Pritzker, began running TV spots attacking the Republican incumbent’s handling of the Quincy situation. Rauner insists his administration did not drop the ball, and recently spent seven days living at the home to make a public show that it was safe. He also took aim at the media for casting blame his way without telling the whole story. In an interview with the editorial board of the Joliet Herald-News, Rauner said news reports failed to explain that the source of the disease is basically everywhere. "The reality is, and this is what’s not getting into the reports, the Legionella bacteria is in most water systems in Illinois," Rauner told the paper. "There were just two infections of Legionnaires at Northwestern Hospital, which is not even an old facility and I think is regarded as a really well-run facility. These things happen." We wondered if the governor is right. Are bacteria that can cause Legionnaires’ disease lurking in most building water systems? And, if so, what public health danger does that pose? Dangerous, but largely preventable Legionnaires’ disease is a severe and sometimes deadly form of pneumonia that derives its name from its first recognized outbreak in 1976 at an American Legion convention in Philadelphia. Most at risk are the elderly and those with compromised immune systems, cited by state officials as one reason why the outbreaks at the Quincy facility proved so serious. Legionnaires is spread through aerosolized water drops inhaled into the lungs, with showers, faucets, hot tubs and mist from large building air-conditioning units serving as common sources for spreading the infection. The disease is unlikely to be spread from drinking contaminated water. Rachel Bold, a spokeswoman for Rauner, cited explanations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization and the scientific journal PLOS One to reinforce his claim that bacteria that can cause the disease are widespread. However, none of those sources contained information confirming that a majority of Illinois building water systems contained the bacteria, known as Legionella. Erik Olson, health program director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said Legionella likely can be found in many water systems. Even so, Olson said it was "misleading" for Rauner to attempt to frame the danger so broadly. Trace amounts of the bacteria don’t pose a threat unless allowed to grow due to poor building maintenance, Olson explained. He likened the phenomenon to that of coliform bacteria, which are also widespread in the environment. Many forms of coliform bacteria are harmless, he said, while some can lead to potentially deadly E. coli in food if proper sanitation procedures are not followed. The CDC also stresses that poor building maintenance — rather than the widespread presence of low-level bacteria — is the main culprit in Legionnaires’ outbreaks. Legionella is naturally occurring and is present at low levels in water sources such as lakes and rivers. Therefore, it’s assumed by government officials that the bacteria makes its way into building systems. However, there’s no quantifiable data. "We don’t actually have an exact number or even proportion," CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said in an interview. State health departments report annual incidents of Legionnaires’ cases to the CDC. There were 6,000 cases reported nationwide in 2015. An estimated 9 to 10 percent of all cases result in death, Nordlund said, though the agency doesn’t ask states to report numbers of deaths from the disease. In 2015, the city of Chicago advised building owners to check and clean water supply systems to guard against the spread of Legionnaires. "Legionella bacteria are present at low levels in many water systems," the city letter stated. "Background levels of Legionella are not known to be a significant risk when associated with proper water quality management of water systems." Northwestern Memorial Hospital spokesman Christopher King confirmed Rauner’s claim that two patients treated at the hospital within the past six months tested positive for Legionella. The hospital is working with state health officials and conducting its own review "to determine if these two cases are related," he said, declining to comment further. Our ruling Rauner says news reports about his administration’s response to recurring incidents of Legionnaires’ disease at the Illinois Veterans’ Home in Quincy leave out a key part of the story: "The Legionella bacteria is in most water systems in Illinois." The governor’s statement glosses over the reality that any such contamination is likely present at low and non-threatening levels. The use of the word "most" is also questionable since there’s no real quantifiable evidence. The CDC avoids quantifying the presence of the bacteria, which thrives on slime in poorly maintained internal water systems. The governor has a point that the bacteria lurks in a number of water systems. But his statement makes an unprovable claim about the extent of the contamination. The governor’s claim is overbroad and lacking in context. We rate it Half True. | null | Bruce Rauner | null | null | null | 2018-01-16T12:00:00 | 2018-01-03 | ['Illinois'] |
pomt-11505 | Here in Florida, despite 14 school shootings in eight years, we still have some of the weakest gun laws in the nation. | mostly false | /florida/statements/2018/feb/23/philip-levine/14-schools-shootings-2010-florida-not-really/ | In the wake of the Parkland, Fla. shooting, Democratic candidate for governor Philip Levine released a TV ad promoting tighter gun restrictions and documenting an alarming number of school shootings in the state. Levine, the former mayor for Miami Beach released the 30-second ad after the Feb. 14 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that killed 17 people. Levine will face several other Democratic challengers in the primary on Aug. 28. "When we send our children off to school, we want to know they're safe," Levine says as he steps off a school bus. "But here in Florida, despite 14 school shootings in eight years, we still have some of the weakest gun laws in the nation." Have there really been 14 school shootings in Florida since 2010, and does Florida have some of the weakest gun laws in the nation? ‘14 school shootings in eight years’ There isn’t one uniform way to track school shootings in the United States. Methodologies and definitions vary with each group collecting data, offering a range of numbers on the prevalence of school shootings in recent years. To back up Levine’s claim, spokesman Christian Ulvert sent PolitiFact Florida a list of 14 events that he described as school shootings. Ulvert said he compiled the list after vetting news articles about shootings. Wikipedia also lists 14 school shootings in Florida over the past eight years. Ulvert also sent along a tweet from WFTV investigative and political reporter Christopher Heath who reiterated the statistic. The list indeed includes 14 incidents in the last eight years (actually since 2012). But the descriptions and circumstances of many of the events are quite different than what occurred in Parkland. Date Location Details March 6, 2012 Episcopal School of Jacksonville Shane Schumerth, a Spanish teacher who had been fired, went to the Episcopal School of Jacksonville armed with an AK-47. Schumerth shot and killed the Head of the School, Dale Regan. Schumerth then killed himself in the office. Jan. 7, 2013 Apostolic Revival Center Christian School, Fort Myers, Florida Kristopher Smith, 27, was killed by gunshots fired at the school. Police believed it to be a retaliation killing, possibly for speaking with police about a previous event. A news report does not mention who killed Smith, including if that person was a student. March 18, 2013 University of Central Florida James Oliver Seevakumaran, 30-year-old student, pulled a fire alarm at the Tower One dormitory to attract a crowd. After threatening to shoot his roommate; he released the roommate, who ran out and called 9-1-1. Seevakumaran then fatally shot himself in the head. Oct. 4, 2013 Outside Agape Christian Academy A 16-year-old student was shot in the hip outside of the academy after a fight broke out. An innocent bystander was hit by a stray bullet or shrapnel. Two victims were treated for minor injuries. Dec. 4, 2013 Near a soccer field on the campus of West Orange High School A 17-year-old student shot and injured a 15-year-old student near a soccer field on campus. Jan. 30, 2014 Parking lot of Eastern Florida State College A student and two others were fighting in a parking lot when the student pulled out a gun and shot one of the men in the chest. March 12, 2014 Behind the Academy of Knowledge Preschool An elementary school teacher was shot and killed by her husband. Sept. 9, 2014 Parking lot of Stellar Leadership Academy in northwest Miami-Dade After a fight broke out, someone fired a gun. One person was injured. Nov. 20, 2014 Near the Strozier Library at Florida State University A gunman opened fire on FSU’s campus, leaving three students injured before he was killed by campus police. Nov. 20, 2014 Miami Carol City High School Two teenagers were shot during a fight. One boy died. Jan. 16, 2015 Parking lot of Vanguard High School in Ocala, Fla. A gunman opened fired in the parking lot, injuring one 14-year-old girl and a 19-year-old woman. (Woman was cut by glass) Feb. 23, 2015 Music building at Bethune-Cookman University Two students were arguing and one pulled out a gun. Three students were injured. May 12, 2015 Jacksonville (a school bus on 118th Street) A 16-year-old student was accused of firing five bullets at a school bus. Two students were injured. Feb. 14, 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting A 19-year-old former student began shooting students and staff members with a semi-automatic rifle, killing 17 people and leaving 14 more injured. So there are 14 documented incidents in which a gun was fired inside a school or on or near school property since 2012. Of those shootings shootings: Seven involved no deaths; Four occurred during a fight between specific people or students; Three of the seven incidents that resulted in deaths did not involve students; One was an incident between a wife and her husband. We presented the list from Levine’s office to Jaclyn Schildkraut, an assistant professor in the Department of Public Justice at the State University of New York at Oswego. Schildkraut said she only considered two of the incidents "school shootings" — the Feb. 14 shooting at Stoneman Douglas and the Nov. 20, 2014, shooting at Florida State University. She said the shooters at Stoneman Douglas and FSU had similar motivations, unlike the other incidents on the list that happened after or during an altercation. "He goes into a place that he knows is populated and randomly starts shooting," she said. "It’s not targeted violence like the fights and the case where a woman was shot by her husband." Florida has ‘some of the weakest gun laws in the nation’ To back this point up, Ulvert sent PolitiFact Florida a link to an NBC News article that cited a 2016 report from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a group that supports more restrictive gun regulation. Florida does have weak gun laws based on this analysis, but saying it has some of the weakest requires context. According to the report, Florida received an F for its gun laws, the lowest grade a state can receive. But so did 24 other states. Grades are assigned based on how many "points" a state earns. The more points, the better the grade. For example, states can earn points if they require a background check for every firearm sale and lose points for laws that allow people to carry concealed, loaded guns in public without a permit, among other things. In a news release, Giffords Law Center also notes that in 2016 Florida had "the nation’s 26th highest gun death rate … and was ranked the 26th worst state for firearm laws." Giffords said Mississippi received the worst score in 2016. While Mississippi received an F last year, its ranking dropped from 49 to 50 because it enacted a law that allows people to carry hidden, loaded guns in public without a license. Following the shooting, Giffords Law wrote a news brief pointing out some of Florida’s permissive laws, which included the state’s pre-emption law that sought to prevent local governments from passing new gun restrictions on their own. The organization claims the law was "designed to severely restrict local authority to regulate firearms." It also said that Florida’s "stand your ground" law was amended recently to make it "even more dangerous." Our ruling Levine said that "despite 14 school shootings in eight years (in Florida), we still have some of the weakest gun laws in the nation." Levine can count 14 instances in the past eight years where guns were discharged on school grounds. But describing those 14 instances as school shootings is misleading, an expert told us, particularly when compared with, and in the context of, the shooting in Parkland. A group that supports tighter gun restrictions, meanwhile, says that Florida does have weak gun laws. But two dozen states share that same description. We rate this claim Mostly False. