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pomt-00595 | Sixty million Americans depend on Social Security, and one-third of all the seniors in America depend on Social Security for 90 percent of their income. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jun/04/mike-huckabee/mike-huckabee-says-one-third-seniors-depend-social/ | At a Disney World powwow of GOP stars, Mike Huckabee took a jab at Jeb Bush, in Bush’s own state of Florida and on a particularly Floridian issue: Social Security. Speaking at the Florida Economic Growth Summit on June 2, 2015, the former governor of Arkansas and current presidential candidate alluded to Bush’s comments on reducing benefits and raising the retirement age. Huckabee called the idea political and economic suicide. "Sixty million Americans depend on Social Security, and one-third of all the seniors in America depend on Social Security for 90 percent of their income" he said. "The government took that money from you involuntarily when you started working – with the promise that you’d get that money back when you retire. For the government to even think about breaking that promise is absolutely ridiculous." Huckabee’s numbers intrigued us. We reached out to his campaign but did not hear back, so we delved into the statistics. The actual number of people who receive benefits is slightly higher than what Huckabee said at 64 million. The majority of recipients, about 43 million, are over age 65—we’ll get to this group later. Of the remaining beneficiaries, in 2013, Social Security constituted at least half of the income for 61 percent of disabled recipients and for 44 percent of non-disabled beneficiaries (survivors of deceased workers and early retirees), according to a Social Security Administration spokeswoman. The latest data from the Social Security Administration show that Huckabee got the second number right, if we assume by "seniors" he meant those over age 65. In 2012, Social Security constituted 90 percent or more of income for 36 percent of that age group. Huckabee’s source, however, may be flawed. Some experts say the Social Security Administration’s definition of income—which only includes recurring flows like monthly benefits -- doesn’t take into account sporadic sources like money siphoned out of an IRA or 401k, typically on an as-needed basis. Leaving these out could mean discrepancies as wide as $18 billion versus $220 billion, according to a study at Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research. Just how many people have these plans and how much cash is in them? The U.S. Government Accountability Office broke it down by income quintiles for retirees age 65 to 74: Bottom Second Third Fourth Top Percent with savings (401k/IRA) 9% 33% 48% 65% 84% Median savings amount (no reliable estimate) (no reliable estimate) $104,000 $144,000 $468,000 Without factoring in the savings plans, the SSA probably overstated Social Security’s share of retirement income, especially for wealthier retirees, experts say. In 2008, the estimate for Social Security’s slice of the total income pie was 20 percentage points more than what tax filings showed, according to a study in the Journal of Retirement. "Huckabee is probably technically not correct since the numbers he relies on are flawed, though he’d have no real reason to know this, " said Andrew Biggs, who used to run the SSA’s policy office during the George W. Bush administration and now researches Social Security reform at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Biggs has written extensively on this topic. Here’s the catch to the catch: Half of Americans don’t have retirement savings at all, according to the GAO. This means that estimates for the people who rely the most on Social Security (low- and middle-income households) may only be marginally off. So Huckabee is correct, experts agree, in his point that many Americans rely heavily on Social Security (too heavily, to the point that middle- and upper-income families are not saving enough on their own, said Biggs). Most people who receive Social Security need the safety net, said Melissa Favreault, an expert on retirement and social programs at The Urban Institute, a public policy think tank. For many recipients, it’s "absolutely vital income," she said. AARP spokesperson David Bruns told us the same thing. "There are very substantial number of people who are disproportionatelyfemale, disproportionatelyminority, disproportionatelyblue collar, for whom Social Security is critical," he said. "I’ve run the math for myself: 40 percent of our retirement income will come from Social Security and I have a government pension. My wife and I have saved as hard as we can for all of our lives. We are not the only ones." Our ruling Huckabee said, "60 million Americans depend on Social Security, and one-third of all the seniors in America depend on Social Security for 90 percent of their income." Huckabee’s numbers reflect official statistics, though slightly lowballed: About 64 million Americans receive Social Security benefits and about 36 percent of seniors depend on it for 90 percent of their income, according to the Social Security Administration. Some take issue with those statistics, saying they understate the importance of irregular sources of income and therefore may overstate the importance of Social Security. However, experts agree with the gist of Huckabee’s idea: Broadly speaking, Social Security beneficiaries need the cash to make ends meet. We rate the claim Mostly True. | null | Mike Huckabee | null | null | null | 2015-06-04T14:49:21 | 2015-06-02 | ['United_States'] |
goop-01785 | Kim Kardashian, Kanye West Did Name Daughter “Elle V,” | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kim-kardashian-daughter-name-elle-v-wrong-chicago-west-baby/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Kim Kardashian, Kanye West Did NOT Name Daughter “Elle V,” Despite Claim | 2:20 pm, January 19, 2018 | null | ['Kim_Kardashian'] |
pomt-10332 | Obama "voted against critical resources: no to individual body armor, no to helicopters, no to ammunition, no to aircraft." | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jul/23/republican-national-committee-republican/rnc-goes-cherry-picking/ | On the heels of a McCain ad attacking Barack Obama for his 2007 vote against war funding, the Republican National Committee has ratcheted up the rhetoric with a radio ad that claims Obama voted against helicopers, ammunition and even body armor. "When it came time to act, he voted against critical resources," the announcer says about Obama. "No to individual body armor, no to helicopters, no to ammunition, no to aircraft. The bill Obama opposed even had funding for veterans' medical facilities and rehabilitation programs. And why did he say no? Obama chose Washington politics over the needs of our military." A casual listener might not notice that the ad's evidence is a single vote — a May 2007 appropriations bill. It's true that Obama voted against that bill, which raises two questions. Did the bill contain the items mentioned in the ad? And were those really what Obama was voting against? On the first question, yes, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans' Care, Katrina Recovery and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act of 2007 , which Obama voted against, included provisions for purchasing body armor, helicopters, ammunition and aircraft, and for funding veterans' medical facilities and rehabilitation programs. But no, those items are not the reason Obama voted against the bill. As he took pains to explain at the time, he voted against it because it did not include a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. Congress' power of the purse is a crucial tool of leverage for influencing the president's foreign policy, and with this protest vote, Obama and 13 other Democratic senators sought to push President Bush to draw down troop levels in Iraq. ''This country is united in our support for our troops, but we also owe them a plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else's civil war,'' Obama said at the time. ''Gov. (Mitt) Romney and Sen. McCain clearly believe the course we are on in Iraq is working, but I do not.'' Implying Obama's vote was specifically against aircraft, veterans' facilities and the like is misleading — about as misleading as it would be to say McCain voted for the bill because it funded tornado aid in Kansas and bereavement payments to relatives of deceased congressmen, to name two of the many items in the bill not related to the war. In some ways this ad illustrates the common wisdom that senators don't make good candidates for president, because senators often vote on controversial issues, and any one vote can be pulled out of context. For example, the Obama campaign, in responding to recent attacks, pointed to a 2005 vote to increase funding for armored vehicles. Obama voted to increase funding; McCain voted against it. The vote failed, largely along party lines. The claim in the RNC ad is technically true, but it leaves out important context that it was a single vote, and it distorts Obama's record by making him sound like he advocates cutting off funds for troops in the field. On several other occasions, Obama has voted in favor of funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Earlier this year, Obama voted for a funding bill that passed 92-6. McCain was absent. In 2006, Obama voted for a war supplemental that passed 77-21. McCain opposed that bill, joining a group of Republicans who felt the legislation contained extraneous and unnecessary spending. In a news report, the Los Angles Times noted the Republicans "risked being labeled as voting against the troops to take a stand against what they considered excessive spending." Although the ad bases its claims on a kernel of truth — Obama did vote against the 2007 bill — the RNC gives the impression that Obama opposes body armor, helicopters, ammunition and aircraft generally. The RNC ad is misleading enough to merit a label of Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. | null | Republican National Committee | null | null | null | 2008-07-23T00:00:00 | 2008-07-23 | ['None'] |
pomt-12774 | This year, 97 Missouri counties have only one insurer participating in the Obamacare exchanges. Last year, every Missouri county had at least two insurance options. In addition, most Missourians will see an increase in their premiums, with some facing an increase upward of 40 percent | half-true | /missouri/statements/2017/feb/22/roy-blunt/roy-blunt-leaves-out-context-missouris-health-insu/ | As a Republican-controlled Congress continues to advance plans to defund and eventually dismantle former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law, Missouri’s Sen. Roy Blunt has once again echoed his reasoning for supporting a repeal. "This year, 97 Missouri counties have only one insurer participating in the Obamacare exchanges," the Republican said in a Jan. 11 press release. "Last year, every Missouri county had at least two insurance options." It’s not the first time Blunt has mentioned the numbers, which his office noted were from HealthCare.gov (the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ website where individuals can enroll in health care). As insurance providers pull out of markets and premiums rise around the country, the health care exchange is certainly facing substantial changes. Even in that context, though, Blunt’s figures paint a drastic picture for Missourians, and we wanted to fact-check his statement. 97 out of 114 counties On the numbers, Blunt is correct. Ninety-seven Missouri counties will only have one insurance provider offering coverage on the health care exchange this year, according to data compiled and released by the official exchange provider, HealthCare.gov, and synthesized by the Missouri Hospital Association and the Kaiser Family Foundation. Fifteen counties and the city of St. Louis will have two providers, and two counties that include large swaths of Kansas City will have three. In 2016, 112 Missouri counties and the city of St. Louis all had at least three insurance providers participating in the health care exchange. No county had only one. The reduction in coverage is primarily the result of two major insurance providers exiting the individual state exchange at the beginning of the year. The providers, UnitedHealth Group and Aetna (known in Missouri as Coventry Health Care), are both staying in the state in other markets, but have opted out of participating in the exchange. "I wouldn’t say it’s impacting care as much as it’s impacting the ability to choose the provider you want," said Dave Dillon, vice president of public and media relations at the Missouri Hospital Association. In essence, he explained, it’s possible for an individual not to have the option to choose a plan that would allow them to visit their regular doctor. With this lack of choices, Dillon said, "clearly the incentive between insurance companies to compete in cost just isn’t there." During the open enrollment period, which ran from Nov. 1 to Jan. 31, nearly 250,000 Missourians enrolled in some form of insurance provided by the health care law. Metropolitan areas continue to have choice One notable feature of Missouri’s insurance exchange in 2017 is that all of the counties in the state’s two metropolitan hubs, Kansas City and St. Louis, will continue to have more than one provider. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, of Missouri’s roughly 6 million residents, about 63 percent live in the 17 counties and one city that will continue to have at least two provider choices. Nationally, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the trend is similar. Of exchange enrollees living in metropolitan areas, 62 percent will continue to have a choice of three or more providers while only 18 percent will have the option of only one provider. For those living in rural areas, the numbers are almost reversed. Forty-one percent of those enrolled in the exchange living in rural areas will have only one provider option while 29 percent will have three or more options. The out-of-pocket price In addition, most Missourians will see an increase in their premiums, with some facing an increase upward of 40 percent" — is also statistically accurate, according to the Missouri Hospital Association and the Kaiser Family Foundation. However, it does not accurately portray the out-of-pocket price Missourians will face in 2017. While premiums are on the rise in Missouri, as they are in the rest of the country, so, too, are the tax credits designed to offset the cost that the consumer bears. Speaking on the increases in price on the exchange this year, Dillon said, "The individual was not exposed to the full cost of the increase of the sticker price." The rhetoric surrounding premium increases often looks only at the sticker price and not the out-of-pocket price, he said. Again using data from HealthCare.gov, the Missouri Hospital Association compiled the costs of premiums both before and after the tax credit in the 10 Missouri health insurance marketplace rating areas. Looking strictly at the second lowest-cost silver plan, which is the plan used by HealthCare.gov to determine the financial assistance an individual or family may receive, eight of the ten counties will see an out-of-pocket monthly price of $26.52. Data for the other two counties was unavailable. So while premiums for the second lowest cost silver plan in each of the eight counties rose in 2017, the out-of-pocket cost saw a change of less than one percent — less than a dollar. Our ruling Blunt said: "This year, 97 Missouri counties have only one insurer participating in the Obamacare exchanges. Last year, every Missouri county had at least two insurance options. In addition, most Missourians will see an increase in their premiums, with some facing an increase upward of 40 percent." Blunt’s figures are misleading. Both of his claims use cherry-picked figures that excluded the necessary data to accurately represent the state of the health care exchange in Missouri. Although most counties only have one insurer participating in a health care exchange, a majority of Missourians have more than one option. And while premium costs have seen a dramatic rise, so have tax credits meant to blunt the impact of higher costs. Blunt’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details. We rate it Half True. | null | Roy Blunt | null | null | null | 2017-02-22T10:17:54 | 2017-01-11 | ['Missouri'] |
pomt-00113 | George Holding has voted 13 times to deny Kevin, and the 300,000 people like him in the 2nd Congressional District, coverage for their pre-existing conditions. | mostly true | /north-carolina/statements/2018/oct/29/linda-coleman/holding-voted-quite-consistently-healthcare-bills/ | During a debate in the 2nd Congressional District in North Carolina, Republican Rep. George Holding made his stance on coverage for pre-existing health conditions clear when the topic of health care came up. "I support protecting folks who have pre-existing conditions," Holding said, according to The News and Observer. "I don’t know of any policymaker in Washington that wants to prevent people with pre-existing conditions from being able to get health care." His Democratic challenger, Linda Coleman, thinks otherwise. Coleman named a person with a pre-existing condition and said "George Holding has voted 13 times to deny Kevin, and the 300,000 people like him in the 2nd congressional district, coverage." In an ad from Coleman’s campaign, Kevin LeCount – a friend of Coleman’s who had leukemia, according to her campaign – says, "there are more than 300,000 people in this district, whose lives (Holding) put in danger when (Holding) voted to cut protections for people with pre-existing conditions." The Affordable Care Act, passed in 2010, bans insurers from denying anyone coverage based on pre-existing conditions. It was legal to do so before. What has Holding voted for? There have been numerous attempts in Congress to fully or partially repeal Obamacare. They had voted 54 times through 2014 to repeal parts of the health care legislation or the whole thing, according to the Washington Post. Not all of the legislation Congress has voted on would have denied protection for people with pre-existing conditions. But some of them did, and Holding voted for some of these bills that range from budget bills defunding Obamacare to full-on repeals that would have fully eliminated protections. Bill: Date of Holding Vote: HR 45 5/16/2013 HR 2009 8/2/2013 H. Con. Res 25 3/20/2013 3/21/2013 H. Con. Res. 96 4/10/2014 4/10/2014 HR 596 2/3/2015 H. Con. Res. 27 3/25/2015 3/25/2015 3/25/2015 S. Con. Res. 11 4/30/2015 H.R. 3762 10/23/2015 1/6/2016 2/2/2016 We found that Holding has voted 14 different times for bills that affect pre-existing conditions in some way. Of these bills, four were budget bills that would have defunded Obamacare. Only the budget bills from 2015 and 2016 mentioned protections for pre-existing conditions by saying the protections should be included in any future health care reform. Since these bills didn’t provide a clear path to offering protections, people with pre-existing conditions could have been vulnerable until other health care legislation passed. Two budget bills from 2013 and 2014 were full repeals of Obamacare, and did not promise protections for pre-existing conditions. Any full repeal of Obamacare would also fully repeal these protections. It is important to note that budget bills are not binding on policy, so it does not mean a vote for these will automatically repeal or defund Obamacare One bill would have prevented the Internal Revenue Service from enforcing any of the tax mandates necessary for funding Obamacare. .Holding also voted in favor of a reconciliation bill, which is a budget bill that does not allow for filibusters in the Senate. The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit with a focus on health policies, notes that this bill does not allow insurers to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions. Tim Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University, said in an email that this reconciliation bill would not have fully repealed Obamacare or protection for those with pre-existing conditions. That doesn’t mean things would’ve stayed the same. "[The repeal] would have made it much harder for people with lower incomes to afford coverage for pre-existing conditions," Jost said. Holding’s defense All of these votes came while President Barack Obama was in office, and Congress had no chance at successfully repealing Obama’s signature health legislation. The Republicans were well aware of that. Their repeal attempts were used to show they could organize as a party, and could get the job done if there was a Republican president. The game changed when President Donald Trump was elected. The Republican-controlled Congress pushed out its first health care bill. It would’ve fully repealed Obamacare and replaced it with the American Health Care Act. On May 4, 2017, Holding voted for this bill. During the debate, Holding cited his votes for the AHCA to prove he supported protections for people with pre-existing conditions. "I really do want to put this pre-existing conditions argument to rest. I voted to repeal Obamacare as many times as I was given an opportunity to vote for repealing Obamacare," Holding said. "... Obamacare didn’t work. The American Health Care Act would work, and it protects and gives coverage to people with pre-existing conditions." A previous fact check found that the AHCA says insurers wouldn’t have been able to limit access to health care for those with pre-existing conditions. It would’ve cut back on protections, however, by allowing for insurers to raise premiums based on an individual’s health status. Our ruling Holding voted numerous times on bills that affect the Affordable Care Act in some way. We found eight bills would have either affected protections for pre-existing conditions, or fully removed them. None of the budget bills Holding voted for were binding either, meaning they wouldn’t have necessarily defunded or repealed Obamacare. Holding voted on two budget bills that promised protections in future health care reform, but they offered no replacement. When he did vote for a replacement, the AHCA, it would have allowed insurers to raise premiums for people based on their pre-existing conditions. We rate this claim Mostly True. This story was produced by the North Carolina Fact-Checking Project, a partnership of McClatchy Carolinas, the Duke University Reporters’ Lab and PolitiFact. The NC Local News Lab Fund and the International Center for Journalists provide support for the project, which shares fact-checks with newsrooms statewide. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Linda Coleman | null | null | null | 2018-10-29T12:29:21 | 2018-10-23 | ['None'] |
pomt-11245 | You know what Amazon paid in federal income taxes last year? Zero. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/may/03/bernie-sanders/amazon-paid-0-federal-income-taxes-2017/ | The Forbes headline looked pretty good for Amazon chief Jeff Bezos: With the stock soaring, the world’s richest man accrued $9 billion in just two days. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., offered a different take on the company. "You know what Amazon paid in federal income taxes last year?" Sanders tweeted. "Zero." See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com We’ve taken a look at a series of exaggerated claims about Amazon in the past. But in this case, Sanders is on the money. Amazon’s 2017 tax return is not public, and a company spokesman did not return our request for comment. So to find the answer, experts told us to look at the company’s annual filings to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company could face stiff penalties from the SEC for misleading reports. In its annual report filed to the SEC in February 2018, Amazon estimated that not only would the company not be paying anything in 2017 federal income taxes, but it would be getting a $137 million tax refund. So how did Amazon, which reported $5.6 billion in profit, expect to get money from the federal government in April? Tax credits and stocks Amazon lists two line items that likely got them here: tax credits worth $220 million and stock-based compensation worth $917 million. These reflect the normal workings of the tax system, according to Annette Nellen, professor and director of the Master of Science in Taxation program at San Jose University. "I would stress Amazon is just following the provisions that are in the law," Nellen said. Companies aren’t required to spell out which tax credits they claim in their annual report, but Nellen said they likely include write-offs for research and development, domestic production, and equipment depreciation for Amazon. Stock-based compensation, on the other hand, is spelled out a bit more clearly. Stocks are often handed out as a form of compensation to employees (usually executives) at small startups without much cash on hand. It’s also a common incentive for executives to make the company more profitable. Companies are taxed on their income, which is revenue minus costs. When stocks are offered as compensation, they are counted as a cost. This reduces the company’s taxable income. The trick for companies? They get to write off the value at which the stock was later traded, not the original price for which they sold their stock to employees. "Even if the grant was pennies on the dollar, the companies get to write off the full market value," said Matt Gardner, senior fellow at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. This year was the first time Amazon didn’t pay anything in federal income taxes. Gardner attributed that to executives cashing out on stocks they had been sitting on for a while. How the new tax law will change Amazon’s bill A 1993 law capped untaxed executive compensation at $1 million — but the cap doesn’t apply to stock-based compensation. The new tax law signed by President Donald Trump subjects these stocks to the same rule, which will apply to Amazon’s 2018 taxes. Overall, the new tax law largely works in Amazon’s favor, driving down the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent. While that will only apply to Amazon’s 2018 income, its impact can be felt today. Deferred taxes mostly apply to capital investments, or such things as equipment and new warehouses. Taxes on these items are deferred throughout the lifetime of the investment. So even if the tax rate was 35 percent at the time the investment was made, when the company actually pays these deferred taxes, the new 21 percent rate will apply. This line item shrank Amazon’s estimated future taxes by $789 million. Paying below the statutory tax rate isn’t new for Amazon. From 2011 to 2016, Amazon reported a total $8.2 billion of pre-tax income and $944 million in federal income taxes, which amounts to a tax rate of 11.4 percent in the last five years, Gardner calculated. Amazon, which launched online in 1995, long resisted charging a sales tax. But by 2012, it was collecting and paying sales taxes in multiple states. In 2017, it officially began paying taxes in every state where sales taxes exist, plus Washington, D.C. Our ruling Sanders said, "You know what Amazon paid in federal income taxes last year? Zero." We can’t know that for certain until we see Amazon’s tax return. But experts say the closest estimate is that Amazon indeed paid zero in federal income taxes. In fact, Amazon estimates a $137 million rebate. Experts said there was no indication of foul play. The tax credits and write-offs for stock-based compensation that enabled this were passed by Congress. We rate this statement True. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bernie Sanders | null | null | null | 2018-05-03T09:30:00 | 2018-04-30 | ['None'] |
pomt-01345 | We've had 27 (Ebola) outbreaks around the globe and they've never spread outside of the confines of the countries that were initially affected. | mostly true | /punditfact/statements/2014/oct/22/corey-hebert/counting-number-ebola-outbreaks/ | The latest news on Ebola finally seems to be headed in the right direction. The World Health Organization declared Nigeria and Senegal to be Ebola-free. None of the people who lived in the apartment of Thomas Eric Duncan, the man who died in Dallas, have contracted the disease. Beyond the two nurses now in treatment, there are no reports that hospital staff who helped care for Duncan have the virus. While the situation in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea remains dire, more equipment and medical professionals are arriving on the scene. Based on all this, MSNBC host Chris Hayes took an optimistic stance during his show on Oct. 20. "It is a disease that can be wrestled to the ground and essentially snuffed out the way you might fight a forest fire," Hayes said. "If there's sufficient resources in those three West African countries." Hayes’ guest, pediatrician and health care television personality Corey Hebert, backed up that view. "We've had 27 outbreaks around the globe and they've never spread outside of the confines of the countries that were initially affected," Hebert said. "So, it's not something that we have to worry about like in the movie Outbreak. It's not like that." The 1995 film Outbreak did pretty well at the box office, but our fact-check focuses on Hebert’s numbers, not his taste in movies. We emailed him to learn where he got his figures and did not hear back. We found two lists of Ebola outbreaks, and while it's pretty clear that Hebert overshot the number of outbreaks, his general point is accurate. In the past, thanks to public health efforts, the virus has not spread beyond the borders of the countries that were first affected. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lists a total of 34 incidents involving one strain or another of the Ebola virus since it was first identified in 1976 in Zaire. However, not every incident meets the definition of an outbreak. In places such as England, Italy and Russia, some people caught it in their labs. A strain of the virus infected some pigs in the Philippines and some workers there developed antibodies but never showed any symptoms. There were instances where just a single person died. If you discount exposures in the laboratory, infections of animals, you are left with 19 outbreaks before the current one. Add in the three lone deaths unrelated to a lab exposure, and the total is 22. The World Health Organization has its own list that doesn’t include lab or animal infections. Its list has 20 episodes and includes four incidents in which there was a single death or no deaths at all. Adjusting for those individual cases, the WHO’s outbreak count is 16. Here’s the WHO list: Year Country Cases Deaths 2012 Democratic Republic of Congo 57 29 2012 Uganda 7 4 2012 Uganda 24 17 2011 Uganda 1 1 2008 Democratic Republic of Congo 32 14 2007 Uganda 149 37 2007 Democratic Republic of Congo 264 187 2005 Congo 12 10 2004 Sudan 17 7 2001-02 Congo 59 44 2001-02 Gabon 65 53 2000 Uganda 425 224 1996 South Africa (ex-Gabon) 1 1 1995 Democratic Republic of Congo 315 254 1994 Cote d'Ivoire 1 0 1994 Gabon 52 31 1979 Sudan 34 22 1977 Democratic Republic of Congo 1 1 1976 Sudan 284 151 1976 Democratic Republic of Congo 318 280 Source: World Health Organization In both tallies, each outbreak happened in just one country. The current crisis is the first where Ebola has hit several nations simultaneously. (Through Oct. 17, Ebola has affected seven countries and 9,216 people have been diagnosed with the virus. There are 4,555 reported deaths so far.) A likely explanation for the difference this time has to do with where the virus struck, and not the nature of the disease itself. According to a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine, the latest outbreak started in Guinea in December 2013. That was a very unfortunate location with many residents and decent transportation.There are plenty of roads that allow the people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia to move easily among the three countries and between rural areas and dense urban centers. But the research team that wrote the article said that the biological characteristics of the virus are largely the same. Quick and robust public health measures could have stopped the Ebola outbreak early, but the steps that were taken fell short. "The critical determinant of epidemic size appears to be the speed of implementation of rigorous control measures," the article authors wrote. Our ruling Hebert said there have been 27 outbreaks of of Ebola and in no case did the disease spread to a second country. His number is high. A more accurate figure would be between 16 and 22. However, he is correct in his main point, that past efforts have successfully contained the disease. The combination of an exaggerated number and an accurate assessment of the importance of the public health response leads us to rate this claim Mostly True. | null | Corey Hebert | null | null | null | 2014-10-22T11:57:07 | 2014-10-20 | ['None'] |
snes-04699 | Donald Trump said, "you have to be wealthy in order to be great." | mostly true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-wealthy-great-quote/ | null | Politics | null | Dan Evon | null | Donald Trump: ‘You Have to Be Wealthy in Order to Be Great’ | 27 May 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02762 | The 'Denver Post' has actually hired an editor to promote pot. | false | /punditfact/statements/2013/dec/12/bill-oreilly/oreilly-denver-post-hired-editor-promote-pot/ | The Denver Post’s decision to hire a "pot editor" to cover the legal recreational use of marijuana in Colorado has drawn the ire of Bill O’Reilly, who twice in four days attacked the newspaper on his Fox News program. Among other things, O’Reilly called the Post’s top editor a pinhead and warned that the paper was promoting intoxication that would put more dangerous drivers on the road. "The Denver Post has actually hired an editor to promote pot," O’Reilly exclaimed on Monday’s show. Both of his guests on Monday’s show pushed back. Mary Katharine Ham argued that this was a legitimate matter of public policy. Juan Williams said since pot would soon be legal in Colorado, talking about it would be no different from the wine reviews you can find in many newspapers. O’Reilly would have none of it. "You can drink wine without getting inebriated," he said. The only reason to use marijuana, O’Reilly said, "is to get high." We reached out to Fox News for more details from the show and did not hear back. This fact-check focuses on whether the Denver Post is promoting pot, but O’Reilly and his guests raised some important points and we’ll cover some of them too. Reporting vs. endorsing We should be clear that O’Reilly did not say the Post’s coverage would have the unintended effect of encouraging the consumption of marijuana. He said promotion was the newspaper’s intent, calling the Post a "very far left concern." We can never be entirely certain when it comes to intent but here is how the newly appointed editor, Ricardo Baca, described the scope of his mandate. "We will have voices in the mix from all sides of the story," Baca said in an article published by his paper. "You smoke (or eat or vaporize) everyday. You got high once in high school and never again. You stopped after you had kids but are thinking about returning. You’re anti-pot and wish it weren’t one of the biggest issues in Colorado. I want to talk with all of you." Baca promised that the beat would cover cannabis culture and news "from a professional, journalistic and critical point of view." So yes, the Post will have a freelance pot critic and a freelance pot adviser, but it will also use staff reporters to follow how the legalization of marijuana unfolds in the state that has gone further than any other (although Washington runs a close second). Colorado’s unique status makes the Post’s work very intriguing to Dr. Eric Wish, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland. "People have been debating this for a long time and there’s been no place where we could have an experiment to see what happens.," Wish said. "Now the voters made Colorado the experiment. Anything that the Denver Post can do to inform people of the consequences of this experiment is going to be good. We need to know." The Post’s editor says he expects the new beat to engage the public. That can mean many things. Safe to say, the newspaper plans to attract readers. That’s a long way from encouraging people to use marijuana. Comparing cannabis and alcohol Coloradans voted on a measure that aimed to treat marijuana the same as alcohol. Opponents, such as O’Reilly, would maintain that the two chemicals are so fundamentally different, we should never confuse them in our minds or our laws. We can’t resolve that dispute, but our research did produce some useful data. First, coverage of beer, wine and spirits is widespread. Barbara Fusco, director of sales and marketing at the Brewers Association, a beer trade group, searched one database and found 168 reporters and editors who report on beer, wine and spirits at daily newspapers nationwide. "I’d consider this number low, as it doesn’t include magazines, newswires, blogs, websites or broadcast outlets," Fusco said. "Of those, 168 reporters, 60 are specifically identified as covering beer." That’s about twice as many beer reporters from five years ago when the association said fewer than three dozen papers had regular coverage. Arnie Robbins, executive director of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, says based on what he’s seen, newspapers are expanding the space they give to all kinds of alcoholic drinks. "On the New York Times baby boomer blog they have a column called A Quiet Drink," Robbins said. "They cover where can you find a cool bar that isn’t crazy loud and it’s about the drinks there." We visited A Quiet Drink and read about an "iced black tea made with Jim Beam bourbon, simple syrup and cardamom pods" and a mai tai "with two kinds of rum — Zacapa 23 and Cana Brava — and a pleasant undercurrent of orange, from Creole Shrubb liqueur." To our eye, this wouldn’t seem to discourage drinking. But O’Reilly’s main point was that you can drink without getting drunk while getting stoned is the only reason to smoke pot. This made us curious. Can we calibrate the effects of alcohol in ways that we can’t with pot? "It may be a false dichotomy to say you can do it with alcohol but not marijuana," said Wish at the University of Maryland. Wish pointed to reports of people who have used marijuana medically and were given the choice of using pills or smoking the drug. They said they were able to control the effects more precisely by smoking. Wish has many concerns about the consequences of legalization. He warns about the combined impact on driving with both alcohol and marijuana in the blood stream. He says if legal pot is taxed at too high a rate, it could encourage the use of cheaper synthetic cannabis which can be a very risky compound. But as to our relative ability to manage our consumption of alcohol and marijuana, he says we should not assume we do a great job with either. "I’m not so sure people calibrate so well once they get inebriated," Wish said. Our ruling O’Reilly said the Denver Post was a "far left concern" that had "actually hired an editor to promote pot". This goes to the newspaper's intent. The Denver Post said it planned to cover many aspects of the unfolding story of legalized marijuana in the state, ranging from policy and laws to the culture of pot users. While that coverage has yet to unfold, the stated goals of the Post do not match O’Reilly’s description of the newspaper’s intentions and we heard nothing from the show that supported O’Reilly’s view. We rate the claim False. | null | Bill O'Reilly | null | null | null | 2013-12-12T14:59:44 | 2013-12-09 | ['None'] |