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | Philip Levine | null | null | null | 2018-02-23T09:14:54 | 2018-02-20 | ['None'] |
afck-00276 | “[The] department and the Free State have not been getting the right kinds of allocations as per the national formula of the equitable share.” | incorrect | https://africacheck.org/reports/crisis-what-crisis-africa-check-tests-free-state-health-claims/ | null | null | null | null | null | Crisis? What crisis? Africa Check tests Free State health claims | 2015-06-12 05:45 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00210 | A letter to President Donald Trump from 22 senators "is a way of saying to the president, ‘You are now under an affirmative requirement, legal requirement, to investigate' " journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s disappearance and suspected murder. | mostly true | /punditfact/statements/2018/oct/16/andrea-mitchell/can-congress-force-donald-trump-investigate-missin/ | A group of senators is pressuring President Donald Trump to respond more aggressively to Saudi Arabia’s suspected disappearance and murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi nearly two weeks ago at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul. The lawmakers have invoked a novel legal mechanism from the Global Magnitsky Act to try to compel the Trump administration to investigate the fate of Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident who had been living in the United States. The bipartisan slate of 22 senators penned a letter requesting that Trump order an investigation and report back its findings within 120 days. "The Magnitsky letter," Mitchell said, "is a way of saying to the president, ‘You are now under an affirmative requirement, legal requirement, to investigate this,’ which the administration did not want to do, investigate it with a time limit." Mitchell, who is NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent, was explaining the issue on the Oct. 14 broadcast of Meet the Press. We were curious if she was right, so we decided to fact-check her. Mitchell is correct that lawmakers are attempting to use the 2016 Global Magnitsky Act to signal that Trump is obligated to look into Khashoggi’s disappearance, and it’s the first time lawmakers have invoked that provision. Here, we’ll explore how the law works, as well as some of its possible limits. Global Magnitsky Act investigation The "Magnitsky letter" that Mitchell referred to arrived at the White House Oct. 10, about a week after Khashoggi’s disappearance. The letter was a request from Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and Bob Menendez, D-N.J., who are, respectively, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. They were joined by 20 other senators, including Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee. "The recent disappearance of Saudi journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi suggests that he could be a victim of a gross violation of internationally recognized human rights," the senators wrote. "Therefore, we request that you make a determination on the imposition of sanctions pursuant to the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act with respect to any foreign person responsible for such a violation related to Mr. Khashoggi." Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian accountant who was tortured and died in 2009 in a Moscow jail after exposing Russian corruption, according to Human Rights Watch. In 2012, Congress passed a law bearing his name that sanctioned high-ranking Russian officials who were believed to have committed serious human rights violations. A second law — known as the Global Magnitsky Act — cleared Congress in December 2016. It extended the first law’s accountability mission beyond Russia’s borders by authorizing the executive branch to impose visa bans and other sanctions on human rights violators anywhere in the world. Congress also has a role to play. The process begins with the chairman and ranking member of an appropriate congressional committee sending the president a written request. They can ask the president to investigate if a human rights violation — like extrajudicial killing or torture — has been committed. The target of abuse must be someone who was either working to expose illegal activity of government officials, or was engaged in some other kind of protected activity, like free expression, as in the case of a dissident journalist. Under the law, the president has up to 120 days, from the time of the request, to determine if a human rights violation occurred. The law also states "the president shall submit a classified or unclassified report" to the committee’s top members. That report should say whether the president will impose sanctions, and what they entail. Limits of Global Magnitsky Act According to some experts, despite the law’s clear language, the president may not have to comply with the request, after all. A statement President Barack Obama made in 2016 when he signed the Global Magnitsky Act into law made clear that he believed this provision violated the separation of congressional and presidential power. "(The provision) purports to require me to determine whether a foreign person has committed a sanctionable human rights violation when I receive a request to do so from certain members of Congress," Obama wrote in a signing statement. "Consistent with the constitutional separation of powers, which limit the Congress's ability to dictate how the executive branch executes the law, I will maintain my discretion to decline to act on such requests when appropriate." Rob Berschinski, a senior vice president at the advocacy group Human Rights First and a former official in Obama’s State Department, said Trump could use Obama’s signing statement as an out. "Theoretically, the Trump administration could point to that signing statement and say this is an infringement on executive branch prerogative," Berschinski said. "At the end of the day, the Magnitsky Act is an executive authority that was passed into law. But it’s purely elective." Ultimately, it would be up to the courts to decide whether the provision authorizing Congress to request the White House to conduct human rights investigations is constitutional or not. Even if the courts were to strike down the provision, Congress would not be powerless, though. It could legislate sanctions, or take actions related to U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Still, Berschinski said the senators’ message in their letter to Trump was unmistakable. "It was a very strong signal of congressional intent," he said. Our ruling Mitchell said a letter to Trump from 22 senators "is a way of saying to the president, ‘You are now under an affirmative requirement, legal requirement, to investigate’ " Khashoggi’s suspected murder. Mitchell is correct that the Global Magnitsky Act contains a provision that allows certain members of congress to ask the president to carry out investigations of suspected human rights violations. Experts agreed the letter sent to the White House by 22 senators was a clear signal of congressional intent to oblige Trump to look into the circumstances surrounding Khashoggi’s disappearance. That said, Obama said upon signing the law in 2016 that he believes the provision violates the separation of powers — and at least some legal experts agree. We rate this Mostly True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Andrea Mitchell | null | null | null | 2018-10-16T10:25:49 | 2018-10-14 | ['None'] |
abbc-00007 | The plight of South Africa's farmers caught the attention of local politicians recently when Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton suggested white farmers were being persecuted and deserved "special attention" under Australia's humanitarian immigration program. | in-the-red | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-05/fact-check-were-400-white-south-african-farmers-murdered-year/9591724 | Mr Abbott's claim is baseless. There are no official statistics available for the past 12 months. The most recent police statistics show that 74 people were murdered on farms in the year to March 2017. That figure is well below the 400 claimed by Mr Abbott. Moreover, it includes all farmers, workers, families and visitors and all races. More recent figures, which identify white farmers, are available from the Transvaal Agricultural Union, a group representing the interests of farmers. According to their figures, there were 84 farm murders in the 2017 calendar year. Of these, 59 victims were white farmers. A further 15 people, including 8 white farmers, were killed on farms in the first three months of 2018. That means fewer than 70 white farmers were killed in the last 15 months. The police's latest data does reveal a rise in farm murders compared with the previous year, as does the union's data. However, experts told Fact Check that these changes reflected a general increase in murders across the entire South African population since 2012. | ['murder-and-manslaughter', 'farm-labour', 'race-relations', 'liberals', 'south-africa'] | null | null | ['murder-and-manslaughter', 'farm-labour', 'race-relations', 'liberals', 'south-africa'] | Fact check: Were 400 white South African farmers murdered last year? | Thu 12 Jul 2018, 2:42am | null | ['Australia', 'South_Africa'] |
snes-04617 | Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen was a Democrat. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/orlando-shooter-was-democrat/ | null | Crime | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Orlando Shooter Was a Democrat? | 13 June 2016 | null | ['Democratic_Party_(United_States)'] |