pomt-14851 | When President Barack Obama said ISIS, or ISIL, was contained, he "was responding very specifically to the geographic expansion of ISIL in Iraq and Syria." | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/nov/15/ben-rhodes/what-barack-obama-said-about-isis-being-contained/ | Last week, President Barack Obama said the Islamic State is "contained" -- a comment that has been scrutinized in the wake of the deadly attacks in Paris that have been attributed to the terrorist group. But has Obama’s comment been taken out of context? ABC This Week host George Stephanopoulos presented White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes with a list of politicians criticizing Obama for his Nov. 12 remarks. Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for example, said Obama sees the world "as a fantasy." Rhodes said Obama was talking about a particular aspect of containment that in no way dismissed the possibility of terrorist attacks in the West. "The president was responding very specifically to the geographic expansion of ISIL in Iraq and Syria," Rhodes said, using another acronym for the group. "A year ago, we saw them on the march in Iraq and Syria, taking more and more population centers. The fact is that we have been able to stop that geographic advance and take back significant amounts of territory in both northern Iraq and northern Syria. At the same time, that does not diminish the fact that there is a threat posed by ISIL, not just in those countries but in their aspirations to project power overseas." This reminded us of a prior fact-check, when Obama said he didn’t specifically describe ISIS as a "JV team" -- a statement we rated False because he was clearly talking about the Islamic State at the time. We decided to look back at Obama’s comments on containing ISIS to see his comments in their complete context. Rewind In the context of Obama’s Nov. 12 interview with Stephanopoulos -- the day before the Paris attacks -- it’s actually quite clear that when he says ISIS is contained, he is talking about ISIS’s territorial expansion in Syria and Iraq. Here are the relevant parts of the interview: Stephanopoulos: "Some of your critics say, even your friendly critics say, like Fareed Zakaria, that what you have on the ground now is not going to be enough. Every couple of months you're going to be faced with the same choice of back down or double down." Obama: "I think what is true is that this has always been a multiyear project precisely because the governance structures in the Sunni areas of Iraq are weak, and there are none in Syria. And we don't have ground forces there in sufficient numbers to simply march into Al-Raqqah in Syria and clean the whole place out. And as a consequence, we've always understood that our goal has to be militarily constraining ISIL's capabilities, cutting off their supply lines, cutting off their financing at the same time as we're putting a political track together in Syria and fortifying the best impulses in Baghdad so that we can, not just win militarily, but also win by improving governance." Stephanopoulos: "And that's the strategy you've been following. But ISIS is gaining strength, aren't they?" Obama: "Well, no, I don't think they're gaining strength. What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq. And in Syria they'll come in, they'll leave. But you don't see this systematic march by ISIL across the terrain. What we have not yet been able to do is to completely decapitate their command and control structures. We've made some progress in trying to reduce the flow of foreign fighters." When Obama said "we have contained them," it’s within a plainly defined scope: ISIS’s territorial ambitions in Iraq and Syria. This context is bolstered by the fact that Stephanopoulos asks Obama about the ground efforts in those two countries. He wasn’t saying, as critics have shorthanded, that ISIS no longer presents a threat -- an assertion that the Paris attacks would have negated. In fact, in the same interview, Obama acknowledged that ISIS might have surpassed al-Qaida as the greatest terror threat in the world, adding that they are constantly looking for "a crack in the system" to exploit to carry out attacks. "I think that one of the challenges of these international terrorist organizations is that they don't have to have a huge amount of personnel," Obama said. Is ISIS contained in Iraq and Syria? The region Obama refers to is significant because it’s the epicenter of ISIS’s caliphate. We surveyed a number of experts, and they all said Obama is accurate when he says ISIS hasn’t gained territory in Iraq and Syria in recent months, though it does not give a full picture of ISIS’s global reach. "It’s a choice of words that isn’t great, but what he is referring to -- as opposed to the way people have interpreted it -- is correct," said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. While ISIS has captured a couple towns in the past few months, it has ultimately lost roughly a quarter of its Iraq and Syria territory overall. A good portion of the losses resulted from United States airstrikes but also from fighting with Iraqi forces and regional groups, Gartenstein-Ross said. This is a far cry from a year ago, when there was serious concern that ISIS would capture Baghdad. But even though they haven’t expanded territorially recently, ISIS continues to counterattack anti-ISIS forces in the region, noted Frederick Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. He added that ISIS has actually expanded globally -- with strongholds and cells in Libya, Yemen, the Sinai region, and Bangladesh, as well as establishing ties with other terrorist organizations in Africa. This November map from the Institute for the Study of War shows where ISIS has ties. The stars indicate where ISIS has a remote "governorate." And, as we know from the Paris attacks, ISIS is able to flex their muscle in the West, too. "They are being contained geographically by traditional military but they are leapfrogging over it using terrorism," said Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He added that Obama used "your grandfather’s notion of containment." Our ruling Rhodes said that when Obama said ISIS was contained, he "was responding very specifically to the geographic expansion of ISIL in Iraq and Syria." Looking back at Obama’s interview where he made this comment, it is quite clear that it’s within a narrowly defined scope: ISIS’s territorial expansion in Iraq and Syria. He did not rule out the potential for a terrorist attack, and he also made it clear that the United States’ anti-ISIS efforts are a work in progress. References or suggestions that Obama claimed ISIS no longer presents an active threat are incorrect. Further, experts told us that Obama is right that ISIS hasn’t expanded in the region in recent months, though this doesn’t give a full picture of ISIS’s global reach. Rhodes’ statement rates True. | null | Ben Rhodes | null | null | null | 2015-11-15T16:18:21 | 2015-11-15 | ['Iraq', 'Syria', 'Barack_Obama'] |
snes-00122 | Sasha Obama was expelled from school after she went on a racist anti-white rant. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sasha-obama-school-rant/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Was Sasha Obama Expelled from School After Going on an Anti-White Rant? | 6 September 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04285 | Coffee serves as an effective mosquito repellant and protection against infection by the Zika virus. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/coffee-mosquitoes-zika/ | null | Medical | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Is Coffee an Effective Protective Measure Against Mosquitoes and Zika? | 9 August 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04818 | Ohio amusement park Kings Island will close through 2020 because of "dangerous rides." | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kings-island-dangerous-rides/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Kings Island Closing Down Due to Dangerous Rides | 3 May 2016 | null | ['Ohio', 'Kings_Island'] |
faan-00103 | “We are in a world that is becoming increasingly unsafe.” | factscan score: false | http://factscan.ca/stephen-harper-we-are-in-a-world-that-is-becoming-increasingly-unsafe/ | Stephen Harper said the world is getting increasingly unsafe. Not statistically when it comes to violent deaths. The world is safer today compared to previous decades. | null | Stephen Harper | null | null | null | 2015-03-05 | null | ['None'] |
snes-06189 | Photograph captures an unlucky tourist posing on the observation deck of a World Trade Center tower on 9/11, seconds before a hijacked airliner smashed into the building. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tourist-wtc-911/ | null | September 11th | null | Snopes Staff | null | Is This a Photograph of a World Trade Center Tourist on 9/11? | 20 November 2001 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00956 | ISIS is "now the predominant Islamist group in Benghazi." | mostly false | /florida/statements/2015/feb/19/marco-rubio/isis-holds-sway-benghazi-rubio-says/ | Sen. Marco Rubio hasn’t declared himself a presidential candidate yet, but that didn’t stop him from visiting Iowa a little early. Rubio, R-Fla., fashioned himself as a foreign policy wonk during a Feb. 13, 2015, radio appearance, discussing at length the extremist group Islamic State’s goals and strength across Africa and Asia. He then invoked the name of a city many Americans likely would remember. "ISIS has now set up a very significant hub in Libya," Rubio said. "They are now the predominant Islamist group in Benghazi." Two days after Rubio’s remarks, ISIS released a video showing black-clad extremists beheading 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt on a Libyan beach. Egypt responded to the executions by bombing the coastal city of Derna, considered an ISIS stronghold. Rubio’s comments highlighted the state of disarray in Libya, but we wondered if he was right in saying Islamic State militants were the major force in Benghazi, the country’s second-largest city. First, we need a brief lesson in recent history. The Libyan crisis Libya has largely been in chaos since revolutionaries -- with NATO help -- deposed and killed dictator Moammar Gaddafi in 2011. An interim, Islamist-filled government was elected to help Libya make the transition to a democracy, but refused to give up power after its term was up. Gen. Khalifa Haftar (at right), who served in the army during the Gaddafi regime and fought against the dictator during the 2011 coup, was instrumental in replacing the interim government so a new parliament could be elected in 2014. Control of the country is now split between an Islamist government based in Tripoli in the west and an internationally recognized government led by Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani in Tobruk in the east. Haftar now commands forces fighting Islamist extremists to support the Tobruk government. The country is dotted with militias, clans and terror groups, many of whom fight among each other for territory and almost indiscernible goals. ISIS became one of these groups in 2014, taking control of the eastern city of Derna with fighters from Syria and Iraq and uniting other militant Islamic factions under their banner. The port of Benghazi is to the west of Derna (shown on the map below as Darnah) along the Mediterranean Sea. So who is in charge in Benghazi? As for Rubio’s specific claim, ISIS isn’t the predominate "Islamist group in Benghazi," experts told us. That distinction would go to a terror group known as Ansar al-Sharia, or the Partisans of Islamic Law. Most Americans would know them as the group considered responsible for the Sept. 12, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that killed two diplomats and two former Navy SEALs working as security personnel (a charge they have denied in the past). Relatively small factions across the the region, in places like Tunisia and Yemen, all use the name Ansar al-Sharia, although their aims and origins may differ. Ansar al-Sharia Libya has a significant presence in Derna, as well, although that group is not exactly the same as the one in Benghazi, where the picture gets a little murkier. Several reports (including one from the United Nations) have said Ansar al-Sharia Derna pledged allegiance to ISIS in October 2014, but it seems Ansar al-Sharia Benghazi leadership has not endorsed ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Anonymous jihadists groups are the Libyans who have pledged loyalty to ISIS. Aaron Zelin, a fellow at the Washington Institute and creator of Jihadology.net, told PolitiFact Florida that Ansar al-Sharia members have defected to ISIS, but they are not allies. It’s Ansar al-Sharia that is most visible in Benghazi and not ISIS, Zelin said. Other experts we talked to agreed, though they noted Ansar al-Sharia may be in decline in the city. UCLA history professor James Gelvin said Ansar al-Sharia do share a goal with ISIS -- imposing Sharia law where it is possible. Rubio may have been trying to use Benghazi as a buzzword people would recognize, but he is not correct to say ISIS is "the predominant Islamist group" there. While ISIS has a presence in many cities, they only truly have a foothold in Derna, Gelvin said. "I think what Rubio is doing is conflating Ansar al-Sharia with Islamic State," Gelvin said. "They (Ansar al-Sharia) have not been absorbed. … They still maintain their integrity as a group." We reached out to Rubio’s office but didn’t hear back. For the record, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that either Ansar al-Sharia or ISIS is in charge in Benghazi; Haftar’s forces have been retaking large portions of the city, including the airport and a military installation. As of this writing, the city is still contested, but analysts see Ansar al-Sharia’s clout diminishing. So if neither government, Haftar’s army or any militant group run Benghazi, who controls the city? "No one does," Gelvin said. Our ruling Rubio said ISIS is "now the predominant Islamist group in Benghazi." While there are myriad militias, radical militants, armed groups and even multiple governments in Libya, Islamic State’s footprint is still relatively small. Besides some activity in pockets across the country, the group holds sway in Derna, but not so much in Benghazi, experts say. There, the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia has been most visible among radicalized factions. Some reports say the group has formed an alliance with ISIS, but researchers dispute that, though some Ansar al-Sharia members almost certainly have defected. Experts also say the situation is fluid, which provides Rubio some additional, albeit small, amount of cover. His 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/0fde4734-30cf-47be-b99a-d5e7b551db6f | null | Marco Rubio | null | null | null | 2015-02-19T10:08:13 | 2015-02-13 | ['Benghazi'] |
pomt-04917 | It’s "typical" for a presidential candidate to release 10 or 11 years of tax returns. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/01/bill-clinton/its-typical-presidential-candidates-release-10-or-/ | President Barack Obama’s campaign intends to keep the pressure on Mitt Romney to release more of his tax returns. The campaign released a Web ad Wednesday hammering that point and asking, "When will he release his tax returns?" Romney has provided his 2010 return and his preliminary return for 2011. He said he will release the final version for 2011, but no additional years. Former President Bill Clinton said the usual standard is much higher. "You know, it's typical, I think, that we all release 10, 11 years," Clinton said on NBC’s Today Show on July 13. "I think Sen. McCain released over 20 years of tax returns." The Obama campaign recently announced that Clinton would be given a prime-time speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention. We wanted to examine if the former president has it right. Is it customary to reveal a decade of tax returns? The high-water mark for disclosure was set by Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., in the 1996 election. He released 30 years of tax returns. Second place honors go to Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for providing 20 years worth when he ran in 2004, although he had released 15 of those returns before he launched his presidential bid. (Kerry’s wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, had considerable wealth and released only a portion of her 2003 taxes.) After that, there is a tie between Romney’s father, George Romney, in 1968 and Bill Clinton in 1992. Both men released 12 years of tax returns. Close on their heels is Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., with 10 when he was Kerry’s running mate. Several candidates released anywhere from six to nine years of returns. In 2000, George W. Bush provided nine and Al Gore eight. In the 2008 primary, then Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., delivered seven, a move that was matched by Hillary Clinton about a month later. In 1988, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis released six years of returns. There is a difference for incumbents and challengers. Ever since 1976, when Jimmy Carter became president, sitting presidents and vice presidents have released their taxes each year they are in office. By the time re-election rolls around, they have put at least four tax returns into the public record. Challengers generally match or exceed that. Our colleagues at Factcheck.org looked at this and found that since 1980, only two general election candidates have revealed just two years of tax returns. One was Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., in 2008 and the other is Mitt Romney (at least so far during this campaign). For the record, in 1980, Ronald Reagan offered up just one return. We should note here that Clinton was way off when he said McCain released 20 years of returns; McCain only released two. Similarly, Romney has said that Kerry released only two years of returns when Kerry had released many more than that. But again, our fact-check here is intended to gauge what’s "typical" for presidential candidates. As our tally above indicates, though, there's a lot of variation in how many tax returns candidates released. Mathematically speaking, our tally shows the median number of tax returns released to be seven and a half. But individual candidates released anywhere from 30 to one. Providing tax returns is often a campaign strategy, although whether disclosure becomes a significant issue will vary. In 2008, Obama wanted to put pressure on his primary rival, Hillary Clinton. To some extent it worked, because Clinton then had to explain why she and her husband were so wealthy. Romney’s father had something of the same idea when he revealed a dozen tax returns. Our ruling Clinton said most candidates release about 10 years of tax returns. That's more than the two years of returns Romney has released. Clinton is exaggerating a bit when he puts the "typical" number at 10. Over the decades, we found candidates released anywhere from 30 years of tax returns to one year. A majority of the recent candidates we surveyed did not in fact release a full 10 years of tax returns. On the other hand, a majority of recent candidates did release far more than two years of tax returns. So Romney lags behind most of the pack. Clinton’s statement is partially accurate, but it leaves out important details. We rate his statement Half True. | null | Bill Clinton | null | null | null | 2012-08-01T17:40:46 | 2012-07-13 | ['None'] |
pomt-02323 | Georgia has recovered more than $60 million that was lost to Medicaid fraud | true | /georgia/statements/2014/mar/28/ed-lindsey/state-lawmakers-claim-medicaid-fraud-recovery-corr/ | The state has been going after people who commit Medicaid fraud, and it has been paying off, according to Edward Lindsey, an Atlanta state lawmaker, lawyer and 11th District congressional candidate. "Since the implementation of the original Medicaid False Claims Act, which I sponsored in 2007, Georgia has recovered more than $60 million in the last three years alone," Lindsey, a Republican, said in a press release issued March 20. Reports of fraud in government contracts have been widely circulated, well documented and long concerning. The first False Claims Act, also dubbed the "Lincoln law," was enacted during the Civil War to combat fraud by companies selling supplies to the Union Army. Today, Georgia and other states have their own False Claims acts, targeting Medicaid fraud. These laws allow states to take civil action against people who swindle money from Medicaid, the state-federal program that covers health care costs for millions of low-income families, the disabled, children and the elderly. But has the state recouped more than $60 million in three years as Lindsey claims? We decided a truth test was in order. Medicaid fraud can take many forms, but commonly involves billing for services or medications that aren’t provided or aren’t needed. Overbilling and double billing are other common tactics. Big money is at stake. Georgia’s Medicaid program doled out about $9.4 billion in the 2013 state fiscal year. At the state Department of Community Health, which runs the Georgia Medicaid program, officials estimate that $52.2 million was reclaimed through civil proceedings between July 1, 2010, and Feb. 17, 2014. That’s shy of Lindsey’s forecasts, but it’s also not the full picture. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens’ office has gone after Medicaid fraud, both civilly and criminally. In three years, his office has recouped $159.4 million for both the state and federal government, according to data submitted to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Inspector General. Most of that money -- including the $52.2 million counted by DCH -- was reclaimed using the Medicaid False Claims Act, according to Olens’ office. Lindsey said he opted for a conservative estimate, based largely on the DCH data. "It appears I understated our success," he said. Lindsey brought the topic of Medicaid fraud before lawmakers during the recent General Assembly because of a looming deadline. The state’s Medicaid False Claims Act, which Lindsey sponsored in 2007, had to be amended to comply with new federal regulations. Those amendments, which were approved by lawmakers in Lindsey’s House Bill 973, have to be signed into law by April 15. Otherwise, Georgia could lose what’s effectively a 10 percent bonus for recovering fraudulently lost federal funds. In the last three years, that 10 percent brought $11.6 million to the state, according to DCH data. How much fraud is being perpetrated here and across the nation is a topic for debate. What’s generally considered the most credible look at the issue came from the respected Institute of Medicine in 2012. The institute’s analysis of 2009 data found that the nation spends $2.6 trillion each year on health care -- including Medicaid and Medicare -- and likely loses $75 billion a year to fraud. Our conclusion: Georgia has submitted documentation to the feds that it has recovered $159.4 million lost to Medicaid fraud in three years in both federal and state money. Lindsey was very conservative in saying the amount recouped was "more than $60 million." We rate Lindsey’s statement True. | null | Edward Lindsey | null | null | null | 2014-03-28T00:00:00 | 2014-03-20 | ['None'] |