pomt-01767 | Twenty percent of single adults, ages 21 to 25 with no kids, "are not working or even in school trying to find a job." | false | /wisconsin/statements/2014/jul/30/paul-ryan/one-five-single-childless-adults-their-early-20s-n/ | Many of us know people in their early 20s, single with no kids, no longer in school. And not working. But just how common is that these days? On July 25, 2014, the day after he unveiled a new anti-poverty agenda, U.S. House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan did an interview with conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes on WTMJ-AM (620) in Milwaukee. Sykes asked the Wisconsin Republican why conservatives shouldn’t be skeptical of one proposal in the plan, an expansion of the federal earned income tax credit, which allows lower- and moderate-wage workers to keep more of what they earn. Sykes said the credit can be viewed as "income redistribution." Ryan responded by saying the credit helps address "these high disincentives of losing benefits on welfare if you go to work. The EITC helps pull people into work. It actually rewards work." He added: "When you look at society today, where we have probably the biggest problem with people going to work, it’s young, childless adults. It’s young people without kids, who are single, from 21 to 25 years old. Twenty percent of them in America are not working or even in school trying to find a job. And that is a real problem for society." We figured the 20 percent figure might seem high to some readers, low to others. It turns out that, for a different, broader group of young people, that figure is in the ballpark. But there are no national statistics specifically for the group Ryan cited. "Disconnected youths" Concerns about Americans in their late teens and early 20s have been raised since at least 2007, when Congress held hearings on how they become detached from work and school. Two years later, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service did a report on "disconnected youths." It observed that those ages 16 to 24 who are not working nor in school "may have difficulty gaining the skills and knowledge needed to attain self-sufficiency." Since then, the concerns may have deepened. In 2013, the Congressional Research Service reported that from 2000 through 2010, people 16 to 24 "experienced the steepest declines in employment." And in a May 2014 report, the liberal Economic Policy Institute said that even as the unemployment rate for people under 25 was about double the overall rate, there was little evidence they have been able to "shelter in school," given that college enrollment rates have dropped substantially since 2012. Ryan’s claim When we asked Ryan spokesman Kevin Seifert about Ryan’s 20 percent claim, he cited President Barack Obama’s own proposal, made in March 2014, to expand the earned income tax credit. A chart included in Obama’s proposal indicates that 19 percent of 21- to 24-year-olds are neither working nor in school. That appears to be close to the percentage Ryan cited -- except for two things. Ryan referred to 21- to 25-year-olds, while the Obama proposal referred to people ages 21 to 24. More importantly, Ryan spoke only of single and childless adults. Obama’s figure was for everyone in that age group, including those who are married. When we pointed out the differences to Seifert, he told us Ryan "misspoke in relaying the specific statistic from the White House's report, but the larger point made in his remarks remains accurate -- that young Americans, the vast majority of which are single, are either unemployed or not in school and that's a problem." The White House report didn’t cite a source for its 19 percent figure. But we found that according to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 19 percent of adults ages 20 to 24 -- a slightly different age group than was cited in the White House report -- were not enrolled in school and were not working in 2013. That figure includes all adults in that age group -- single and married, with or without kids. Both the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics told us there are no federal statistics for the group Ryan cited in terms of the percentage not in school and not working. Our rating Ryan said 20 percent of single adults without kids, ages 21 to 25, "are not working or even in school trying to find a job." The latest federal figures show that 19 percent of adults ages 20 to 24 weren’t in school and weren’t working in 2013. But that statistic is for a slightly different age range than what Ryan cited. And it includes everyone in that range, not just the single adults without kids that Ryan cited. Since Ryan acknowledges he misstated the statistic, and there are no federal figures for the group he cited, we rate his claim False. | null | Paul Ryan | null | null | null | 2014-07-30T05:00:00 | 2014-07-25 | ['None'] |
snes-04955 | Taxpayers footed the bill for prayer rugs at a St. Cloud school district after a lawsuit was brought by CAIR. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/schools-prayer-rugs-muslims/ | null | Politics | null | Kim LaCapria | null | U.S. Schools Now Buying Prayer Rugs for Muslims? | 5 April 2016 | null | ['None'] |
abbc-00005 | Independent Senator Fraser Anning has frequently used Twitter to campaign against those migrants and asylum seekers he claims come to Australia "for a life of permanent handouts". | in-the-red | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-04/fact-check-muslim-workforce/9800656 | Senator Anning is wrong. It also revealed that the high Muslim non-participation rate — which compares to a national working-age non-participation rate of 24 per cent — is almost entirely due to the large number of Muslim women who are not working. | ['immigration', 'work', 'australia'] | null | null | ['immigration', 'work', 'australia'] | Fact check: Are more than half of Australia's working-age Muslims not in the workforce? | Thu 6 Sep 2018, 7:05am | null | ['Australia'] |
pomt-13038 | Wisconsin uses voting machines that are outlawed, they are illegal. | pants on fire! | /wisconsin/statements/2016/nov/29/jill-stein/seeking-recount-donald-trump-win-jill-stein-says-w/ | Capitalizing on voter discontent and perhaps looking to broaden her political base, Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein raised millions of dollars over the Thanksgiving holiday to pay for presidential election recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. On Nov. 26, 2016, a Saturday evening, Stein explained the effort on her weekly broadcast on Facebook -- and made a provocative claim about Wisconsin and the election here. "Hello, good evening, Facebook friends, revolutionaries, citizens of the planet and of America," the Massachusetts activist and physician began on the video. Later, she declared: "Wisconsin uses voting machines that have been outlawed. They are illegal to use them because they are so prone to tampering and hacking. They are an invitation, really, for malfeasance. Those are used in the state of Wisconsin." It seems like something more serious than a recount would be under way if outlawed voting machines had been used to help Republican Donald Trump win, if not in a landslide, the White House. Stein’s campaign told us the candidate was actually referring to California banning electronic, touch-screen voting machines, but acknowledged that the machines are not banned in Wisconsin. Hmmm. Legal in Wisconsin In 2004, California’s secretary of state banned the use of a particular brand of electronic voting machines because of security and reliability concerns and decertified others until steps could be taken to upgrade their security. Part of the concern was the touch-screen machines didn’t provide a paper trail at the time of voting. In Wisconsin, the vast majority of voting machines are optical readers. Voters fill out a paper ballot and feed it into the machine, which then electronically records the vote. A small percentage of votes in Wisconsin are cast on touch-screen machines -- but those in use here do generate a paper record for each ballot cast. All voting equipment in Wisconsin has been approved by the Wisconsin Election Commission (or one of its predecessors), Kevin Kennedy, Wisconsin’s former elections director, told us. And in order to be approved, the equipment had to first pass national testing standards. Before 2006, the equipment was tested under the auspices of the National Association of Election Directors (NASED). Since 2006, testing has been done under the auspices of the U.S Elections Assistance Commission, a federal agency. There are no federal requirements that states must use certain machines, said Lawrence Norden, deputy director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. In other words, each state decides what’s legal. Our rating Stein said: "Wisconsin uses voting machines that are outlawed, they are illegal." California banned electronic, touch-screen machines. But the touch-screen machines that are used by a distinct minority of voters in Wisconsin are approved by the Wisconsin Election Commission. They’re legal. For a statement that is false and ridiculous, we rate Stein’s claim Pants on Fire. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/ac38ea9a-665f-447d-9e20-91c6282b9994 More factchecks on the voting process ➤ Trump said: "Wisconsin is one of several states where you can change your early ballot if you think you've made a mistake." Our rating: True. As long as you meet the deadline, several days before election day, you can "spoil" your original ballot and cast a new one. ➤ Did an election clerk in Green Bay refuse to allow early voting on the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay campus because she "was afraid it would help Democrats," showing "outrageous partisan bias"? Half True. Yes, she was concerned about favoring Democrats, but there were other reasons, too, for not opening an early voting site. ➤ Also Half True was a claim by comedian Amy Schumer that "anyone who knows you can just" look it up to "see if you voted." Generally speaking, an individual’s voting history is a public record, though how easy it is to access can vary. | null | Jill Stein | null | null | null | 2016-11-29T16:08:54 | 2016-11-26 | ['None'] |