pomt-04808 | Says under Wisconsin law, he cannot remove his name from the ballot for re-election to Congress. | true | /wisconsin/statements/2012/aug/20/paul-ryan/ryan-says-candidates-congress-cant-remove-themselv/ | Thousands of voters in southern Wisconsin will see something unusual and historic when they cast their November 2012 ballots: Paul Ryan’s name in stereo. The Janesville Republican will appear on the ballot for re-election to his congressional seat. And he’ll also appear as the GOP vice presidential candidate. Ryan discussed this oddity Aug. 12, 2012, on "60 Minutes" -- his first TV interview after being picked by Mitt Romney as his running mate. CBS correspondent Bob Schieffer asked Ryan: "Now I understand you're also gonna run for reelection in your congressional seat. Are you kind of hedging your bets here?" "No, I'm already on the ballot," Ryan responded. "You can't even go off the ballot. So I've already filed. Our filing deadline was in June. I'm already on the ballot, so it has nothing to do with that." That comment raised a few eyebrows: Is Ryan really requiredto be on the ballot twice? In short, yes. That’s due to a quirk in state law and the timing of Ryan’s pick, according to Reid Magney, spokesman for the state Government Accountability Board, which runs elections. State law generally prohibits a candidate to appear on the same ballot for two partisan offices. But there is one exception: If he’s running for president or vice president. That so-called "favorite son" law was passed in the late 1960s. On the timing question: Ryan, who is seeking an eighth term in the U.S. House, had until June 1, 2012, to submit his name for re-election to the 1st Congressional District seat. He did so. The Government Accountability Board met June 8, 2012, and approved his and other names for the fall ballot. (Indeed, that included the Aug. 14, 2012, primary election, three days after his VP pick. Ryan’s name was listed even though he was unopposed for the GOP nod.) In November, Ryan faces Democrat Rob Zerban of Kenosha. There’s only one way for a candidate to get his name off the ballot after the accountability board has acted -- and it takes, well, a pretty extreme step. The candidate would have to die. Even then, the death would have to happen before the ballot was printed, Magney said. Ballots are printed about 50 days before an election and they don’t get reprinted because of a death. Our rating Ryan said since he’s already on the ballot for re-election to Congress he could not get his name removed. Indeed, at this stage, death is the only way off the House ballot. We rate Ryan’s statement True. | null | Paul Ryan | null | null | null | 2012-08-20T09:00:00 | 2012-08-12 | ['United_States_Congress', 'Wisconsin'] |
goop-00125 | Brad Pitt Dumped Jennifer Aniston For Spiritual Healer Sat Hari Khalsa? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/brad-pitt-jennifer-aniston-sat-hari-khalsa-dumped/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Brad Pitt Dumped Jennifer Aniston For Spiritual Healer Sat Hari Khalsa? | 11:13 am, October 17, 2018 | null | ['Brad_Pitt', 'Jennifer_Aniston'] |
pomt-13929 | As governor, in the face of partisan attacks, (Charlie Crist) had the courage to save jobs and lead his state into economic recovery. | half-true | /florida/statements/2016/jun/23/barack-obama/charlie-crist-led-florida-economic-recovery-stimul/ | Former Gov. Charlie Crist once faced withering criticism for hugging President Barack Obama, but now Obama is returning the favor by embracing Crist’s congressional campaign. Obama endorsed Crist, a Republican-turned-independent-turned-Democrat, for a U.S. House seat in a June 20, 2016, statement. He said Crist "has always put people above politics," and proved it during his single gubernatorial term between January 2007 and January 2011 — right as the Great Recession gripped the state following the housing market’s crash. "As governor, in the face of partisan attacks, he (Charlie Crist) had the courage to save jobs and lead his state into economic recovery," Obama said. By "courage," Obama means Crist, as a GOP governor, had the chutzpah to accept federal stimulus money from a Democratic president against the wishes of many Florida Republicans. Is it fair to credit Crist with saving jobs and helping Florida recover? The data during Crist’s term is mixed, experts say, but the state did recover and accepting the stimulus certainly helped. A stimulating review Remember that the recession officially began at the end of 2007, during Crist’s first year in office. The declining tax revenues and spiraling unemployment left the state facing massive budget shortfalls that were sure to result in cuts to state employees, including educators and law enforcement. Obama, meanwhile, had pushed Congress to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Washington’s $787 billion stimulus package. Vehemently opposed to anything Obama-related, Florida Republicans turned up their noses at the idea. But Crist committed a cardinal GOP sin by advocating for the stimulus, calling it a "pragmatic, commonsense opportunity to move forward." He lobbied the Florida congressional delegation to support the stimulus and made heart-eyes at Obama over the legislation. Then came that infamous hug at a Fort Myers rally with Obama on Feb. 10, 2009, the same day the Senate passed its version of the bill. Obama signed the stimulus into law a week later. Republicans weren’t keen to forgive Crist for pushing Obama’s stimulus package. "I don't know that my governor understands all the details in this package — that there will be nothing here to help with Florida's housing economy," U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez said in February 2009. (Martinez had announced in 2008 he wouldn’t seek re-election, which we’ll get to in a second.) Broward County Republican state committeeman Ed Kennedy said Crist was "cooking his own goose." The state then got some $3 billion to shore up road construction, Medicaid, job training and more, and used more stimulus money to plug a $5 billion hole in the 2009-10 fiscal year budget. There also was a lot of borrowing from state trust funds and creative new taxes and levies, as well as a pay freeze for state workers. Before signing the stimulus-laden budget, Crist declared in May 2009 he would run for U.S. Senate as a Republican to replace Martinez. Although Crist was the initial favorite for the job, his stimulus push continued to haunt him. Republican groups wanted to censure Crist and the conservative Club for Growth bashed him in an online ad, saying he should spend more time fixing the economy, not "passing more debt." The state again relied on stimulus money for the 2010-11 budget, but the issue proved to be a liability for Crist in his U.S. Senate campaign. Crist eventually even waffled a bit on his own support for the spending package. Facing pressure from Republicans, including Rubio, Crist announced in in April 2010 that he would continue the race as an independent in a three-way race with Rubio and Democratic challenger Kendrick Meek. Rubio continued to attack Crist over the stimulus, deriding the package by saying on Fox News, "If it's bad for America, it can't possibly be good for your state." He also attacked Crist in debates, saying in one that, "If you like Obamacare, if you like the stimulus plan, you can vote for Charlie Crist or Kendrick Meek." Rubio won the seat with almost 49 percent of the vote. Meek won 20 percent, and Crist garnered 29.7 percent. So did the stimulus help? Experts we’ve spoken to all say one thing is clear: Florida’s economy would have been worse without it. "It is true that federal stimulus money helped reduce the recession’s magnitude and duration," Moody’s senior economist Chris Lafakis told us. "Florida’s economy bottomed out in terms of jobs in December 2009, when Crist was still in office." His fellow Moody’s economist Kwame Donaldson added that it was "undeniable" the stimulus saved jobs in Florida, in part by keeping the state’s GDP from a continued decline in 2010. The full scope of the jobs picture is fuzzy at best. A lot of figures have been bandied about, but one that is usually accepted is that stimulus money prevented the loss of close to 20,000 full-time equivalent jobs in the education system, which relied heavily on the stimulus for two years. That’s not all educators, mind you, and even some in the school system who had been laid off were rehired as the state recovered. Some 14,000 other full-time equivalent state jobs were shielded in part by the stimulus, too. There is at least some data to suggest Florida was already limping back to a recovery by the time Crist left office. While Florida’s unemployment rate had ballooned to 11.4 percent by January 2010, a year later it had dropped to 10.9 percent, and kept falling. As of April 2016, the rate is 4.8 percent. Under Crist, the state lost more than 800,000 jobs, although you can’t blame that squarely on Crist’s policies given the larger forces of the country’s recession and housing crisis. But it was still a fact Gov. Rick Scott was happy to bring up when Crist attempted a return to the governor’s office as a Democrat in 2014. By and large, indicators show the state’s economy had stopped sliding, thanks in part to the stimulus money Crist had sought. But it’s not as if he rode a white horse into a recovery — Scott has enjoyed the big gains since 2011, as Florida joined the rest of the country climbing out of the recession. We do have to provide our usual disclaimers when dealing with whether an official is responsible for something. Economists and analysts have told PolitiFact Florida countless times now that there are many caveats to looking at economic indicators as a measure of an elected figure. Furthermore, any single governor’s policies are still subject to forces out of their control, such as, say, a global financial meltdown. Experts routinely contend it’s difficult to look at events in a vacuum, or to give credit for good outcomes while ignoring bad ones. Our ruling Obama said, "As governor, in the face of partisan attacks, he (Charlie Crist) had the courage to save jobs and lead his state into economic recovery." Crist was a vocal advocate for the federal stimulus, and it cost him politically as his fellow Republicans attacked him for it. The state ended up using billions to plug holes in the budget, and economists we’ve consulted agree that funding prevented Florida’s dismal economic picture from getting even worse. It’s a bit more difficult to entirely credit Crist with leading the state into a recovery, because most of the gains came after he left office, as the entire country emerged from the recession. The statement is partially accurate, but leaves out important details. We rate it Half True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/c73e44de-cd34-4426-a8e5-4986a0fa073d | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2016-06-23T10:25:32 | 2016-06-20 | ['Charlie_Crist'] |
vees-00018 | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Online post comparing Aquino's and Duterte's transition shelter projects carries | false | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-online-post-comparing-aquinos-and-dute | null | null | null | null | false news | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Online post comparing Aquino's and Duterte's transition shelter projects carries FALSE info | October 23, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11369 | Four years after Gov. Andrew Cuomo promised universal pre-K, "79 percent of 4-year olds outside New York City lack full-day pre-K." | mostly true | /new-york/statements/2018/mar/30/cynthia-nixon/do-most-children-outside-new-york-city-lack-full-d/ | Gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon says more than three-quarters of 4-year-olds outside New York City don’t have access to state-funded full-day pre-kindergarten. Nixon blames Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the lag, calling it a broken promise. "In 2014, Andrew Cuomo promised that he was going to expand pre-K to all of New York's children, not just those in New York City," Nixon said at a press conference in Albany. "But four years later, 79 percent of 4-year-olds outside New York City lack full-day pre-K." Cuomo and state lawmakers approved a five-year plan in the 2014 state budget to subsidize statewide pre-K. The plan earmarked $1.5 billion for pre-K through 2019, with $340 million for the first year. Most of the first-year money — $300 million — went to New York City schools. Is Nixon right that 79 percent of 4-year-olds outside New York City don’t have access to full-day pre-K? The data Nixon was citing a statistic from a report by a handful of education advocacy groups, including the Alliance for Quality Education The report used data from the state Education Department. A spokesperson for the department sent us the data. The numbers reflect access to state-funded pre-K for 4-year-olds during the 2016-2017 school year, the latest data available. The state counted 103,679 4-year-olds outside New York City during that school year. Only 22,124 of them had access to state-funded full-day pre-K, according to the data. That translates to about 21 percent of 4-year-olds outside New York City with access to state-funded full-day pre-K. So that means 79 percent of the children did not have state-funded full-day pre-K, confirming Nixon’s claim. That doesn’t mean the other 81,555 4-year-olds did not have access to pre-K altogether. Twenty-five percent of 4-year-olds outside New York City had access to state-funded half-day pre-K, meaning 46 percent of them had pre-K during that school year. Added to the New York City 4-year-olds who had full-day pre-K that year, about two-thirds of 4-year-olds statewide had access to state-funded full- or half-day pre-K. Between New York City, Long Island, and upstate New York, about 66 percent of 4-year-olds statewide had access to either state-funded full or half-day pre-K. Was there a deadline? Nixon is right that Cuomo promised to expand pre-K to children statewide. But Cuomo never promised statewide pre-K by the 2016-2017 school year, and the 2014 state budget did not set a deadline. Cuomo pledged funding for statewide pre-K during a radio interview before the state budget passed in 2014. "We’re going to have a statewide pre-K program funded by the state," Cuomo said. "That’s what we said we’re going to do, and that’s what we’re going to do." Cuomo said after the 2014 budget passed that timing would depend on local districts. "We have to watch the implementation rate and how fast we can actually make universal pre-K a reality and where," Cuomo said. "But we have the funding to move the program at the pace the localities can move the program." The state has more than doubled its funding for pre-K since 2013, from $410 million to more than $800 million. The boost in funding did not change the share of 4-year-olds with access to pre-K outside New York City between the 2014 and 2016 school years. Only about 46 percent of those students had access to either full or half-day pre-K during the 2014-2015 school year, according to state data. That share was the same two years later. Our ruling Nixon claimed that 79 percent of 4-year-olds outside New York City don’t have access to full-day pre-K four years after funding was earmarked in the state budget. The latest data supports Nixon’s claim, though it’s from the 2016-2017 school year. That’s three years after Cuomo and lawmakers committed funding for universal pre-K, not four as Nixon said. There was also never a deadline to implement statewide pre-K by the start of that school year. Her claim was accurate but we thought it needed additional information. We rate it Mostly True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Cynthia Nixon | null | null | null | 2018-03-30T15:47:10 | 2018-03-26 | ['New_York_City'] |
snes-01158 | Eating alligator in New Orleans will help save the wetlands of Louisiana. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/will-eating-alligator-save-wetlands/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Will Eating Alligator Meat Help Save the Louisiana Wetlands? | 22 January 2018 | null | ['New_Orleans', 'Louisiana'] |
goop-00202 | Ben Affleck Marrying Shauna Sexton In Rehab? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ben-affleck-shauna-sexton-married-rehab-wedding/ | null | null | null | Gossip Cop Staff | null | Ben Affleck Marrying Shauna Sexton In Rehab? | 8:00 am, September 29, 2018 | null | ['Ben_Affleck'] |
goop-02663 | Gigi Hadid Begging Zayn Malik To Quit Touring? | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/gigi-hadid-begging-zayn-malik-quit-touring/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Gigi Hadid Begging Zayn Malik To Quit Touring? | 1:49 pm, July 17, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00612 | Once a woman enters into the sex trade, her average life expectancy is seven years. | false | /rhode-island/statements/2015/may/31/rebecca-quigley/does-becoming-prostitute-mean-youve-only-got-about/ | Amid a growing awareness that sex trafficking is a problem in Rhode Island, the public access program "State of the State" broadcast a discussion of the issue. During the show, host Rebecca Quigley offered several statistics about sex workers. One in particular caught our ear. "Once a woman enters into the sex trade," she said, "her average life expectancy is seven years, with AIDS and homicide as the top killers." So if a 18-year-old woman starts working as a prostitute, she's likely to be dead by age 25? We decided to check out that provocative statistic. We found the claim echoed in many sites on the Internet, including Ohio Catholic Conference, The Straight Dope, CNN and others. In contrast, we located a 2004 study in the American Journal of Epidemiology that used 33 years of data to examine the lives of female prostitutes in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Nearly 2,000 were ultimately tracked. Some had been in the business for a few years, others for much longer. The researchers found that fewer than 8 percent died over the three decades. When we tracked down the authors, they said the actual life expectancy, like so many statistics used in the prostitution debate, isn't really known. But, they said, it's not seven years. "If you had a life expectancy that short, you'd have difficulty replenishing the pool with new prostitutes," said coauthor Devon D. Brewer, who directs Interdisciplinary Scientific Research, a Seattle-based research and consulting firm. "It's tough to put into words how dramatic an overstatement that is. There's zero basis that I'm aware of for making statements like that." "The truth is, the vast majority of women who enter into prostitution leave the trade alive, so to say a life expectancy of seven years . . . There is no basis for anything that incredibly dramatic," he said. "That's a statement that gains credence because it's repeated so often and it perhaps has very little to do with reality," said chief author John J. Potterat, now retired from the El Paso County Department of Health and Environment in Colorado Springs. When we heard back from Quigley, she cited several sources we had seen that made the same claim, including an article from Emergency Physicians Monthly that traced a variant of the claim to Melissa Farley, clinical psychologist, founder and director of Prostitution Research and Education, based in San Francisco. She's an anti-prostitution activist. Farley told us that, although she's heard the statistic, she's never seen any documentation to back it up. What is true, the experts all agreed, is that prostitution is a very dangerous profession. The fact that the seven-year statistic is wrong, said Brewer, the Seattle scholar, "doesn't take away from the fact that the risk of death that prostitute women face is higher than any other set of women ever studied, at least the risk of homicide. Does that mean most prostitutes are getting killed? No. It means compared to other women in other professions it's the one you're mostly likely to be murdered in." Brewer and his colleagues estimated that the women they studied faced a 1 percent chance of being murdered during their prostitution career. That murder rate, by the way, has also spawned another bogus statistic — that prostitutes typically die around age 34. What Brewer, Potterat and their colleagues actually found was that among the 21 prostitutes in their study who were murdered, their average age when they died was 34. As retired call girl Maggie McNeill noted last year in the Washington Post, to say that's "the average life expectancy of all street workers, or of all sex workers . . . would be analogous to saying that because the average soldier who is killed in battle is 21 years old, the average man who joins the military dies at 21." Quigley's best source supporting her claim — and one we found as well — was the FBI. In an FBI document titled "FY 2011 Budget Request At A Glance," the bureau asks for $333 million and 831 positions to fight child exploitation. The fact sheet claims, "Studies estimate between 200,000 and 300,000 children are being forced into prostitution at any given time in the United States. The average age of a new child prostitute is 13, and the life expectancy after becoming a child prostitute is 7 years." No source is cited. We couldn't find another FBI document that repeated the seven-year claim. So the FBI was only talking about child prostitution, not prostitution in general. And when we contacted the FBI, the agency repudiated the statistic. Spokesman Christopher M. Allen said that after checking with the bureau's Violent Crimes Against Children Section, it appears that the seven-year life expectancy claim may have come from a case the FBI handled, one that involved several victims. "It should not be considered a general statement of FBI findings," Allen wrote in an email. Our ruling Rebecca Quigley said, "Once a woman enters into the sex trade, her average life expectancy is seven years." She — like many others on the Internet — are incorrectly quoting a FBI budget report that only deals with child prostitution and offers no documentation. And the FBI is now trying to set the record straight. There’s little doubt that prostitution can be one of the most dangerous endeavors undertaken by a woman. But the seven-year claim is flat out False. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, email us at politifact@providencejournal.com. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | null | Rebecca Quigley | null | null | null | 2015-05-31T00:01:00 | 2015-05-14 | ['None'] |
pomt-13936 | I was among the earliest to criticize the rush to war (in Iraq), and yes, even before the war ever started. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/22/donald-trump/trump-still-wrong-his-claim-opposed-iraq-war-ahead/ | Presumptive Republican presidential Donald Trump keeps selling the myth that he was against Iraq War even before the war started. In a policy speech June 22, 2016, in New York, Trump tried to contrast himself with his likely fall opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. "In short, Hillary Clinton’s tryout for the presidency has produced one deadly foreign policy disaster after another," Trump said. "It all started with her bad judgment in supporting the War in Iraq in the first place. "Though I was not in government service, I was among the earliest to criticize the rush to war, and yes, even before the war ever started," Trump said. Trump is correct that Clinton supported the war in Iraq. But Trump is wrong to suggest he opposed the war before it started. We searched newspaper articles and television transcripts from 2002 and 2003 amid the debate leading up to the Iraq War. We didn’t find any examples of Trump unequivocally denouncing the war until a year after the war began. Trump’s comments Most damning to Trump’s claim is a September 2002 interview in which Trump said he supported the Iraq invasion. Shock jock Howard Stern asked Trump if he supported the looming invasion. Trump responded, "Yeah, I guess so." This goes directly against Trump’s claims that he criticized the rush to war before the war began. On Jan. 28, 2003, just under three months before the invasion, Fox News’ Neil Cavuto asked Trump whether President George W. Bush should be more focused on Iraq or the economy. Speaking of Iraq, Trump said, "Well, he has either got to do something or not do something, perhaps, because perhaps shouldn't be doing it yet and perhaps we should be waiting for the United Nations, you know. He's under a lot of pressure. I think he's doing a very good job. But, of course, if you look at the polls, a lot of people are getting a little tired. I think the Iraqi situation is a problem. And I think the economy is a much bigger problem as far as the president is concerned." Trump’s comment here suggests he was skeptical of the mission in Iraq, and he said the economy should be a higher priority. But does this prove Trump prove was "among the earliest to criticize the rush to war"? Hardly. A week after the United States invaded Iraq on March 19, 2003, Trump gave differing takes. At an Academy Awards after-party, Trump said that "the war’s a mess," according to the Washington Post. He told Fox News that because of the war, "The market’s going to go up like a rocket." Trump’s harshest criticism came more than a year into the war, in an August 2004 article in Esquire: "Look at the war in Iraq and the mess that we're in. I would never have handled it that way. Does anybody really believe that Iraq is going to be a wonderful democracy where people are going to run down to the voting box and gently put in their ballot and the winner is happily going to step up to lead the country? C'mon. Two minutes after we leave, there's going to be a revolution, and the meanest, toughest, smartest, most vicious guy will take over. And he'll have weapons of mass destruction, which Saddam didn't have. "What was the purpose of this whole thing? Hundreds and hundreds of young people killed. And what about the people coming back with no arms and legs? Not to mention the other side. All those Iraqi kids who've been blown to pieces. And it turns out that all of the reasons for the war were blatantly wrong. All this for nothing!" He told CNN’s Larry King in November 2004, "I do not believe that we made the right decision going into Iraq, but, you know, hopefully, we'll be getting out." Clearly Trump opposed the Iraq War in its early years. There’s no evidence, though, that he advocated against the war in the first place, or that he was among the earliest to criticize the rush to war. Our ruling On the Iraq War, Trump said, "I was among the earliest to criticize the rush to war, and yes, even before the war ever started." The record just doesn’t support this. We could only find one example of Trump commenting on the Iraq War before the invasion where he seemed apprehensive but not vehemently opposed to the operation. In another interview, Trump said he supported the invasion. This claim rates False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-06-22T11:45:54 | 2016-06-22 | ['Iraq'] |
pose-00995 | ... if the state wants to get serious about reducing crime and keeping communities safe then we must increase the penalties for committing violent crimes. | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/tennessee/promises/haslam-o-meter/promise/1062/increase-penalties-for-violent-crime/ | null | haslam-o-meter | Bill Haslam | null | null | Increase penalties for violent crime. | 2012-01-18T15:26:36 | null | ['None'] |
tron-03500 | Aircraft Meets Retaining Wall | truth! & fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/aircraft-hits-wall/ | null | space-aviation | null | null | null | Aircraft Meets Retaining Wall | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03546 | Donald Trump was born 'Dawood Ibrahim Khan' in Pakistan. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-was-born-in-pakistan/ | null | Conspiracy Theories | null | Dan Evon | null | Was Donald Trump Born in Pakistan? | 14 November 2016 | null | ['Pakistan'] |
afck-00128 | “We have given priority to clean energy, (geothermal, wind power, solar and hydro), which now accounts for over 75% of the installed capacity compared to the world average of only 24%.” | incorrect | https://africacheck.org/reports/jubilee-party-manifesto-4-claims-fact-checked/ | null | null | null | null | null | The Jubilee Party manifesto: 5 claims fact-checked | 2017-07-02 02:02 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04989 | The media covered up an incident in San Bernardino during which several Muslim men fired upon a number of Californian hikers. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/muslims-open-fire-hikers/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Muslims Open Fire on California Hikers? | 29 March 2016 | null | ['California', 'San_Bernardino,_California', 'Islam'] |
tron-02076 | Prayer Request From President Bush in China | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/bushprayerreq/ | null | inspirational | null | null | null | Prayer Request From President Bush in China | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
vees-00325 | VERA FILES FACT SHEET: A brief history of impeachment in the Philippines | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-sheet-brief-history-impeachment-philippines-1 | null | null | null | null | Duterte,Impeach Duterte,impeachment,sereno | VERA FILES FACT SHEET: A brief history of impeachment in the Philippines | December 11, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02690 | Scam to get your credit card number | scam! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/pornmail/ | null | money-financial | null | null | null | Scam to get your credit card number | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01600 | Says Sen. Jeanne Shaheen’s "wealth has surged while in public office." | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2014/sep/02/ending-spending-action-fund/conservative-group-says-jeanne-shaheens-wealth-has/ | Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., insists an ad running against her is so blatantly false that her campaign asked a station to take it down. Meanwhile, the makers of the ad, the conservative group Ending Spending Action Fund, told us the ad is "100 percent accurate." Sounds like a job for PolitiFact. The ad, a 60-second spot, claims that New Hampshire families are struggling, but "Shaheen’s wealth has surged while in public office." The ad goes on to say that "news reports raise questions about Shaheen’s family profiting from her votes in Congress, a shady stock deal and a conflict of interest." The ad concludes: "The Shaheen family gets richer. New Hampshire families get the bill." Shaheen’s Republican opponent will be determined in a primary on Sept. 9 and the odds on favorite is former Sen. Scott Brown. Has Shaheen’s wealth surged in office? Shaheen’s worth Brian Baker, president of Ending Spending, emailed us the backup for the ad. He also told us that the despite Shaheen's protests, the ad continues to run in New Hamsphire, though it was tweaked to add a citation at the request of one television station. The evidence for this claim comes from OpenSecrets.org, a website run by the campaign finance watchdog group Center for Responsive Politics. OpenSecrets.org estimates a candidate’s net worth using financial disclosure reports. But it’s not an exact science. The forms don’t require candidates to list their actual holdings, but rather check a range of values for every job, bank account, investment or asset they hold, as well as their debts. For example, Shaheen marked down in 2008 that she has between $15,001 and $50,000 in a Ocean National Bank checking account. According to OpenSecrets.org, in 2008 when Shaheen was elected to the U.S. Senate, her net worth was $3.4 million. This is calculated by finding the mean of her total assets, which ranged from $2.94 million and $6.08 million, and subtracting the mean of her total liabilities, ranging from $650,000 to $1.5 million. Many of her assets are listed as shared with her husband, Bill Shaheen, with whom she files taxes jointly. Using the same methodology, OpenSecrets.org estimated Shaheen’s networth in 2012 was $5.4 million. Ending Spending compared the 2008 numbers with 2012 and came up with a $2 million increase. This is already problematic. Shaheen filed her disclosure forms for 2013 in May. So Ending Spending is not using the most up-to-date figures. Those figures show Shaheen’s net worth is $2.7 million, or $700,000 less than what it was in 2008. How did we get that? Shaheen’s 2013 form indicates that both the low and high end of her total assets are up from 2008, ranging from $3.75 million to $7.89 million. But her liabilities were up, too: between $2.03 million and $4.2 million. A lot of the added liabilities are for mortgages. In 2008, Shaheen had four mortgages and a promissory note. By 2013, she had 10 mortgages and two promissory notes. It’s important to stress that we don’t know where her assets fall in the range. The 2013 values overlap quite a bit with the figures reported in 2008. In that respect, it’s possible her assets haven’t gone up at all. But it’s fair to say that since 2008, the Shaheens have acquired stakes in several commercial and residential real estate properties, and the number of investments and financial ventures listed have increased. When the average voter’s net worth falls, it’s typically not because they are taking out multiple loans and purchasing more real estate property while their investments expand. Baker said only Shaheen's assets should be taken into consideration, not her debts. However, traditionally, wealth is measured by looking at both assets and liabilities to calculate net worth. There’s another way we can look at Shaheen’s finances. In June, her campaign allowed members of the media to view eight years of tax returns. They paint a mixed picture, according to news reports, and show Shaheen's income since taking office is flat and tied to her Senate salary, while her husband's ventures have gone up and down. The Telegraph in Nashua, N.H., reported that the couples’ highest income year came in 2012 — when Shaheen earned $580,000 between her Senate salary and her husband’s law firm. But Bill Shaheen’s business partnerships have also lost nearly $1 million over the past five years, the Telegraph found. For example, in 2010, the Shaheens reported $522,000 in income, but also $300,000 in losses resulting in a gross adjusted income of $186,000, according to the Concord Monitor. In 2013, the couple made about $505,000, the Monitor reported, which is close to their average annual pre-tax salary of $474,000 during the eight years released. Profiting from votes? The ad also insinuates that Shaheen’s wealth is somehow tied to her congressional action. All of the evidence from Ending Spending comes back to a June Boston Globe article largely focused on stock options her husband owned in Ultrawave Labs — stock options the campaign says were never exercised. The Globe reported that Shaheen’s husband had stock options in the company in 2009 valued between $1,000 and $15,000. Around the same time, Ultrawave Labs — a company "developing new imaging technology to detect breast cancer," according to the article — received about $78,000 in stimulus money. Shaheen voted for the stimulus — along with every other Democrat (except a sick Sen. Ted Kennedy). The money for Ultrawave came through the National Science Foundation, and was not specifically earmarked by Shaheen, as FactCheck.org noted in their own analysis of the ad. The ad says Shaheen "failed to properly report" the stock. What it doesn’t tell you is the stock options were "misreported" only because Shaheen failed to show it had already expired, her campaign said. According to the forms, in 2013 the stocks were valued between $0 and $1,000. The Globe also notes that Ultrawave Labs has lobbied Congress and the Defense Department to allocate more money for breast cancer research. During her time in Congress, Shaheen has pushed legislation to do the same, at one point supporting a program that would fund breast cancer research through the military (Shaheen sits on the Armed Services Committee). The law firm Shaheen’s husband works at, Shaheen & Gordon, also sought to help clients get stimulus money by creating a "stimulus opportunities team," according to the Globe. The firm told the Globe it had no clients and was "short-lived." The Globe quoted a good-government group that’s critical of the Shaheens business practices, and it’s certainly worthwhile for voters to consider these findings at the ballot box. However, the points raised in the story don’t seem to prove the central premise of the ad that Shaheen’s wealth has surged as a result of her congressional action. Our ruling The Ending Spending Action Fund ad claims "Shaheen’s wealth has surged while in public office." By one measure, Shaheen’s net worth has actually gone down since she took office. Though she and her husband have listed more assets, investments and financial ventures than in 2008, they also have considerably more debt from more mortgages. Her tax returns, filed jointly with her husband, have shown wide fluctuations in income since 2006, making it hard to discern whether her wealth "surged." Her 2013 income was just slightly higher than her average earnings during the past eight years. Ending Spending pointed to a story that has raised questions about the business practices of Shaheen’s husband and their relation to her votes in Congress. However, the findings of the story don’t indicate a surge in wealth by the family. The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False. | null | Ending Spending Action Fund | null | null | null | 2014-09-02T16:52:38 | 2014-08-25 | ['None'] |
pomt-02723 | 60 percent of the jobs lost in the 2008 recession were living-wage jobs. Of the jobs we’ve gotten back, only 40 percent are living-wage. | true | /oregon/statements/2013/dec/20/jeff-merkley/have-far-fewer-living-wage-jobs-come-back-were-los/ | The United States has long been proud of its middle class and the ability of average citizens to afford a home or put their kids through college. But in the wake of the Great Recession and sluggish recovery, some wonder whether the economic landscape for middle-class Americans has changed forever. Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley added his voice to the discussion during a Dec. 4, 2013, talk to the Human Services Coalition of Oregon’s annual meeting. "Sixty percent of the jobs we lost in the recession of 2008 were living-wage jobs," he said. "Of the jobs we’ve gotten back, only 40 percent are living-wage jobs." Those numbers suggest the middle class is headed for long-term trouble. PolitiFact Oregon decided to check. We called Merkley’s Washington, D.C., office and asked where he got his numbers. Spokeswoman Martina McLennan sent us an eight-page study released in August 2012 by the New York-based National Employment Law Project. The non-partisan, non-profit organization’s report drew on statistics available through the second quarter of 2012. She also provided this statement: "Senator Merkley defines a living-wage job as a job that can support a family’s necessities -- paying the bills and putting food on the table -- and leave a little left over to save for hard times and goals like college or retirement. Obviously, the exact number at which that becomes possible varies for each individual family. However, for a typical Oregon family of four, the minimum would likely fall in what the study calls the ‘mid-wage’ jobs range." The study, titled "The Low-Wage Recovery and Growing Inequality," echoed Merkley’s assertion. Mid-wage occupations, it said, constituted 60 percent of recession losses but only 22 percent of recovery growth. Higher-wage occupations were 19 percent of recession job losses and 20 percent of recovery growth. Lower-wage jobs represented 21 percent of recession losses but 58 percent of recovery growth. The 60 percent "jobs lost" figure Merkley used in his claim appears in the report. The 40 percent "jobs gained" figure he cited can be obtained by adding the number of mid-wage and higher-wage jobs listed in the report. Both, after all, constitute "living-wage" jobs. Next we called Anastasia Christman, the law project’s deputy director of access and opportunity. She walked us through the statistics, which she said came from her organization’s analysis of the Current Population Survey, a joint effort between the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. Law project analysts, Christman said, defined mid-wage occupations as those capable of "approaching income percentiles where you stop qualifying for assistance or safety-net programs." "No one is getting rich at that level," she said, "but you’re not in poverty, either." While Merkley’s claim pertained to the national economy, we wondered if Oregon has seen a similar situation. State economist Mark McMullen pointed us to an 18-page report written and released in October by Josh Lehner, a senior economist in the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis. "The vast majority of the job loss during the recession occurred in both the upper middle- and lower middle-wage occupations," the report says. "Out of the state’s total job losses of slightly more than 138,000, 88 percent were in either upper-middle or lower-middle occupational groups." Similarly, job growth since 2012 has been dominated by both high- and low-wage occupations, Lehner wrote. The 7 percent gain in high-wage jobs compares to a less than 1 percent gain in upper-middle wage jobs. "The findings in Josh’s report," McMullen wrote in an email, "have a similar flavor to the Senator’s numbers." And although the study Merkley relied on numbers available only through the second quarter of 2012, the same trends in job creation are still occurring, he said. We then called Gordon Lafer, an associate professor at the University of Oregon’s Labor Education and Research Center. He hadn’t heard Merkley’s claim before we contacted him but agreed with McMullen that it seemed on the mark. "What he’s saying is true," Lafer said. "The general point he’s making certainly fits with everything I’m seeing." The economy, both nationally and in Oregon, has had a rocky ride since much of the bottom fell out in 2008. Unemployment statistics have improved, but thousands remain out of work. The number of mid-wage jobs added back during the recovery, according to statistics no one disputes, are far outstripped by the number of jobs added for lower-wage and higher-wage occupations. Merkley, in his talk to the Human Services Coalition of Oregon, said 60 percent of the jobs lost starting around 2008 were mid-wage positions, while only 40 percent of the jobs added during the recovery fit that description. His numbers line up with those found by the National Employment Law Project and with similar statistical analyses conducted by Oregon state economists. And though he based his assertion on the recovery using mid-2012 numbers, economists say the trend is holding. We rate his claim True. | null | Jeff Merkley | null | null | null | 2013-12-20T14:54:34 | 2013-12-04 | ['None'] |