chct-00007 | FACT CHECK: 3 Claims From Trump's Rally In Florida | none | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/11/01/fact-check-trump-rally-florida/ | null | null | null | David Sivak | Fact Check Editor | null | null | 10:08 AM 11/01/2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03933 | There’s more murders with hammers last year than...shotguns and pistols and AK-47s. | pants on fire! | /georgia/statements/2013/feb/21/bill-jackson/gun-claim-goes-awry/ | (Update: Those pesky, yet observant, PolitiFact Georgia readers. Several took note of our recent fact-check of state Sen. Bill Jackson. We looked at this precise statement: "More murders were committed last year with hammers than with shotguns, rifles or AK-47s." That statement, which appeared in news stories, is accurate, according to FBI homicide statistics. Trouble is there is a video of Jackson’s statement. And in that video he uses the word "pistols" instead of "rifles." That changes the entire thrust of his statement. We called the reporter who wrote the initial news story. He checked his notes and agrees he got the quote wrong. Our readers were correct. And we dedicate the following revised fact-check to their keen observation skills.) Some gun control critics are using a similar talking point in the national debate over this issue. "There’s more with hammers than with shotguns and pistols and AK-47s," said state Sen. Bill Jackson, a Republican from Appling. PolitiFact Georgia wondered if Jackson’s remarks were accurate, or was he attempting to make a political point with a bogus claim? We quickly discovered our partners at other PolitiFact operations have examined similar claims before. Here’s what they found: In January, some Facebook posts began to circulate that were critical of the White House’s proposal to restrict the availability of some weapons. "Facts gun-control advocates don’t want you to know. According to the FBI, in 2011, 1,694 were murdered with knives, 726 with hands or feet, 496 with clubs or hammers, 323 with rifles of any type. But Obama wants to ban semi-automatic rifles?" it read. The FBI figures also showed that 356 people were killed with shotguns. PolitiFact reviewed 2011 FBI data on the types of weapons used to commit murders. The numbers posted on Facebook nearly matched the FBI data. The Facebook post of how many people were killed with hands or feet was two below the FBI total of 728. A few weeks later, our partners at PolitiFact Texas examined a similar claim from that state’s attorney general, Greg Abbott. "FBI: More people killed with hammers & clubs each year than rifles," Abbott said in a Twitter post. He supplied a link to a Jan. 3, 2013, Fox News commentary piece that originated on the conservative website Breitbart.com and referred to FBI murder statistics from 2005 through 2011. PolitiFact Texas noted Abbott used selective data to base his claim. That said, PolitiFact Texas noted, it is correct that FBI data indicates that in 2011, more people were killed with "clubs and hammers" than with any type of rifle. They rated his claim True. At first hearing, Jackson’s claim sounds similar. But when you note that he includes pistols, or handguns, in his comparison, the similarities begin to fade. Here are the 2011 FBI totals (the most recent year available) for the types of weapons used in homicides: Handguns: 6,220 Rifles: 323 Shotguns: 356 Blunt Objects: 496 As you can see, there’s a big difference between the handgun total and the rifles total and the total for shotguns. Webster's defines a pistol as a handgun. U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, an Athens Republicans, made a similar claim to Jackson, which we rated Pants on Fire. To sum up, Jackson said there were more people killed with hammers than shotguns and pistols and AK-47s. There were actually 12 times as many people killed with handguns in 2011 than with blunt objects like hammers. Jackson’s claim is way off. Mark Twain once said the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter - it’s the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning. And where there’s lightning, things are bound to get hot -- we said that. We rate Jackson’s claim Pants on Fire. | null | Bill Jackson | null | null | null | 2013-02-21T11:31:46 | 2013-02-11 | ['None'] |
snes-03746 | Pope Francis decreed that Catholics cannot vote for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/pope-forbids-catholics-from-voting-for-hillary-clinton/ | null | Politics | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Pope Forbids Catholics from Voting for Hillary Clinton | 21 October 2016 | null | ['Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'Hillary_Rodham_Clinton'] |
wast-00185 | During Watergate inquiry, "Hillary Rodham was fired by her supervisor, lifelong Democrat Jerry Zeifman. | 4 pinnochios | ERROR: type should be string, got " https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/09/06/the-zombie-claim-that-hillary-clinton-was-fired-during-the-watergate-inquiry/" | null | null | Internet meme | Glenn Kessler | null | The zombie claim that Hillary Clinton was fired during the Watergate inquiry | September 6, 2016 | null | ['Hillary_Rodham_Clinton', 'Watergate_scandal'] |
thal-00083 | The 2016 FactCheck Review of the Year | none | http://www.thejournal.ie/thejournal-ie-2016-factcheck-review-of-the-year-3129320-Dec2016/ | null | null | null | null | null | The 2016 FactCheck Review of the Year | Dec 31st 2016, 8:00 AM | null | ['None'] |
tron-01352 | Video Shows Women Drinking Helium Infused Wine | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/video-shows-women-drinking-helium-infused-wine/ | null | food | null | null | null | Video Shows Women Drinking Helium Infused Wine | Nov 30, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04629 | An Olympic pool was installed at a prison for Stanford swimmer Brock Turner. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brock-turner-prison-pool/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Jail Installs New Olympic-Sized Swimming Pool for Stanford Rapist | 10 June 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00241 | Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed up for the open borders, and it's a bill, it's called the ‘open borders bill.’ | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/oct/08/donald-trump/donald-trump-falsely-claims-theres-open-borders-bi/ | President Donald Trump went to Kansas to rally for Republicans seeking election in November and in the process made false claims about Democrats signing on to a purported "open borders bill." "Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed up for the open borders, and it's a bill, it's called the ‘open borders bill.’ What's going on? And it's written by, guess who? Dianne Feinstein," Trump said Oct. 6 in Topeka. Overall, Trump portrayed Democrats as too extreme and radical for public office and cast fear that if the alleged Democratic bill ever became law, "a tidal wave of drugs and crime would pour into our nation like never, ever before." There are layers of falsehoods to what Trump said. A main one? There’s no "open borders bill." Trump on the campaign trail: His 3 reasons to fear Democrats, fact-checked Trump is misrepresenting a bill introduced in June by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called the Keep Families Together Act. The intention of that bill isn’t to create open borders, but to prevent the separation of immigrant families arriving at U.S. borders. We’ve fact-checked other Republican attacks on this bill and its companion in the U.S. House of Representatives. A False claim in Missouri said the bill "would give a free pass to any illegal immigrant who brings a child to the border." Similarly, a False claim in Arizona about the House bill said it was "essentially encouraging child trafficking." Here are the facts. Keep Families Together Act is not ‘Open Borders bill’ Feinstein introduced the Keep Families Together Act at the height of family separations caused by Trump’s "zero-tolerance" immigration policy. The bill sought to prohibit federal agents and officers from separating a child from a parent or legal guardian at or near a port of entry or within 100 miles of U.S. borders. Separations would be allowed under specific circumstances: if the child is a victim of trafficking or at significant risk of it; if there's a strong likelihood that the adult is not the parent; or if the child is in danger of abuse or neglect. State courts and state or county child welfare agencies could also separate a child from a parent if it's in the child's best interest. The point of Feinstein’s bill is to prohibit separations as a policy to deter immigrants from coming to the United States, "or for the policy goal of promoting compliance with civil immigration laws." "The bill would not grant illegal immigrants a ‘pass’ — free or otherwise — to enter or live legally or illegally in the United States," David Bier, an immigration policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute think tank told us for a similar Missouri fact-check. Immigration experts have also told us that the Senate and House versions of Keep Families Together Act don’t prohibit the removal or detention of adults and families. The proposals also don’t supersede immigration laws. Immigrants would still have to go through proceedings to proof any claims for asylum or other relief. Feinstein’s bill also calls for annual reports on family separations. Such reports would include whether an adult was charged with a crime, the type of crime, if the adult was prosecuted, and the outcome. Trump routinely claims Democrats want "open borders." He bases this attack line on Democrats' general opposition to Trump’s promised U.S.-Mexico border wall. Democrats favor other border security measures and argue that the wall would be too expensive, especially since Mexico refuses to pay for it. Our ruling Trump said, "Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed up for the open borders, and it's a bill, it's called the ‘open borders bill’," written by Feinstein. There is no such bill. The bill introduced by Feinstein, and supported by all Senate Democrats, is meant to stop family separations at the border. The measure does not eliminate the enforcement of immigration laws. Trump gave an inaccurate and misleading description of the bill. We rate his statement False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2018-10-08T11:21:55 | 2018-10-06 | ['None'] |
pomt-13277 | Says "I’ve been proven right" about "Hillary Clinton's radical call for open borders, meaning anyone in the world can enter the United States without any limit at all." | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/12/donald-trump/trump-ive-been-proven-right-about-clinton-wanting-/ | Donald Trump repeated his claim that Hillary Clinton supports open borders, pointing to an excerpt of a leaked speech as new evidence. Wikileaks released more than 2,600 hacked emails from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, including an email with brief sections of Clinton’s paid remarks to Wall Street banks. (The Clinton campaign hasn’t confirmed or disputed the authenticity of the emails.) According to Trump, these speeches show "she wants the United States to surrender to global governance with no controls over trade or immigration." "Hillary Clinton's radical call for open borders, meaning anyone in the world can enter the United States without any limit at all, would end the United States as we know it today," he said at an Oct. 10 rally in Pennsylvania. "By the way, weeks ago, I called out Hillary Clinton for supporting open borders and the media said I was wrong. Now, I've been proven right," he continued. "Where is the media rushing to correct these false stories? Because in the Wikileaks, it was all about open borders, free trade for everybody." Is Trump right that Clinton really does want open borders? The leaked excerpt does contain the words "open borders," but that alone doesn't make Trump's claim correct. Experts suggested Clinton could have been talking about free travel or open trade, or immigration policy. It's just not clear. What's more, Clinton's official immigration position does not contain a proposal for an open border. Clinton’s immigration plan As evidence for Trump's claim, the Trump campaign referred us to Clinton's pledge to offer immigration legislation within her first 100 days in office as well as her support for sanctuary cities. We've looked into this before, and concluded that equating Clinton's immigration plan with "open borders" is not accurate. Clinton supported 2013 legislation (which never passed) that included a path to citizenship with conditions and billions for border enforcement for new surveillance equipment and fencing along the Mexican border, as well as adding 20,000 border agents. As a candidate, she has said she would focus on deportations for violent criminals or those who pose threats. Clinton, however, does want to make it easier for many undocumented immigrants to obtain a legal status. That’s not the same as getting rid of enforcement, of course, and it’s a far cry from Trump’s characterization: "Anyone in the world can enter the United States without any limit at all." Clinton’s paid speech comment on open borders According to Trump, the Wikileaks hack vindicates his earlier charge. The speech excerpt is more ambiguous than he’s suggesting, but she does use the words "open borders." On Jan. 25, Clinton campaign research director Tony Carrk sent an email to Podesta that contained excerpts of Clinton’s paid speeches to Wall Street banks. (For months Clinton has faced calls to release the speech transcripts but hasn’t done so.) She mentioned open borders in her remarks on May 16, 2013, to the Brazilian bank Banco Itau. The excerpt, in its entirety, reads: "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere." It’s difficult to discern exactly what she was referring to here, because we don’t have more context. The Clinton campaign didn’t respond to our request for the full speech. But a campaign spokesman pointed to statements by Podesta and Clinton’s campaign manager Robby Mook on Oct. 9. Both said the context of that sentence related to green energy -- and wasn’t about people immigrating to the United States. On Face the Nation, Mook said she was talking about integrating green energy between north and south America. "But if the question is does Hillary Clinton support throwing open our borders, absolutely not. And she is going to do everything she can to fight to protect the interest of workers in this country. That is actually why she voted against the Central American free trade agreement when she was a senator," Mook said. On Fox News Sunday, Podesta also said she was referring to clean energy. "When she was secretary of state, she talked about creating a hemispheric effort to bring clean energy across the continent from the tip of South America to Canada, to invest in clean and renewable energy, to invest in the transmission that would clean up our energy system," Podesta said. "And I think when you look at what she said about immigration, she's for comprehensive immigration reform that takes people out of the shadows, emphasizes family unity, but also has -- modernizes our border security. Are her remarks a call for open borders for immigrants? We interviewed three immigration experts and asked them if they thought she was calling for open borders for immigrants and whether it was in conflict with her campaign immigration plan. The experts said Clinton’s remarks were not a clear-cut call for open borders. They also said that her statement sounded aspirational and contained no timeline or explanation as to how she would make it happen politically. "I would note her emphasis on a ‘hemispheric’ common market, an idea that became more concrete in 1994 when her husband, Bill Clinton, hosted the first Summit of the Americas meeting in Miami," said Stephen Kelly, a Duke University public policy professor. That summit involved 34 democracies, and "open markets, hemispheric integration, and free trade" were all cited as a means of increasing prosperity at the meeting, Kelly said. Those summits have continued, and Clinton attended one in 2012 as secretary of state. "My guess would be that Clinton's Brazil speech reflects this broader call for greater hemispheric cooperation on a variety of issues, including trade," Kelly said. "Given this context, and without seeing the rest of her speech, I would also guess that the ‘open borders’ she mentions relate to the movement of goods and capital, but not people." Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focused on foreign policy and national security, said that Clinton seemed to refer to something related to travel such as the Schengen Agreement, which abolished many of the European Union’s internal borders. For example, if the United States and Canada had such an agreement, that would not mean an open border for free immigration, but rather for free travel. "I don't think she is calling for open immigration, but the context of her remarks shows that when she says ‘open borders,’ she doesn't just mean open trade," he said. Jacob Vigdor, professor of public policy and governance University of Washington, said Clinton appeared to be talking about both trade and immigration. "I would read the remark as calling for open borders with regard to both trade and immigration. Otherwise the term ‘open trade and open borders’ would be redundant," he said. However, he said he saw no timetable in her remarks beyond "some time in the future," or discussion about how to make it happen. "I don't necessarily see a contradiction between a statement of ideals and a more pragmatic policy agenda for reality," he said. "One can dream of a crime-free world where there is need for neither police nor prisons while still supporting those things in reality." Our ruling Trump said, "I’ve been proven right" about "Hillary Clinton's radical call for open borders, meaning anyone in the world can enter the United States without any limit at all." Trump is referring to a leaked speech excerpt in which Clinton purportedly says, "My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders, some time in the future with energy that is as green and sustainable as we can get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere." We don’t have more context about what Clinton meant by "open borders" because she has not released the full speech. Her campaign has said she was talking about clean energy across the hemisphere. Trump argues that it directly applies to her current immigration policy. She has not called for open borders in this campaign. Clinton has proposed making it easier for the current undocumented population to gain a path to citizenship with conditions, but she has also supported beefed-up border security. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/cad1cc7a-6265-40a9-a8d4-2df1d465d1ae | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-10-12T13:21:18 | 2016-10-10 | ['United_States'] |
goop-02059 | Kate Middleton’s Mom “Worried” About Meghan Markle’s Popularity? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kate-middleton-popularity-meghan-markle/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Kate Middleton’s Mom “Worried” About Meghan Markle’s Popularity? | 11:34 am, December 9, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05304 | Jimmy Langevin is having a fundraiser . . . to retire the debt from his campaign for secretary of state, which was 12 years ago. | half-true | /rhode-island/statements/2012/may/20/john-matson/ri-congressional-candidate-john-matson-says-us-rep/ | Political campaigns cost a lot of money. But is Rep. James Langevin, who has been a congressman since 2001, really still trying to pay off debt from campaigns for his previous job, Rhode Island secretary of state? That’s what John O. Matson, who is running against Langevin in the Sept. 11 Democratic primary, contended during the April 26 taping of "State of the State," a public access television program that aired May 5 and 6. "Jimmy Langevin is having a fundraiser on the 3rd to retire the debt from his campaign for secretary of state, which was 12 years ago. How can anybody not pay his debts from 12 years ago? Because the Ethics Committee has no power," Matson said. "They need to be in power to make people pay up, you know, when they do something wrong. Here we are 12 years later. I got the invitation today. He's holding it to retire the debt from his secretary of state's run. Now, why wasn't it paid? The Ethics Commission would take care of that." We're not sure why the Ethics Commission -- which has nothing to do with campaign financing -- could resolve that issue. But we were curious whether a six-term congressman is still paying off debts for campaigns he ran when Bill Clinton was president, Regis was with Kathie Lee, and America Online was the big dog of the Internet. When we called Matson, he sent us a copy of the invitation for "a reception in honor of Congressman Jim Langevin to retire debt from his Secretary of State Campaign." (Matson got the date wrong. It was April 30 at Luigi's Restaurant in Johnston.) We called Langevin's office, where spokesman Jonathon Dworkin confirmed that the congressman is still raising money to cover his secretary of state campaign. Here's why. When he first ran for secretary of state, in 1994, Langevin loaned his campaign $280,000. Candidates commonly loan money to their campaigns. He held the office until 2000, when he was elected to Congress. In 2006, Langevin decided to recover his money. He asked some of his congressional colleagues to donate. They did, over five years, giving a total of $63,500. The congressman had a 2006 letter from the Rhode Island Board of Elections' chief auditor at the time, Henry Johnson, saying such contributions were legal. But the board itself, when it learned in 2011 how the contributions were being handled, said Johnson wasn't authorized to make that determination and, more importantly, Johnson was wrong. Rhode Island law says that only campaign committees legally recognized in Rhode Island can make contributions to a Rhode Island candidate. Later that year, Langevin agreed to pay the board $127,000 -- forfeiting the $63,500 and paying a penalty in the same amount of $63,500. It was the largest judgment in the board’s history. Richard Thornton, director of campaign finance at the Rhode Island Board of Elections, said that as of the end of March, Langevin's state campaign fund still owes Langevin $107,600. As for the $127,000, Langevin has been paying it off in installments, Thornton said. Currently, $47,625 remains and payments of $15,875 are due on June 30, Sept. 30 and Dec. 31. The money must come from Langevin personally, not his campaign. Finally, it should be noted, to avoid confusion, that this fundraising is separate from the fundraising Langevin is doing to get reelected to Congress. His most recent federal report shows that he raised $609,000 during the current election cycle and his campaign had $276,251 cash on hand. Our ruling Congressional candidate John O. Matson said Rep. James Langevin is still trying to raise money to cover the costs of the campaign he ran for secretary of state 12 years ago. That statement, by itself, makes Langevin sound like a deadbeat, especially when Matson refers to "debts," which suggests that more than one person is owed money. In fact, the money Langevin’s campaign owes is not to other people, but to one individual -- Langevin himself. Eighteen years ago, the candidate loaned $280,000 to his campaign. In 2006, he tried to get that money back, running afoul of state election laws. There's a big difference between owing money to others and trying to recoup funds you loaned to your own campaign, especially when Langevin is under no obligation to ever pay himself back in the first place. So Matson is correct in saying that Langevin is still trying to pay off debt racked up while running for secretary of state, but his statement leaves out important facts that might give voters a very different impression. So we'll give him a Half True. (Get updates from PolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on our PolitiFact Rhode Island Facebook page.) | null | John Matson | null | null | null | 2012-05-20T00:01:00 | 2012-04-26 | ['None'] |