bove-00207 | Did Haryana Government Fly Dera Chief In An Adani Helicopter?: A FactCheck | none | https://www.boomlive.in/did-haryana-government-fly-dera-chief-in-an-adani-helicopter-a-factcheck/ | null | null | null | null | null | Did Haryana Government Fly Dera Chief In An Adani Helicopter?: A FactCheck | Aug 27 2017 6:55 pm, Last Updated: Aug 27 2017 7:01 pm | null | ['None'] |
para-00212 | The Coalition’s parental leave scheme is "fully funded - by abolishing the existing scheme, and importantly by imposing the 1.5 per cent levy on the largest businesses." | half-true | http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/aug/21/joe-hockey/Fully-funded-PPL-we-like-to-see-numbers/index.html | null | ['Child Care', 'Parental Leave', 'Tax'] | Joe Hockey | Peter Martin, Peter Fray | null | Fully-funded PPL: we'd like to see the costings | Wednesday, August 21, 2013 at 3:54 p.m. | null | ['None'] |
goop-02754 | Taylor Swift Spending “Millions Of Dollars” On Boyfriend Joe Alwyn, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/taylor-swift-spending-millions-dollars-boyfriend-joe-alwyn-london-home/ | null | null | null | Michael Lewittes | null | Taylor Swift NOT Spending “Millions Of Dollars” On Boyfriend Joe Alwyn, Despite Report | 4:21 pm, June 5, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04105 | CBS reporter Hannah Chanpong tweeted that Hillary Clinton was dropping out of the 2016 presidential race. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-to-drop-out-twitter/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Tweet Claims Clinton to Drop Out of Presidential Race | 4 September 2016 | null | ['Hillary_Rodham_Clinton', 'CBS'] |
goop-02715 | Russell Crowe Dating Sophia Forrest, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/russell-crowe-not-dating-sophia-forrest-fake-news/ | null | null | null | Michael Lewittes | null | Russell Crowe NOT Dating Sophia Forrest, Despite Report | 1:22 am, June 26, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12628 | It’s been proven over and over again Medicaid has the worst outcomes in the industrialized world as far as the quality of health care. | false | /florida/statements/2017/mar/31/ted-yoho/florida-us-rep-ted-yoho-misleads-claim-about-medic/ | U.S. Rep. Ted Yoho, a Florida Republican, is a frequent critic of the Affordable Care Act but opposed his party’s health care plan. The ACA passed under President Barack Obama included the expansion of Medicaid, a program that provides health coverage for about 74 million poor Americans. (Yoho’s state of Florida rejected the expansion.) Yoho, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, says the law has driven people to Medicaid, a program he described as a worldwide failure. "With the Affordable Care Act, what’s happened is, all these people have been running to Medicaid, and it’s been proven over and over again Medicaid has the worst outcomes in the industrialized world as far as the quality of health care," he said in a March 14 interview on PBS, about a week and a half before the Republicans canceled a vote on their health care plan. Yoho spokesman Brian Kaveney walked back the congressman’s statement somewhat when we asked for evidence that Medicaid has the worst outcomes in the industrialized world. "Hindsight being 20/20, the congressman didn’t mean to use the word ‘worst,’ " Kaveney said. "The congressman was pointing out that since the implementation of ACA, health care trends have not improved." Kaveney added: "To say that Medicaid expansion under ACA has resulted in better health outcomes would be a very debatable point." Experts we interviewed about Medicaid outcomes said they were unaware of any research comparing Medicaid outcomes with the rest of the industrialized world. Leighton Ku, an expert on health policy at George Washington University, said that Medicaid improves access to care for poor people, but research about outcomes comes with caveats. "There is no question -- and there is a lot of research -- that Medicaid improves poor people's access to health care, in terms of seeing a doctor, getting medications, etc.," he told PolitiFact. "The problem with comparing health outcomes is that Medicaid recipients start out sicker, both because they are poor, but also because people who are sick really need to get Medicaid to get access to care, while healthier poor people may go uninsured because they don't need much care." Studies about Medicaid Yoho was referring to two articles in 2017 by Oren Cass, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute and a policy director for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. Cass argued that Medicaid studies show that the program doesn’t improve public health. But there aren't studies comparing its health outcomes to other industrialized countries. "Whether people on Medicaid have better or worse outcomes than people in other countries doesn’t tell you anything about the effectiveness of Medicaid," Cass told PolitiFact. "The question is whether there are public programs that have as little effect on outcomes relative to the baseline of no-insurance in that country." Let’s look at the studies that Cass cited, some of which we have reviewed before. Oregon study: Cass wrote that a 2013 study about Medicaid expansion in Oregon showed "recipients gained no statistically significant improvement in physical health after two years." The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment compared about 6,000 patients who got a slot in a 2008 Medicaid expansion and about 6,000 who didn’t. Over two years, the study found that while patients in the program initially reported feeling better, there was no real change in health indicators such as diabetes control, cholesterol or blood pressure. However, patients in the study did report better access to care and improvements in mental health. Harvard study: Harvard researchers compared the effects of Medicaid expansion programs in Arizona, Maine and New York with other states that made no change in the 2000s. "Only one of the three achieved a statistically significant reduction in mortality," Cass wrote. One of the study’s authors, Ben Sommers, said when examining each state individually only the largest state -- New York -- was significant on its own. Sommers has since done additional research and found that deaths from causes most treatable with timely medical care — such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes — did go down in the other two states expanding Medicaid as well. (Sommers did part-time work for the Obama administration.) Study on life expectancy and income: Cass also cited a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association that examined the relationship between life expectancy and income. The study was not about Medicaid, but found differences in life expectancy for low-income individuals is not significantly correlated with measures of the quantity and quality of medical care. "Our study shows that behavioral conditions such as smoking and obesity are very important in mortality," study author Raj Chetty told PolitiFact. "The study does not imply that Medicaid is not important, let alone that it has the worst outcomes in the industrialized world." Cass cited one positive health impact from Medicaid: He wrote that it "may have significant positive effects on pregnant women and young children." Researchers at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation looked at the big picture for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Kaiser reviewed 108 studies about the expansion of Medicaid under the law. They found that most research shows that the expansion positively impacts access to care and improved self-reported health. More research was needed, however, to know the effects on health outcomes. Harold Pollack, a University of Chicago professor of social services administration, said that Medicaid, much like private insurance, is a weaker tool in improving health outcomes than experts would like to see. But Medicaid critics sometimes omit context about the program for the poor. "Many studies that compare Medicaid recipients to others find negative associations between Medicaid and health for the simple reason that Medicaid serves individuals facing the greatest social and health risks," he said. "These cannot be interpreted as identifying a harmful causal role of Medicaid." Our ruling Yoho said "It’s been proven over and over again Medicaid has the worst outcomes in the industrialized world as far as the quality of health care." Yoho’s spokesman said that he didn’t mean to use the word "worst." His evidence focused on studies about Medicaid outcomes within the United States with no comparison to other countries. Yoho intended to argue that Medicaid under the ACA hasn’t improved health outcomes. Kaiser examined multiple studies and found Medicaid expansion improves access to care and self-reported health, but additional research is needed to determine effects on health outcomes. As far as Yoho’s original statement, we rate it False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Ted Yoho | null | null | null | 2017-03-31T10:24:25 | 2017-03-14 | ['None'] |
goop-00809 | Jennifer Aniston Spending $100,000 On Makeover? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-makeover-cost/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Jennifer Aniston Spending $100,000 On Makeover? | 2:27 pm, June 16, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00648 | Will "oppose 'card check' schemes that (make it easier to join unions and) put Washington union bosses before individuals’ right to a secret ballot." | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/gop-pledge-o-meter/promise/678/oppose-card-check/ | null | gop-pledge-o-meter | John Boehner | null | null | Oppose "card check" | 2010-12-22T09:57:30 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-15011 | Planned Parenthood has "now (been) found to also illegally sell baby parts." | false | /florida/statements/2015/oct/07/john-stemberger/planned-parenthood-has-been-found-illegally-sell-b/ | An Orlando-based conservative Christian group has called on Gov. Rick Scott to choke off all forms of state funding for Planned Parenthood, saying the organization has broken the law and doesn’t deserve taxpayer money. In a letter dated Sept. 22, 2015, Florida Family Policy Council President John Stemberger thanked Scott for investigating state Planned Parenthood affiliates after videos showing officials discussing fetal tissue were released by the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress this summer. But Stemberger wanted Scott to go further. Stemberger said because of what the videos show, the group should not get money through the state’s Medicaid program and Title X, a federal grant program for family planning and preventive health services. "No organization with a record of illegal activity and abuse, now found to also illegally sell baby parts and likely altering abortion practices to do so, should receive taxpayer dollars," Stemberger wrote. (GOP presidential candidate and former Gov. Jeb Bush ended direct state subsidies for the group in 2001.) Planned Parenthood has been subject to hearings in the U.S. House of Representatives because of the videos, but has it been proven the organization broke the law with their fetal tissue donations? The short answer is no, but there’s no shortage of accusations. State investigation To get up to speed, part of a Center for Medical Progress video shows Deborah Nucatola, senior director of medical services at the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, telling undercover activists that fetal tissue can be obtained for fees in the $30 to $100 range. Activists against abortion rights say this is proof the group has a history of trying to "illegally sell baby parts," as Stemberger’s letter said. Many critics have argued Planned Parenthood has broken the law. But there has been no legal ruling against the group. The National Institutes of Health Revitalization Act of 1993 allows a woman to consent to donating fetal tissue after an abortion. This tissue then can be donated to researchers, but allows providers to charge vaguely defined "reasonable payments associated with the transportation, implantation, processing, preservation, quality control, or storage of human fetal tissue." Planned Parenthood said discussions of payments were only about recouping costs, not making a profit. Experts largely agree that the fees Nucatola describes are within the scope of the law. The videos led to several congressional hearings on how Planned Parenthood uses federal funding. Planned Parenthood is a network of affiliated nonprofit organizations that cooperate with each other, led by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Funding comes from a wide range of sources, including private donations, grants, health center revenue and Medicaid. State and federal money cannot be used for abortion services. Scott ordered the investigation into 16 Planned Parenthood health centers that provide abortion services and are operated by Florida’s two affiliated chapters. None of the state locations participate in a fetal tissue donation program. The state Agency for Health Care Administration, which ensures health centers comply with state guidelines, cited three clinics for allegedly providing second-trimester abortions without a license, violations Planned Parenthood has denied. A fourth was cited for improper recordkeeping. (Planned Parenthood has sued Florida over the investigation.) None were cited for how they handled fetal tissue. Other allegations Stemberger’s letter makes reference to the result of the Florida investigation, and also mentions a 2008 incident in which Planned Parenthood ended its affiliation with four clinics in Broward County and one in Boca Raton. The chapter running those clinics, formerly known as Planned Parenthood of South Palm Beach and Broward Counties, was mired in harassment complaints and the possible misuse of nearly $450,000, which was just less than the $500,000 it received in taxpayer funding. Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates Executive Director Laura Goodhue said the organization ended its affiliation with that chapter over the mismanagement. The Alliance Defending Freedom, another conservative Christian group that Stemberger said does legal research for the Florida Family Policy Council, included this incident in a report on potential fraud. It’s the only mention of Florida in the report. But Stemberger’s letter goes on to say, "This is merely a short list of the abuses committed by Planned Parenthood in Florida, not including its stunning failure to report sexual abuse of minors, waste, abuse, and potential fraud of taxpayer dollars." Stemberger told PolitiFact Florida that he was referring in part to accusations that clinics in other states had failed to report sexual abuse. Alliance Defending Freedom tracks abuse accusations in Arizona, Colorado, Ohio and other places. Accusations of not reporting sexual abuse also are a subject of sting videos by another group called Live Action. Planned Parenthood maintains its policy is to report all suspected instances of sexual abuse. While we found no concrete evidence of similar accusations in Florida, Stemberger said Planned Parenthood as a whole was still culpable. "If none of these violations occurred in Florida, it still holds true," he said. "There’s a commonality of practice here that ties the two together." Both Scott’s office and Planned Parenthood have disagreed with Stemberger’s assertion that the governor could end state funding through Medicaid and Title X, saying it would be a violation of federal law. The state said about $45,000 in matching funds goes to Planned Parenthood through Medicaid, and three clinics have contracts for newborn health screening and other services. The clinics have to comply with state and federal laws. Stemberger maintained funding can be pulled if Planned Parenthood no longer qualifies as a provider. Scott’s response to Stemberger’s letter reiterated his disdain for Planned Parenthood, but didn’t offer more detail. "We took aggressive, immediate action to investigate Planned Parenthood offices in Florida when the horrific videos were released," Scott said in a statement in response to the letter. "When we found that some of their facilities were not complying with state law, we held them accountable." As for Stemberger’s assertion of other wrongdoing, Goodhue said she didn’t have records of any other investigations besides inquiries this summer. "We’re heavily regulated. AHCA can investigate us at any time," she said. Our ruling Stemberger said Planned Parenthood has "now (been) found to also illegally sell baby parts." Videos from the Center for Medical Progress have led to lots of debate among activists and politicians, but federal law allows for fetal tissue donations to researchers. Abortion providers also are allowed to charge a fee for facilitating those donations. At any rate, the Florida affiliates are not participating in these types of transactions. Stemberger’s letter makes it sound as if Planned Parenthood had been proven guilty of a crime, which is not accurate. He also made a host of other accusations against the Florida organization for which we can’t find evidence. We rate his statement False. | null | John Stemberger | null | null | null | 2015-10-07T13:34:05 | 2015-09-22 | ['None'] |
tron-02061 | Miracle Sand Storm in Iraq | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/sandstorm-mines/ | null | inspirational | null | null | null | Miracle Sand Storm in Iraq – Unproven! | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-01019 | Dunkin Donuts is Giving Everyone a Free Box of Donuts | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/7586-2/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | No, Dunkin Donuts is NOT Giving Everyone a Free Box of Donuts | April 18, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-06395 | After I had resigned or announced my resignation, I abolished -- I prohibited pay-to-play for people that had county or state contracts. | half-true | /new-jersey/statements/2011/oct/30/jim-mcgreevey/jim-mcgreevey-claims-he-prohibited-pay-play-state-/ | Less than two months before leaving office in the wake of a sex scandal, former Gov. Jim McGreevey did more than just talk about the practice of political donors making contributions in exchange for government contracts. The way he tells it, McGreevey eliminated so-called "pay-to-play" on the state and county levels. "After I had resigned or announced my resignation, I abolished -- I prohibited pay-to-play for people that had county or state contracts," McGreevey said during an Oct. 10 interview with Allan Wolper on WBGO. McGreevey needs to refresh his memory on this one. PolitiFact New Jersey found that the former governor issued an executive order restricting pay-to-play for certain state contracts, but not county contracts. But even for state contracts, McGreevey’s actions didn’t "prohibit" all such donations. Donors could still donate up to $300, and a future governor would address some loopholes in the regulations laid out by McGreevey. McGreevey told us in an email: "The Executive Order was, like my radio comment, all too far from perfect. Hopefully, it began to change the terms of the debate in New Jersey. Thanks are due to the efforts of many, who labored for reform and substantially improved the measure." First, let’s talk more about this executive order. In June 2004, McGreevey signed a pay-to-play bill, criticized at the time for its loopholes. After announcing his resignation that August, McGreevey issued an executive order the following month that imposed tougher restrictions on political donors doing business with the state. That executive order prohibited awarding state contracts of more than $17,500 to business entities that had made certain donations to various political organizations. The order exempted contracts in response to a public emergency. Before McGreevey left office in November 2004, the state’s nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services questioned the legality of the executive order, saying it unconstitutionally usurped the Legislature’s authority. The Legislature and acting Gov. Richard Codey then later turned McGreevey’s pay-to-play reform into a law enacted in March 2005. But that executive order and the subsequent law did not deal with county contracts, as McGreevey claimed in the radio interview. So he’s wrong on that point. OK, now McGreevey initiated pay-to-play regulations for state contracts under certain circumstances, but did he "prohibit" the practice entirely? Jeff Brindle, executive director of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, told us that wasn’t the case, pointing out how entities with contracts exceeding $17,500 can still donate $300. "There’s no prohibition," Brindle said. "To prohibit, would be, in my opinion, unconstitutional." Heather Taylor, communications director for the Citizens Campaign, an ethics group, said McGreevey prohibited certain contributions, marking "a real strike at the pay-to-play system." But, she added, "It’s not zero tolerance." The law signed by Codey also still had its share of loopholes. Soon after its enactment, the Star-Ledger reported that a lawyer had drafted a memo explaining how state contractors could get around the law by donating up to $10,000 annually to the Democratic State Committee’s federal campaign fund. Gov. Jon Corzine closed other loopholes through an executive order in September 2008, which expanded both the definition of a "business entity" as well as the list of political organizations receiving contributions. Still, New Jersey is leading the nation in terms of pay-to-play regulations, according to Craig Holman, a campaign finance lobbyist with Washington, D.C.-based Public Citizen. "It is one of the strongest pay-to-play laws on the books," Holman said. "It’s quite a good law." Our ruling In a radio interview, McGreevey claimed he "prohibited pay-to-play for people that had county or state contracts" after announcing his resignation in August 2004. McGreevey did issue an executive order, but that only dealt with state contracts. Also, the regulations did not represent a complete prohibition on such political donations, and some loopholes were left in place. However, since McGreevey put in motion what is considered one of the strongest laws in the nation, we rate the statement Half True. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. | null | Jim McGreevey | null | null | null | 2011-10-30T07:30:00 | 2011-10-10 | ['None'] |