pomt-12038 | Says "the latest polls show us tied neck-and-neck" with Sen. Ted Cruz. | half-true | /texas/statements/2017/sep/14/beto-orourke/beto-orourke-says-latest-polls-show-hes-running-ev/ | A West Texas Democrat seeking to represent the state in the U.S. Senate asserts that he’s already running even with incumbent Ted Cruz, who won the seat with 57 percent of the vote in 2012 before later running for president. In an August 2017 Facebook post, El Paso U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s campaign said: "Beto O’Rourke out-raised Senator Ted Cruz in the second financial quarter without taking a DIME from PACs, and the latest polls show us tied neck-and-neck." O’Rourke indeed raised more money than Cruz from April through June 2017 though Cruz, a Republican, ended the quarter with a balance of $5.7 million in campaign cash compared to O’Rourke’s $1.9 million. Also, we’ve previously noted that O’Rourke no longer takes PAC contributions. Let’s focus the Truth-O-Meter this time on whether the latest polls show O’Rourke "tied neck-and-neck" with Cruz. To our inquiry, Jody Casey of O’Rourke’s campaign emailed us a web link to an April 2017 USA Today Network news story headlined "O’Rourke, Castro running even with Cruz, poll shows," Castro being U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, who later said he wouldn’t be challenging Cruz. According to the USA Today Network story, a statewide poll of 1,000 adults commissioned by the Texas Lyceum, a leadership group, found 30 percent of respondents favoring Cruz, 30 percent backing O’Rourke. That’s neck and neck--albeit with 40 percent of the respondents not accounted for. Texas Lyceum poll For the full skinny, we turned to the Lyceum’s post about the poll, which specifies that the poll was conducted statewide April 3-9, 2017, and that 890 respondents who self-identified as registered voters answered this question: "If the 2018 election for Senate were held today, would you vote for the Republican Ted Cruz, the Democrat Beto O’Rourke, or haven’t you thought enough about it?" Each time, the order of the names was randomized, according to the results. SOURCE: Documents showing topline results and crosstabs, 2017 Texas Lyceum Poll, April 18, 2017 (accessed Sept. 11, 2017) Beyond the 30 percent-30 percent split between O’Rourke and Cruz, the results indicate, 37 percent of respondents said they hadn’t thought enough about it with 3 percent refusing to reply or saying they didn’t know. By phone, Josh Blank the Texas Lyceum’s research director, told us that an observer could read the results as indicative of a neck-and-neck race; he said he thinks it’s too soon to reach that conclusion. "The electorate isn’t knowledgeable enough yet," Blank said. The April poll "is mainly a reflection of name identification and voter attitudes about" Cruz, he said. By email, Blank noted that among the 37 percent of respondents who did not choose between Cruz and O’Rourke, 36 percent identified as moderates, 33 percent identified as conservatives, and 19 percent identified as liberals. That is, Blank said, "a larger share of voters who admitted to not yet having a preference identify as conservative as opposed to liberal. When they choose to tune into the race, they are going to be predisposed towards supporting Cruz over O'Rourke." Republicans underrepresented? We asked Mike Baselice of Austin, a pollster for Republican clients who’s not working for Cruz, to assess the April poll results. By email, Baselice suggested that the poll showed Cruz and O’Rourke with identical levels of support because it surveyed too few Republicans considering the actual Texas electorate. In the poll, 27 percent of adults identified as Republican, 32 percent as Democratic and 40 percent as Independent. Thirty-seven percent self-identified as conservative, 34 percent as moderate, 21 percent as liberal. Baselice wrote: "Our surveys have shown an 8-10" percentage "point Republican advantage over Democrats in terms of partisan vote behavior. "You can look at the down-ballot races where the vast majority of the candidates are unknown to the voters, and yet we see that Republicans defeated Democrats statewide by an average of 15 points in 2016," Baselice said. That margin, by our calculation, averaged 14.8 percentage points across seven races, one for the Texas Railroad Commission and six for judicial posts. Blank, asked about Baselice’s comment, said by email that the April poll intentionally gathered the opinions of more people than likely voters. Blank said future polls, closer to the November 2018 election, will be filtered to "make the measurement of the electorate more conservative, and more in-line with the ultimate outcome " Texas Tribune survey Blank noted that more recently, a University of Texas/Texas Tribune survey of 1,200 Texas adults taken from June 2-11, 2017, found few people familiar with O’Rourke, who’s making his first bid for statewide office. That poll didn’t ask people to pick between Cruz and O’Rourke. Rather, 18 percent of respondents held a favorable view of O’Rourke, 15 percent neither favorable or unfavorable and 13 percent felt unfavorable--with 55 percent not knowing or having no opinion. In contrast, the poll found 37 percent of respondents with a favorable view of Cruz, 12 percent neither favorable or unfavorable and 45 percent unfavorable--with 6 percent not knowing or having no opinion. We otherwise heard back from Jim Williams of North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling, which serves Democratic clients. By phone, Williams said the firm last polled Texans about the 2018 U.S. Senate race in August 2016. That poll suggested Cruz would lead Democrat Wendy Davis or Julián Castro, the former San Antonio mayor and Housing and Urban Development secretary; it didn’t test Cruz versus O’Rourke. Our ruling O’Rourke said "the latest polls show us tied neck-and-neck" with Cruz. An April 2017 poll showed a 30 percent-30 percent race though a plurality of registered voters indicated they didn’t know enough to commit either way and the poll folded in too many Democrats. O’Rourke didn’t identify any other poll of the match-up nor did we find one. We rate this claim Half True. HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Beto O'Rourke | null | null | null | 2017-09-14T17:51:34 | 2017-08-10 | ['Ted_Cruz'] |
goop-02706 | Lady Gaga, Christian Carino “Talking Wedding Already,” | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/lady-gaga-wedding-christian-carino-hamptons/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Lady Gaga, Christian Carino NOT “Talking Wedding Already,” Despite Report | 9:46 am, June 29, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
afck-00322 | “[O]nly 204,522 new entrant opportunities at universities were available this year. This is despite the fact that of the 532,860 grade 12 pupils who wrote matric in 2014, only 403,874 pupils passed with marks that allow them to study in tertiary universities either for a degree, diploma or a higher certificate.” | misleading | https://africacheck.org/reports/julius-malemas-sona-2015-debate-speech-fact-checked/ | null | null | null | null | null | Julius Malema’s SONA 2015 debate speech fact-checked | 2015-02-25 01:19 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01153 | Brad Pitt Moving To Boston For Neri Oxman, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/brad-pitt-neri-oxman-moving-boston-untrue/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Brad Pitt NOT Moving To Boston For Neri Oxman, Despite Report | 10:10 am, April 19, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
vogo-00624 | Statement: “If you want to buy crack and you’re living in Poway, you’re going to 17th and K,” Bob McElroy, president of the nonprofit Alpha Project, told voiceofsandiego.org for a story about drug activity in the southeast corner of the East Village. | determination: mostly true | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/fact/where-do-people-buy-crack/ | Analysis: Obviously McElroy doesn’t know if every Poway resident seeking to buy crack goes to 17th and K, so we want to analyze the statement’s implication: The downtown area is a regional hotspot for the drug trade. | null | null | null | null | Where Do People Buy Crack? | March 10, 2010 | null | ['East_Village,_Manhattan'] |
pomt-09462 | Washington cannot hide from the fact that Congress hiked the national debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion. They cannot hide from the fact . . . that the budget that they’re going forward with has more than a $5 trillion in debt in it over the next five years. | true | /texas/statements/2010/mar/04/rick-perry/gov-rick-perry-says-congress-hiked-debt-limit-14-t/ | After winning the 2010 Republican nomination for governor, Gov. Rick Perry told supporters Tuesday that energized voters are upset at congressional spending. In a wide-ranging speech, Perry specified two factors, saying: "Washington cannot hide from the fact that Congress hiked the national debt ceiling to $14.3 trillion. They cannot hide from the fact . . . that the budget that they’re going forward with has more than $5 trillion in debt in it over the next five years." Do those debt numbers hold up? Perry's campaign pointed us to news accounts of the U.S. House and Senate voting in January to raise the federal government’s debt limit to $14.3 trillion, a historic high adopted solely with Democratic votes in the Democrat-majority bodies. Proponents noted that the increase was needed to allow the government to continue borrowing and avoid default. On Perry's reference to the federal debt increasing by $5 trillion over five years, his campaign pointed to a Feb. 1 article on President Barack Obama's proposed 2011 federal budget. The story says Obama's proposal would result in deficits of $5.08 trillion over five years. Separately, Obama's proposed budget shows the nation's public debt increasing from $7.5 trillion in 2009, reflecting actions taken under President George W. Bush and the Congress that made budget decisions in 2008, to $13.1 trillion in 2014—potentially increasing $5.6 trillion. The debt increase from 2010 to 2015 is projected at $4.7 trillion. Josh Gordon of The Concord Coalition, which advocates long-term fiscal responsibilty, cautioned that much of the current and immediately expected deficits are due to economic troubles and not White House or congressional actions. Gordon said it's typical for government to run a deficit during an economic downturn. In the end, Obama’s proposed budget won’t sail through Congress; presidents (and governors) propose, lawmakers dispose. Still, Obama's proposal seems a reasonable basis for Perry’s debt claim. The governor also is correct on the size of the increased federal debt limit. We rate Perry's statement as True. | null | Rick Perry | null | null | null | 2010-03-04T06:21:59 | 2010-03-02 | ['United_States_Congress'] |