goop-02075 | Brad Pitt Getting Dog For Companionship? | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/brad-pitt-dog-companionship/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Brad Pitt Getting Dog For Companionship? | 4:03 pm, December 6, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-01030 | Kevin M. James Ford Mustang Giveaway | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/kevin-m-james-ford-mustang-giveaway-scam/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Kevin M. James Ford Mustang Giveaway Scam | March 3, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00167 | Kathy Manning got "$30 million of your tax dollars plus $2.3 million a year" to build a luxury hotel and parking lot | false | /north-carolina/statements/2018/oct/23/ted-budd/budd-falsely-accuses-manning-getting-30m-taxpayer-/ | Republican U.S. Rep. Ted Budd is accusing his Democratic opponent Kathy Manning of benefiting from a development in Greensboro. Budd represents North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District, which covers much of the Greensboro-High Point area as well as the mostly rural area south of Winston-Salem and north of Charlotte. Manning is an attorney, and Budd has criticized her for donating more than $500,000 to the Democratic Party and its candidates. A recent Budd ad, though vague on details, accuses Manning of profiting off a government project. "A parking deck that nobody needed, benefiting a luxury hotel and Kathy Manning," a narrator says in the ad. "$30 million of your tax dollars plus $2.3 million a year to Kathy Manning and her husband, filling the Manning’s swanky hotel and their own French castle." It concludes: "From her castle, it’s no surprise Queen Kathy doesn’t care about doubling parking rates for workers and commuters because Kathy Manning makes government work for her and we pay the price." Manning called on Budd to remove the ad because, she says, it’s nearly identical to a video ad by the America First Action Super PAC that was removed from a pair of Triad-area radio stations. PolitiFact contacted the Budd campaign about the claim. Budd’s spokeswoman, Elizabeth Oglesby, cited several stories about the Westin Hotel being built in Greensboro by Elm Street LLC. Randall Kaplan, Manning’s husband, is a part of the group. But those stories don’t support the ad’s claims. About the project Kaplan is described as a leader of Elm Street LLC, which is developing the Westin Hotel project. The city of Greensboro agreed to reimburse developers up to $30 million to build a parking deck adjoining the hotel, the Greensboro News & Record reported. The deck is expected to be six stories tall and have 850 parking spaces, according to Jake Keys, communications manager for the city of Greensboro. The $30 million isn’t pure profit for developers. It’s to pay developers to build the deck. That includes material, labor and other costs. "Under the reimbursement agreement, the developer will build a new public parking deck for the City in conjunction with the development of their hotel project. Once complete, the City will fully own and operate the new public parking deck," Keys said in an email. An overestimation The city would own the deck and spend an estimated $2.6 million a year to maintain it and pay down the debt, according to the city’s website. The operating cost will include general deck maintenance, cleaning it and keeping the lights on, Keys said. The city would raise yearly parking spot rental rates from $65 to $128 by 2025, according to another News & Record story provided by the Budd campaign. But that doesn’t go to Kaplan’s group, either, Keys said. "The City will maintain the deck, thus any amount (whether it is $2.3M or much less) will be completely an internal expense of the City paid for through revenues associated with the deck," he wrote. "In the end, the hotel will pay for parking spaces in the City owned and operated deck just as any other business or individual." Whatever money Kaplan does receive from the project will be donated to the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro, the foundation announced on Aug. 21. "The donations will be used to support a range of charitable programs, including economic and workforce development, health care, education, arts, poverty alleviation and social services in the Central Piedmont region of North Carolina and elsewhere," the foundation wrote on its website. Our ruling Budd’s ad said Kathy Manning got $30 million "of your tax dollars plus $2.3 million a year" from a luxury hotel and parking lot. While Manning’s husband was involved in the project, Manning was not. And the $30 million represents the entire cost of the parking deck project — not gross profit for Manning or her husband. In fact, Kaplan is donating his profits. And the $2.3 million isn’t going to Manning or her husband’s group, either. We rate this claim False. This story was produced by the North Carolina Fact-Checking Project, a partnership of McClatchy Carolinas, the Duke University Reporters’ Lab and PolitiFact. The NC Local News Lab Fund and the International Center for Journalists provide support for the project, which shares fact-checks with newsrooms statewide. ' See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | Ted Budd | null | null | null | 2018-10-23T12:50:41 | 2018-10-23 | ['None'] |
pomt-10279 | I argued for years that we need to move from a 'Musharraf policy' to a 'Pakistan policy.' | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/aug/21/barack-obama/obama-stretches-foresight-on-musharraf/ | For years, the U.S. government has had an uneasy relationship with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. While there was discomfort with Musharraf's dictatorial ways, he was also seen as a key ally in fighting al-Qaida, a moving target between Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan. Musharraf resigned on Aug. 18, 2008, rather than face imminent impeachment proceedings, and two days later Sen. Barack Obama issued a bit of an I-told-you-so. "I argued for years that we need to move from a 'Musharraf policy' to a 'Pakistan policy,'" Obama said in a speech before the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention on Aug. 19. "We must move beyond an alliance built on mere convenience or a relationship with one man. Now, with President Musharraf's resignation, we have the opportunity to do just that. That's why I've co-sponsored a bill to triple nonmilitary aid to the Pakistani people, while ensuring that the military assistance we do provide is used to take the fight to the Taliban and al-Qaida in the tribal regions of Pakistan." The question here is whether Obama inflated his foresight on Musharraf in an effort to bolster his credibility on foreign policy. What did he say and when did he say it? The Obama campaign provided a handful of citations. In July, Obama said on CNN's Larry King Live: "In order for us to be effective in dealing with the resurgence of al-Qaida and the Taliban as they use Pakistan — the northwest provinces — as a sanctuary, we've got to have a stronger relationship with the Pakistani government — the new Pakistani government. We had put all our eggs in the Musharraf basket." And then there's this from Obama, in Newsweek, in April: "There is a sizable middle class [in Pakistan] that believes in rule of law and believes in a government that is accountable to the people. So our willingness to put all our eggs in the Musharraf basket without understanding this other tradition, and without understanding that our choice in a place like Pakistan is not simply [between] military dictatorship or Islamic rule, led us to make a series of miscalculations that has weakened our fight against terrorism in the region." And in March, Obama in the Washinton Post: "In Pakistan, I will reject the false choice between stability and democracy. In our unconditional support for Musharraf, we have gotten neither." And in February, at a Democratic debate: "I've said very clearly that we have put all our eggs in the Musharraf basket. That was a mistake. We should be going after al-Qaida and making sure that Pakistan is serious about hunting down terrorists, as well as expanding democracy." Last November, Obama helped lead a Senate resolution that condemned Musharraf for invoking a state of emergency; and called on Musharraf to relinquish his position as chief of army staff of Pakistan and to allow for free and fair elections. That clearly puts Obama on record in the past year. "I believe Obama is correct in stating that he has wanted to move past a Musharraf-centric strategy in Pakistan for some time now," said Daniel Markey, a senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations. "To some extent, this shows genuine foresight, but it is important to note that Obama was not alone in this view," Markey told PolitiFact. "In fact, many people outside the Bush administration have been saying this — or something similar — since shortly after 9/11. It has been the common refrain of many think tankers, and of course it has been reiterated by Pakistani opposition leaders (from Benazir Bhutto down) who were excluded from power by Musharraf." The question here is whether Obama's position is one he has advocated "for years." Last August, Obama made headlines when he said during a speech in Washington, "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets (in Pakistan) and President Musharraf won't act, we will." Sen. John McCain later called that statement "naive" and said, "You don't broadcast that you are going to bomb a country that is a sovereign nation and that you are dependent on the good will of the people of that country to help you in the war — in the struggle against Taliban and the sanctuaries which they hold." One could argue that Obama's vow to act independently against terrorist cells in Pakistan, if Musharraf wouldn't, amounted to advocacy for moving from a "Musharraf policy" to a "Pakistan policy." And that would put him on record a year ago. But by way of rebuttal, the McCain campaign provided this Obama nugget from an MSNBC Democratic presidential debate on Aug. 7, 2007 (just days after Obama's if-Musharraf-won't-we-will line): "I did not say that we would immediately go in (to Pakistan) unilaterally. What I said was that we have to work with Musharraf, because the biggest threat to American security right now are in the northwest provinces of Pakistan and that we should continue to give him military aid contingent on him doing something about that." So even Obama, at this point, was talking about still trying to work with Musharraf. Part of our conundrum here is that in the course of 24 hours, Obama changed the timeline on his claim of advocating the United States move from a 'Musharraf policy' to a 'Pakistan policy' — first stating that he advocated it "a year ago" and then ratcheting it up a day later, saying he had argued it "for years." We checked the congressional record and couldn't find any statements from the floor or in the text of any legislation that Obama co-sponsored that suggests this was a "years"-old position. If Obama had said he has been advocating this position for months, he'd be on solid footing. And he rightly gets credit for some foresight on the issue. But when he says it's a position he has argued "for years" he is giving himself more credit than even his campaign can confirm. We rate Obama's statement Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2008-08-21T00:00:00 | 2008-08-19 | ['None'] |
snes-02611 | Was This Explosion Caused by the 'MOAB' in Afghanistan? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/explosion-moab-afghanistan/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Was This Huge Explosion Caused by the ‘MOAB’ in Afghanistan? | 14 April 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04710 | Federal law adopted "under Tommy Thompson's watch" prohibits the government from negotiating for "better prices" on prescription drugs for senior citizens | true | /wisconsin/statements/2012/sep/04/tammy-baldwin/uncle-sam-barred-bargaining-medicare-drug-prices-s/ | When it comes to the massive Medicare Part D prescription drug program, you’d think Uncle Sam would have pretty good leverage in negotiating drug prices. But the government is actually barred from doing such bargaining, according to Democratic Wisconsin Congresswoman Rep. Tammy Baldwin -- who lays blame on her opponent for the U.S. Senate, Republican Tommy Thompson. Baldwin attacked Thompson, who served as health and human services secretary under GOP President George W. Bush, in an Aug. 15, 2012, interview. She told John "Sly" Sylvester, a liberal talk show host on WTDY-AM and -FM in Madison: "We have written into law, under Tommy Thompson's watch, a prohibition for the federal government to be involved in negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for better prices for seniors for drugs. That's unbelievable. You know, if you buy in bulk, you get a better deal." Let's check both parts of Baldwin’s claim -- that the government is prohibited from negotiating on drug prices and that Thompson played a role in creating the ban. Negotiating drug prices Medicare Part D is a voluntary insurance program for prescription drugs for people on Medicare. Congress created it by passing legislation in 2003, although the program didn’t take effect until 2006. Here is some background from PolitiFact National: In rating as Half True a claim by former GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum -- that Medicare Part D came in 40 percent under budget because of its design -- our colleagues explained that private insurance companies offer a variety of plans subsidized by the government, and beneficiaries get to choose the plan that's best for them. PolitiFact National has also reportedon the program as part of its Obameter, which tracks promises President Barack Obama made as a candidate in 2008. Since Congress approved the program, proposed by Bush, Democrats have groused that it was a huge giveaway for the pharmaceutical industry because it did not allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Obama vowed to change the program to allow Medicare negotiate lower prices. But he backed away from the pledge during negotiations over his health care reform bill, and no provision on negotiating drug prices was included in the bill that became law in 2010. (That eventually led our colleagues to rate Obama’s pledge as a Promise Broken.) That isn’t to say there isn’t any negotiating. A July 2006 New York Times article cited by Baldwin campaign spokesman John Kraus reported that "Congress -- in what critics saw as a sop to the drug industry — barred the government from having a negotiating role. Instead, prices are worked out between drug makers and the dozens of large and small Part D drug plans run by commercial insurers." Thompson campaign spokesman Brian Nemoir also cited the negotiating done by the various companies offering Medicare Part D plans, arguing it has resulted in the overall cost of Medicare Part D to be lower than projected. (PolitiFact National found in June 2011, in rating Santorum’s claim, that the program came in under budget because fewer people than expected used it, drug spending increased less than expected and the program had encouraged use of generic drugs.) But we’re not here to settle Nemoir’s claim; and one could argue, as Baldwin does, that costs could be even lower if the federal government did the negotiating. When we checked back with Nemoir, he acknowledged that the federal government is prohibited from negotiating drug prices on behalf of Medicare Part D plans. Thompson’s role The second part of Baldwin’s claim is that the prohibition was put into law "under Thompson’s watch" -- indicating he didn’t unilaterally impose the ban, but played a role. Kraus cited a number of news articles, including one in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that said Thompson was the Bush administration’s "point man" on getting Medicare Part D through Congress; and one in the Philadelphia Inquirer that said Thompson "lobbied tirelessly" for the plan. Moreover, Nemoir acknowledged that the prohibition on the federal government was done under Thompson. Our rating Baldwin said federal law adopted "under Tommy Thompson's watch" prohibits the federal government from negotiating for "better prices" on prescription drugs for senior citizens. Her reference was to the Medicare Part D prescription program, which Thompson lobbied for and which includes the prohibition she stated. We rate Baldwin’s statement True. | null | Tammy Baldwin | null | null | null | 2012-09-04T09:00:00 | 2012-08-15 | ['Tommy_Thompson'] |