goop-00321 | Chris Pratt Using Katherine Schwarzenegger To Upset Anna Faris? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/chris-pratt-katherine-schwarzenegger-anna-faris/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Chris Pratt Using Katherine Schwarzenegger To Upset Anna Faris? | 2:33 pm, September 5, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04209 | Says in January 1992, George H. W. Bush "probably had a 90 percent or even higher approval rating after the first Gulf War." | mostly false | /new-jersey/statements/2012/dec/02/john-wisniewski/democratic-leader-offers-cautionary-tale-gov-chris/ | If Gov. Chris Christie is anything like President George H. W. Bush, the governor could go from soaring in public opinion polls to losing at the voting booth next year. That’s at least what New Jersey Democratic Party Chairman John Wisniewski suggested last week in response to polls showing rising support for the Republican governor. Christie has announced plans to seek re-election, and Wisniewski has been mentioned as a possible challenger. "No one’s unbeatable," Wisniewski, a state assemblyman from Middlesex County, said in a Nov. 27 interview on NJToday. Of Christie’s rising poll numbers, Wisniewski later added: "It’s interesting. For him, it’s great news, but it’s not dispositive on the outcome of the election at any means. "I mean, we all remember George Bush. January of 1992, (he) probably had a 90 percent or even higher approval rating after the first Gulf War, and in late November of 1992, we were calling Bill Clinton president-elect." But the Democratic leader’s history lesson is off. Soon after the Gulf War ended in February 1991, Bush had an approval rating hovering around 90 percent. However, by January 1992, the 41st president’s approval rating had dropped to less than 50 percent. Alicia D’Alessandro, a spokeswoman for Wisniewski, told us the party chairman meant to reference March 1991, when a Washington Post/ABC News poll gave Bush a 90 percent approval rating. "It seems that Chairman Wisniewski incorrectly identified the date of the poll, which can happen when you're discussing events from about two decades ago," D’Alessandro said in an e-mail. "Still, the chairman was making a point about poll numbers representing a snapshot in time, and that point still stands." To evaluate Wisniewski’s claim, we turned to presidential approval data from Gallup, which is considered one of the leading assessments of presidential performance. Gallup has measured presidential job approval ratings since Franklin D. Roosevelt was commander-in-chief. As the Gulf War ended, Bush garnered an approval rating of 89 percent, according to a Gallup poll conducted in late February and early March of 1991. That figure would turn out to be the highest approval rating of Bush’s presidency, as measured by Gallup. Then, driven in part by a staggering economy, Bush’s numbers nose-dived. The president’s approval rating gradually went down throughout the rest of 1991 before landing at 46 percent in January 1992, according to Gallup. Other polls around the same time turned up similar results for the president. A Washington Post/ABC News poll gave Bush a 45 percent approval rating, and in a New York Times/CBS News Poll, 43 percent said they approved of his performance as president. A few weeks before losing his re-election bid to Clinton, Bush’s approval rating stood at 34 percent, according to Gallup. While Bush’s approval ratings showed a sharp drop in support, the latest poll numbers for Christie demonstrate an upswing at a time when the governor has been widely praised for his leadership during Hurricane Sandy. A Quinnipiac University poll released on Tuesday put Christie's approval rating at 72 percent, marking a 16-point increase over his 56 percent approval rating in a Quinnipiac poll from October. In a poll released Tuesday by Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics, Christie was viewed favorably by 67 percent of respondents, compared to 48 percent in a Rutgers-Eagleton poll released in early October. "The realities of governing – including the budget and a host of other contentious issues – are likely to cool the governor’s red-hot numbers over time," David Redlawsk, director of the Rutgers-Eagleton Poll and a political science professor, said in a news release. Our ruling Comparing Christie with the 41st president, Wisniewski claimed in a TV interview that in January 1992, Bush "probably had a 90 percent or even higher approval rating after the first Gulf War." The assemblyman is correct that Bush once had near-unanimous support, but he's wrong about the timing. The president's approval rating was around 90 percent in March 1991, but by January 1992, it had fallen below 50 percent. We rate the statement Mostly False. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. | null | John Wisniewski | null | null | null | 2012-12-02T07:30:00 | 2012-11-27 | ['George_H._W._Bush', 'Gulf_War'] |
tron-01269 | Old Blackboards Discovered During Oklahoma School Remodel | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/old-blackboards-discovered-during-oklahoma-school-remodel/ | null | education | null | null | null | Old Blackboards Discovered During Oklahoma School Remodel | Jun 11, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05113 | A well-known celebrity is moving to your town after briefly visiting and discovering "people were people," "whose sincerity you didn’t have to question." | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/celebrity-moving-small-towns/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | That Super-Famous Celebrity Isn’t Moving to Your Town | 4 March 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01627 | Says he holds the record for "most appearances on 'Meet the Press'." | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2014/aug/27/john-mccain/john-mccain-says-he-holds-record-meet-press-appear/ | Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., has a few pointers for Chuck Todd, who takes the helm of NBC’s Meet the Press on Sept. 7. On Aug. 27, McCain appeared on MSNBC’s the Daily Rundown as part of Todd’s weeklong send-off. "I called to congratulate you and as the person who has the most appearances on Meet the Press, I’d be glad to give you a lot of advice and counseling, including the best gotcha questions of the week," McCain said. "And I have one other suggestion, we should change the name from Meet the Press to Meet the World’s Foremost Political Junkie, And Guests. How ‘bout that?" "69 times," Todd quantified. He then rolled a montage of McCain on the show, including a 2008 interview with Tim Russert, who said that Republican Bob Dole had clocked the most appearances but "there’s still time for (McCain) to catch up." We wondered, has McCain caught up, meeting the press more times than any other guest? We’ve met before We reached out to McCain’s office and a spokesperson told us they don’t keep track of those numbers but said McCain surpassed Dole in 2012. Meet the Press’ fact page, which needs an update, still lists Dole as the most frequent guest, with 63 appearances. McCain is next with 53 appearances, and Vice President Joe Biden trails McCain by 10 appearances. McCain’s 54th appearance came on March 29, 2009, according to recently ousted host David Gregory. Dole still had the record among guests, but Gregory had encouraging words for McCain. "We've been doing the calculations here. We think we can make this up, maybe within a year's time," he said. Three years later, McCain broke Dole’s record on March 18, 2012, his 64th appearance. "You've been on this show more than I have," Gregory joked. Based on Meet the Press transcripts, McCain appeared on the show twice more in 2012. He hasn’t made an appearance this year, but went on three times in 2013, which brings his grand total to 69, according to our count. For the record, McCain has appeared on the Sunday shows 11 times so far in 2014, but not on Meet the Press. It's worth noting that NBC and McCain are using a slightly non-traditional definition of guest. Namely, it excludes journalists who appear on the show to debate the week's big stories. Again, according to NBC's out-dated fact page, the Washington Post’s David Broder clocked 401 Meet appearances, while Chicago Sun Times’ Robert Novak appeared on the show 248 times. Novak and Broder are both deceased. Our ruling McCain said that he’s "the person who has the most appearances on Meet the Press." Technically, multiple people who represent the press side of the meet have McCain beat. Of officeholders, we count McCain as the current leader -- with 69 appearances. With that caveat, we rate McCain’s claim Mostly True. | null | John McCain | null | null | null | 2014-08-27T16:51:22 | 2014-08-27 | ['None'] |
hoer-00352 | Facebook 'Virus' Warning Message - Album 92 | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/album-92-virus-warning.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Facebook 'Virus' Warning Message - Album 92 | October 12, 2012 | null | ['None'] |
afck-00411 | “[W]e have doubled the number of people who are receiving anti-retroviral treatment, from one million to 2.4 million people in 2013.” | misleading | https://africacheck.org/reports/a-first-look-at-president-jacob-zumas-2014-state-of-the-nation-address/ | null | null | null | null | null | President Jacob Zuma’s sixth State of the Nation address fact-checked | 2014-02-14 12:39 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04051 | We just had someone last week in Neenah near a school kill someone with a bow and arrow. | pants on fire! | /wisconsin/statements/2013/jan/28/scott-walker/talking-gun-control-and-sandy-hook-gov-scott-walke/ | Questions about gun control were on the mind of reporters when Gov. Scott Walker held a news conference in Madison on Jan. 10, 2013. Reporters, including one from the Wall Street Journal, asked the first-term governor about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were killed in December 2012 by a man with a semi-automatic weapon. Did the carnage affect Walker’s stance on gun control? The governor responded that a variety of factors, including the mental health of the perpetrator, need to be considered to prevent future tragic events such as Sandy Hook and the August 2012 shooting at the Sikh temple in Oak Creek. Walker said too much attention is paid to the weapon in such shootings and cited a recent case as an example: "We just had someone last week in Neenah near a school kill someone with a bow and arrow." He added that if gun control efforts are "just focused on the weapon, that gets away from the question of who are the people committing these heinous acts and what is it that’s happening that we’re not able to prevent them from doing that." Walker has enjoyed considerable support from the National Rifle Association, and the group has given him an A-plus rating. His response to the gun control question was in line with groups fighting restrictions on guns: Don’t blame the weapons. There was only one problem with Walker’s statement about the bow and arrow murder. It never happened. We asked Walker spokesman Cullen Werwie to explain the governor’s comment the day after he spoke. He responded three days later with this emailed statement: "The Governor misspoke when he said someone was killed. I believe he was referring the recent standoff that involved a bow and arrow." Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department Capt. David Mack provided the details, starting with the most important one: "No one got killed. I know because I was there." In fact there were no serious injuries in the Jan. 3, 2013, domestic dispute in the Town of Clayton, located just west of Neenah. According to Mack: Authorities were called at 9:16 a.m. to a home after receiving reports of a disturbance between Shawn Coenen, 21, and his father. During the dispute outside the house, "the son shot an arrow at the father, but the arrow did not strike the father," Mack said. Instead, it hit a vehicle. Coenen was inside the house when authorities arrived. Initially, police weren’t certain that he was inside, so, as a precaution, they sent several officers to Clayton Elementary School, which is 2.5 miles away. "The school was in session, and they were advised about the situation and placed in lockdown," Mack said. Authorities determined that Coenen was in the house and were told by family members that there were a dozen firearms inside, but that the guns were locked in a gun cabinet. The SWAT team and crisis negotiators were called, and Coenen was arrested without incident at 1:22 p.m., Mack said. Coenen faces three felony charges -- second degree reckless endangerment, failure to comply with an officer, and being a felon in possession of a firearm. Our rating Reporters asked Walker about his views of gun control in the wake Sandy Hook school shooting. Walker responded by discussing a homicide involving a bow and arrow near a Neenah school. Trouble was, there wasn’t such a homicide. What’s more, while the incident was near a school (2.5 miles away) it didn’t have anything to do with the school. And the SWAT team was called because the suspect was holed up inside the house -- with potential access to guns. Finally, Walker’s staff allowed his statement to go uncorrected for four days and only admitted that it was incorrect after being asked about it by PolitiFact. Pants on Fire. | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2013-01-28T09:00:00 | 2013-01-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-06325 | In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker has created a manufacturing-led jobs recovery. 30,000 new jobs were created this year, with 15,000 created in the struggling manufacturing sector. | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2011/nov/11/state-tea-party-express-state-tea-party-express/tea-party-group-says-wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-ha/ | Gov. Scott Walker plays a prominent role in a nationally televised ad criticizing President Barack Obama’s proposed jobs legislation. The ad, titled "The Perry-Walker Way," cites job creation in Texas under Gov. Rick Perry and in Wisconsin under Walker. Both Walker and Perry, a presidential candidate, are Republicans. The ad says the Obama plan calls for more government spending, increased regulations and higher taxes on those who create jobs. It cites the performance of Perry and Walker as offering a "better way" to create jobs, and then continues: "In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker has created a manufacturing-led jobs recovery ... 30,000 new jobs were created this year, with 15,000 in the struggling manufacturing sector." We’ve had a lot of jobs-related statements lately. Does this one add up? Are we really in a manufacturing-led jobs recovery? We asked the Sacramento, Calif.-based State Tea Party Express for back up on the group’s claim about Walker’s performance on jobs. Spokesman Taylor Budowich sent us to a familiar source: PolitiFact Wisconsin, and specifically our Walk-O-Meter which tracks the governor’s campaign promises. Of course, the top campaign promise made by Walker is that the state would create 250,000 private-sector jobs during his four-year term. Each month we update the Walk-O-Meter using state data, for a promise that remains In the Works. Let’s dip -- again -- into the numbers. The Tea Party ad aired in the middle of October 2011. The latest state employment numbers available at that point said there were 2,346,800 private-sector jobs in Wisconsin in August 2011, an increase of 29,600 since Walker took office in January 2011. On the manufacturing front, a state report said there were 450,000 manufacturing jobs in the state, up 16,100 from when Walker took office. (We’re not using the most recent jobs report, issued Oct. 20, because the State Tea Party Express ad began to air before that report was issued. The latest report says the overall change in the number of jobs since Walker took office is 29,300, 900 fewer than the previous month.) So, the numbers are essentially accurate, but they are just part of the groups’ claim. The group maintains those numbers are evidence of a "manufacturing-led jobs recovery." Are we in one? A closer look at the month-to-month numbers show the situation is not nearly as encouraging as the ad suggests. Indeed, the state lost a net 11,600 private sector jobs in July and August. (And another 900 in September,). Even Walker’s administration recognize this as a concern. On Oct. 21 2011, the state Department of Revenue said that by 2014 the state will have added only 136,000 jobs in the private sector compared with 2010 -- far short of the 250,000 net new jobs promised. The department’s report says the manufacturing sector has recovered about a third of the jobs lost in the recession. It projects that sector will continue to grow this year, then slow between 2012 and 2014. "In spite of this sustained growth," the report states, "employment in this sector by the end of 2014 will still be 27,500 jobs short of its previous peak eight years ago." Beyond all that, the Tea Party -- like Walker -- highlights the private sector jobs. But the ad does not let viewers in on that fact. There is a somewhat different picture when you look at all jobs, including public-sector ones -- police, firefighters, teachers, sanitation workers and more. In Wisconsin, government employment as of August was 419,600, up 500 from when Walker took office. (That number tumbled in September to 409,300 - 10,000 fewer jobs than when the governor took office. That sharp decline was shown in the Oct. 20 report, after the ad began running.) The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate is 7.8 percent for September, compared with 9.1 percent nationally. So the overall picture is not as rosy as the ad proclaims. Our conclusion With unemployment stubbornly high, jobs and job creation are central themes in state and national politics. In this case, the national Tea Party says Walker "created a manufacturing-led jobs recovery" that led to the "creation of 30,000 new jobs." The numbers are essentially on the money. But the group makes a broad statement about jobs, when it is looking only at the private-sector side of the equation. What’s more, it does not reflect that the most recent months have seen a loss of jobs and the Walker administration itself sees weaknesses in the economy and future job growth. We rate the group’s claim Half True. | null | State Tea Party Express | null | null | null | 2011-11-11T09:00:00 | 2011-10-11 | ['Wisconsin', 'Scott_Walker_(politician)'] |
tron-00689 | Justin Bieber Admits To Being Bisexual | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/bieber-bi-tweet/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Justin Bieber Admits To Being Bisexual | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
mpws-00046 | DFL legislators are at odds over an effort to raise the minimum wage. But the one thing Democrats in both the House and Senate do agree on is that minimum wage hasn’t kept pace with the cost of living. Sen. John Hoffman, DFL-Champlin, underscored that point in a recent press release. “Currently, about 20 percent of Minnesota jobs pay less than $10.03 an hour, which is what the federal minimum wage would be today if it had been increased for inflation since the late 1960s.” | accurate | https://blogs.mprnews.org/capitol-view/2014/03/poligraph-minimum-wage-claim-correct/ | null | null | null | Catharine Richert | null | PoliGraph: Minimum wage claim correct | March 14, 2014, 2:00 PM | null | ['Minnesota', 'Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'Minnesota_Democratic–Farmer–Labor_Party'] |
snes-01381 | Did a CIA Agent Confess to Killing Bob Marley? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bob-marley-cia/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Did a CIA Agent Confess to Killing Bob Marley? | 4 December 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05727 | A video clip shows a man being struck by lightning twice. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/double-trouble/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Man Struck by Lightning Twice? | 4 March 2014 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12940 | More college graduates are living at home than in decades. | true | /new-york/statements/2017/jan/09/andrew-cuomo/more-college-graduates-living-home-decades/ | Congratulations graduate! Now go clean your room, help make dinner for the family and do the laundry. More college graduates are living with their families than in decades, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in his State of the State speech Monday in New York City. "Student debt now surpasses credit card debt and consumer debt and more college graduates are living at home than in decades," Cuomo said. Cuomo’s comment came as part of his push to provide tuition-free public college to students from families earning $125,000 or less each year. Cuomo said graduates with less debt are more likely to afford living on their own. Is Cuomo right that more college graduates are living at home? Where the graduates live The Pew Research Center provided the latest analysis on this topic in May 2016. The center relied on data from the U.S. Census Bureau to track the percentage of young adults, ages 18 to 34, who moved back home after graduating college. Nineteen percent of graduates lived at home in 2014, according to the data. That’s compared with 46 percent of graduates who either lived with a spouse or partner. The remaining graduates lived alone, with roommates, or had a different living arrangement. The percentage of graduates living at home is the highest since the 1940s, when 29 percent of college-educated young adults lived at home, Pew said. By 1950, only 12 percent of graduates lived at home. That number hovered between 10 and 13 percent until 2006, when 15 percent of graduates lived at home. Since then, the latest data shows the percentage increasing. Census Bureau data shows the number of college graduates has increased each decade since 1940. That indicates the number of college graduates moving back home increased between decades even when the percentage stayed flat. Not just graduates The trend is the same for young adults who did not attend college. Thirty-six percent of those young adults were living at home in 2014, compared with 35 percent in 1940. That number dropped to 20 percent by 1960 but has increased since. About 32 percent of young adults lived at home in 2014 regardless of education level, up from 20 percent in 1960. That’s not an all-time high, but Pew noted that it is the first time in more than 130 years that young adults were more likely to be living at home than with a spouse or partner. About 36 percent of young adults were reported as living alone or in a different living arrangement, Pew said. Chris Tilly, an urban planning professor from the University of California Los Angeles, said the increase is caused by rising urban housing costs and a changing labor market. "There’s just a much higher level of economic uncertainty," Tilly said. "A lot of work is now precarious in a lot of ways. It’s part-time. It’s unsure. It’s stringing together a bunch of gigs." Our ruling Cuomo said "more college graduates are living at home than in decades." Cuomo is right, according to a Pew Research Center analysis. The percentage of college graduates living with their parents is at its highest since the 1940s. We rate his claim as True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/3d61f9ab-6c46-427b-9672-49bbcff5c019 | null | Andrew Cuomo | null | null | null | 2017-01-09T17:45:04 | 2017-01-09 | ['None'] |
Subsets and Splits
SQL Console for pszemraj/multi_fc
Filters dataset entries containing 'law' in categories, tags, or reason fields, providing basic topic classification but offering limited analytical insight beyond simple keyword matching.
Healthcare Related Entries
Retrieves sample records containing healthcare-related keywords but doesn't provide meaningful analysis or patterns beyond basic filtering.