tron-02153 | Skeleton of Loch Ness Monster Found by Dog Walker | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/skeleton-loch-ness-monster-found-dog-walker/ | null | internet | null | null | null | Skeleton of Loch Ness Monster Found by Dog Walker | Jul 1, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02912 | Were Dasani Products Recalled Due to a 'Clear Parasite'? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dasani-recalled-clear-parasite/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Were Dasani Products Recalled Due to a ‘Clear Parasite’? | 5 April 2016 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00900 | The Mondex chip for the right hand and forehead | mostly fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/mondex/ | null | computers | null | null | null | The Mondex chip for the right hand and forehead | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08475 | Taking the Fifth Amendment in a deposition about the Columbia/HCA hospital chain he founded "means a truthful answer to the questions that (Rick Scott) was asked would incriminate him." | half-true | /florida/statements/2010/oct/12/florida-democratic-party/does-rick-scott-invoking-fifth-amendment-imply-gui/ | Democrat Alex Sink is airing a rare, two-minute ad that whacks Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Scott for alleged fraud at his former health care company, Columbia/HCA, as well as his current health care business, Solantic. A key part of the ad, called "Fraud Files," is a discussion about Scott taking the Fifth Amendment 75 times in a legal case involving Columbia/HCA. During a discussion about Scott taking the Fifth Amendment, Florida Democrats and Sink use video of Palm Beach County state attorney Michael McAuliffe. He says about halfway through the campaign commercial that taking the Fifth Amendment "means a truthful answer to the questions that he was asked would incriminate him." That's the claim we're analyzing in this fact check. First, a little bit of back story on Scott and Columbia/HCA. Scott started what was first called Columbia in the spring of 1987 by purchasing two El Paso, Texas, hospitals. He quickly grew the company into one of the country's largest publicly traded hospital chains, and in 1994, merged Columbia with Tennessee-headquartered HCA and its 100 hospitals. In early 1997, federal agents revealed they were investigating the Columbia/HCA chain for, among other things, Medicare and Medicaid fraud. Allegations included that Columbia/HCA billed Medicare and Medicaid for tests that were not necessary or ordered by physicians, and that the hospital chain would perform one type of medical test but bill the federal government for a more expensive test or procedure. Agents seized records from Columbia facilities across the country in Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma, Utah and Florida. Scott resigned in the middle of the federal investigation in July 1997. Scott said he wanted to fight the federal government accusations; the corporate board of Columbia/HCA wanted to settle, and did. In 2000, the company pleaded guilty to at least 14 corporate felonies and agreed to pay $840 million in criminal fines and civil damages and penalties. The company agreed to further settlements in 2002, paying an additional $881 million in fines. About the Fifth Amendment As we noted in another item, Scott indeed did give a deposition in 2000 where he invoked the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution 75 times. The amendment reads in part that no one "shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself." But Scott's deposition was not part of the criminal fraud case being pursued by the federal government as the ad suggests (he was never officially questioned). Instead, the case in question was a civil case involving Columbia/HCA and Nevada Communications Corp. Nevada Communications alleged that Columbia/HCA breached the terms of a communications contract. Scott's lawyer interjected after an opposing lawyer began the deposition by asking if Scott was employed. "Under normal circumstances, Mr. Scott would be pleased to answer that question and other questions that you pose today," Scott's lawyer, Steven Steinbach, said. "Unfortunately because of the pendency of a number of criminal investigations relating to Columbia around the country, he's going to follow my advice, out of prudence, to assert his constitutional privilege against giving testimony against himself." Scott then went on to read the same answer to every question Nevada Communications lawyers asked, even when asked if Scott is a current or former employee of Columbia/HCA -- "Upon advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer the questions by asserting my rights and privileges under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution." Does that mean truthful answers to the questions he was asked would incriminate him? Not necessarily, legal experts we talked to said. For one thing, invoking the Fifth Amendment cannot be used in a criminal court to suggest guilt, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1956. The case is an interesting one. Brooklyn College professor Harry Slochower was called to testify before a U.S. Senate committee led by Joseph McCarthy to determine if he was a member of the Communist Party. Slochower invoked his Fifth Amendment privilege not to answer questions about his party membership in 1940 and 1941. As a result, the college fired Slochower. But the court said the college could not fire Slochower for invoking his constitutional rights. "The privilege against self-incrimination would be reduced to a hollow mockery if its exercise could be taken as equivalent either to a confession of guilt or a conclusive presumption of perjury," the court wrote in the Slochower case. That means McAuliffe could never tell a criminal jury what he's telling voters on TV. "If this was a criminal prosecution I would not refer to his invocation of the Fifth Amendment, but that’s not what we’re talking about," McAuliffe said. "This is not a criminal prosecution. It’s the political process and he has put himself out there to be vetted by voters. They're the jury in this case." In a civil case, things get a little murkier. Judges and juries can infer that a person who uses the Fifth Amendment would not incriminate themselves if they answered honestly. They also, however, can infer the opposite. What does that mean? Put simply, Scott's answers to those 75 questions may or may not be used to incriminate him. "The bottom line is that in a civil case, the judge and jury are free to draw the inference that 'a truthful answer to the questions that he was asked would incriminate him,' " said George R. Dekle, Sr., a professor of law at the University of Florida. "However, there can be myriads of reasons other than guilt which prompt a person to claim a Fifth Amendment privilege, and it might be just as reasonable to infer that the witness refused to answer for some other reason." We talked to two other legal scholars who seemed surprised that Scott used the Fifth Amendment so much in a deposition, especially when answering routine questions about his employment history. "You should not use the Fifth Amendment privilege if you don't think there's possible criminal liability," said Bruce Jacob, a law professor at Stetson. That said, it's not an admission of guilt, said Oscar Michelen, a New York lawyer who has written articles on the Fifth Amendment. It can also be used as a way to protect the innocent from wrongful prosecution, he says. Investigators try to link people to crimes, he said. Not prove they did it. It reminds of us of a Law & Order episode -- the cops find a suspect and make a case. But halfway through the show, they realize they have the wrong person. "Experienced litigators and particularly experienced criminal defense lawyers will tell you that 9 out of 9.95 times if there is any remote possibility that you may be charged with a crime or become a target of a criminal investigation or proceeding, you should 'take the Fifth,' " Michelen said. Our ruling We find a couple of things lacking in the claim that Scott, if he answered those depositions honestly, would "incriminate himself." First, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that in criminal cases courts cannot take the use of the Fifth Amendment to mean guilty. Second, while judges and juries may infer that a truthful answer in a civil case may incriminate Scott, they also may infer the opposite. Part of the confusion in this ad is that the Democrats imply that Scott's deposition is part of the criminal prosecution when, in fact, it was a civil case, making McAuliffe's description of the case awkward. (UPDATE: To clarify, we also have to acknowledge a bit of legalese here. McAuliffe uses the word incriminate, which is lawyer for "help make a case against." It doesn't mean, "he did it." The ad does a poor job of providing the distinction, but that's no fault of McAuliffe's.) One of the questions Scott refused to answer, for instance, is whether he worked for Columbia/HCA. Using basic logic we feel comfortable thinking that an honest answer to that question wouldn't harm him. Legal experts say, that though Scott may have used the privilege too freely, there are myriads of reasons other than guilt to claim a Fifth Amendment privilege. We rate this claim Half True. | null | Florida Democratic Party | null | null | null | 2010-10-12T17:42:55 | 2010-10-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-05301 | The recent process of awarding $3 billion worth of airport vending contracts was the "most open and transparent procurement process in the city’s history." | half-true | /georgia/statements/2012/may/21/kasim-reed/mayor-kasim-reed-airport-concession-awards-most-op/ | Critics dogged the city of Atlanta every step of the way during its long slog to award $3 billion worth of contracts at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Businesses vying to sell food and gifts to travelers howled in protest last year when the city rebooted the process after too many hopefuls fouled up their paperwork. Some complained decisions were made in haste, or favored businesses with political connections. Others protested when a major vote took place after a closed-door City Council session. Companies that lost out, including Virginia-based SSP America, filed suit. Mayor Kasim Reed’s administration waged a public war against them. An April 25 press release issued by his office called SSP out by name. "The city is hopeful that SSP America . . . will finally cease its litigious and wasteful efforts to overturn the fairest, most open and transparent procurement process in the city’s history," said the release, which was sent out by Reed’s representatives. The most "open and transparent"? That sounds out of character for Hartsfield-Jackson, where dealings have a history of being anything but these things. In the 1980s and early 1990s, concession operators paid more than $1 million in bribes to elected officials, according to a federal investigation. Seven people, including two former city councilmen, were convicted or pleaded guilty to related crimes. Former Mayor Bill Campbell famously served federal prison time in the mid-2000s for failing to pay $160,000 in taxes. Prosecutors said he secretly used airport and other city contracts to make himself and his friends rich. And last year, the city agreed to a $3.9 million legal settlement with Atlanta businessman Billy Corey and his business Corey Airport Services. He argued that the procurement process was rigged when he lost out on an airport advertising contract in 2002. Now, we’ll cover why Atlanta officials think this latest round was the most open and transparent in city history. City spokeswoman Sonji Jacobs, whose name was listed on the press release, gave four major arguments: City officials put a big bundle of airport concessions contracts out to bid at once. Businesses competed for 11 concessions contracts: nine for restaurants and two for shops. They were worth about $3 billion in revenue over 10 years. Something similar took place in February 1995. The city tried to wipe the slate clean by opening bidding on "almost every concessions space at Hartsfield," including restaurants and gift shops, according to a story in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. City officials released names of project evaluators. Reed announced in June 2011 that he would release the names of evaluators on a panel that reviews and recommends proposals. He said this transparency would head off accusations of conflicts of interest. Instead, the city waited until January -- after the City Council approved the contracts. Jacobs said in the mayor’s defense that this was earlier than state open records law requires. But council members Michael Julian Bond and Felicia Moore told PolitiFact Georgia that under prior administrations, they received evaluator names and related information before the bids went before the full council. And Jacobs’ point about public records law is debatable. Nothing in state law says names of committee members appointed by a public agency can be kept secret, Hollie Manheimer, executive director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, told PolitiFact Georgia. Reed returned legally obtained campaign contributions from those vying for contracts. Reed stopped receiving campaign donations from these businesses in late June 2011, and returned some money. We found no evidence that prior Atlanta mayors have taken this step. However, this is more of an anti-influence peddling measure than a transparency effort. The city released more than 1 million pages of records detailing the procurement process. We found no evidence that other administrations have gone through the expense and effort of releasing this many documents. But at first, they didn’t do it willingly. Officials released these documents in January after losing concessionaires sued, saying the administration violated public records law by withholding them. The Fulton court’s chief judge wrote in a March order that "only after entry of several court orders" did the city begin to produce more public records related to the bid process. Since then, though, it has provided many of them. SSP’s lawyer accused the city’s chief procurement officer of directing city workers to destroy them, but George Maynard, the hearing officer assigned to SSP’s appeal, determined there was no evidence of "fraud, corruption or abuse." Watchdog groups and some elected officials want more. They noted Maynard was appointed by the mayor, and were concerned that the city’s transportation committee had 12 hours or less to inspect key concessions contract documents before they voted to approve them. To conclude: This latest round of airport contract proposals was not as open as it could have been, and three of the four arguments the city used to claim unprecedented transparency fall short. Still, it may well have been more transparent than all others in Hartsfield-Jackson history. We could find no other instances where more than 1 million pages of documents were put out for public review. That said, the city was legally obliged to provide those pages. The statement is likely accurate, but meaningless. It’s no great achievement for a city to do what the law requires. Unless that city is Atlanta. This claim lacks important details, which means it earns a Half True. | null | Kasim Reed | null | null | null | 2012-05-21T06:00:00 | 2012-04-25 | ['None'] |
goop-01336 | Kris Jenner, Corey Gamble Adopting A Child, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kris-jenner-corey-gamble-adopting-child-not-true/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Kris Jenner, Corey Gamble NOT Adopting A Child, Despite Reports | 12:17 pm, March 22, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01375 | Zac Efron A “Jerk And Creep” On Set Of Ted Bundy Movie? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/zac-efron-ted-bundy-movie-set-jerk-creep/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Zac Efron A “Jerk And Creep” On Set Of Ted Bundy Movie? | 12:15 pm, March 16, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
peck-00037 | Is Gender-Based Violence On The Decline In Tanzania? | true | https://pesacheck.org/is-gender-based-violence-on-the-decline-in-tanzania-b5dffe19dc0c | null | null | null | Belinda Japhet | null | Is Gender-Based Violence On The Decline In Tanzania? | Jan 17 | null | ['None'] |
para-00052 | Says the Coalition’s $22 billion paid parental leave scheme costs more than the Commonwealth spends on childcare or the NBN every year. | half-true | http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/aug/26/kevin-rudd/childcare-versus-paid-parental-leave-which-would-c/index.html | null | ['Budget', 'Parental Leave'] | Kevin Rudd | Michael Koziol, Peter Fray | null | Childcare versus paid parental leave - which would cost more? | Monday, August 26, 2013 at 10:46 p.m. | null | ['Commonwealth_of_Nations'] |
pomt-15204 | Wisconsin's pension system is the "only one fully funded in the country." | mostly true | /wisconsin/statements/2015/aug/14/scott-walker/wisconsin-only-state-fully-funded-pension-system-s/ | Scott Walker fired off 13 tweets on July 26, 2015 that cite accomplishments and highpoints during his time as Wisconsin's governor. This was one of them: "Overall bonding in latest WI state budget is at 20 year low. State pension system is only one fully funded in the country." We decided to check the second part of the statement to see if anything has changed since we first rated it True in 2013. The fully-funded pension system is also a prominent talking point for Walker in his quest for the Republican presidential nomination. Where pension benefits come from The Wisconsin Retirement System provides retirement, disability and death benefits not only to all state employees, but to nearly all local government employees in Wisconsin. With some $85 billion in what are known as actuarial assets, it covers more than 256,000 active public employees, including teachers and municipal employees, plus 154,000 retirees and others who are no longer active employees. The funds come from three sources: employer contributions, employee contributions and investment earnings. The employer-employee split was changed dramatically by Act 10, Walker's 2011 collective bargaining reform law. Before Act 10, the state, as well as the local governments participating in the state retirement system, had agreed to make almost of the contributions that employees were required to make toward their pensions. In other words, often as a result of union bargaining, the employers were making the employer contributions to the pension fund and nearly all of the employee contributions, as well. In 2010, for example, state and local government employers made 99 percent of the employer-employee contributions to the system. As of 2013, the latest figures available, employers paid 57 percent and employees 43 percent. So, just how healthy is the pension fund, and how does it compare? How close to fully funded? The state's most recent actuarial evaluation showed that as of the end of 2013, the retirement system was in balance. That is, the expected total retirement benefit obligations equalled the assets ultimately expected to be available to the system. More specifically, the Gabriel Roeder Smith & Co. firm said the pension fund was 99.96 percent funded. It’s worth noting the actuarial reports have shown the retirement system funding at 99 percent or greater not only during Walker's tenure, but dating back to 2003. Wisconsin's pension system has long been viewed as a national model. When we rated Walker's 2013 claim that Wisconsin’s pension fund was the only fully funded one in the country, we relied primarily on a report from the non-partisan Pew Charitable Trusts. It was since updated, with the most recent version published in July 2015. That report shows that in 2013, South Dakota's pension system had joined Wisconsin as being fully funded. Pew actually ranked South Dakota first and Wisconsin second, even though both were 99.9 percent funded. The national average was 72 percent. Illinois was lowest, at 39 percent. Another report -- which included some actual as well as estimated data for 2014 -- also listed South Dakota and Wisconsin as the only fully funded pension systems. That report, from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, estimated that Wisconsin had an asset-to-liability ratio of 104 percent for 2014, up from 99.9 percent in each of the three previous years. Actual data for South Dakota, meanwhile, showed that state's pension system was funded at 100 percent in both 2013 and 2014. (The report also examined local pension plans. The City of Milwaukee's was estimated at 100.8 percent funded in 2014.) Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, told us Wisconsin and South Dakota are well funded because their investments have performed well and their retirement benefits "have remained fairly reasonable." In addition, in Wisconsin’s case, retirement benefits go down when investments don’t perform up to par, he said. Our rating Walker says Wisconsin's "pension system is only one fully funded in the country." That was the case among state pension plans in 2012, but newer reports show slightly different results. According to Pew Charitable Trusts, both South Dakota and Wisconsin were fully funded in 2013; and according to Boston College, both were fully funded in 2013 and 2014. We rate Walker’s statement Mostly True. | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2015-08-14T10:00:00 | 2015-07-26 | ['None'] |
pomt-05593 | A bill that could restrict free speech when the president is nearby was signed by President Barack Obama "in secret." | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/30/andrew-napolitano/andrew-napolitano-chain-email-say-barack-obama-si/ | A new chain email says a bill signed by President Barack Obama raises the specter of Nazi Germany. "Who would have believed this would ever happen in the USA . . . . . or is this 1933, and are we in NAZI Germany . . . "This is serious and it just was signed into law last Thursday, March 15th in SECRET!! HR 347. Our glorious politicians on both sides, and Obama do it again!" The email links to a Fox News segment with legal commentator Andrew Napolitano, as well as a Cincinnati TV station’s "reality check" on the law, and a blog post by the American Civil Liberties Union. Because most of the material provided by the email is in the realm of opinion -- indeed, it would likely be subject to interpretation by federal courts -- we will limit our fact-check to the suggestion that the law was signed "in secret," a claim made not only by the email but also by Napolitano, who in the interview said the law was "a slow, creeping destruction of some of our basic liberties, and the president signed it in secret." Let’s start by taking a look at the law, and the critics’ interpretations of it. What the law says The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 was signed by Obama on March 8, 2012. The law is filled with legalese that gives only hints of its potential reach. A summary on THOMAS, the database run by the Library of Congress, suggests the law puts up restrictions for buildings when the president or anyone else protected by the Secret Service is nearby. It says the law: Amends the federal criminal code to revise the prohibition against entering restricted federal buildings or grounds to impose criminal penalties on anyone who knowingly enters any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. Defines "restricted buildings or grounds" as a posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of: (1) the White House or its grounds or the Vice President's official residence or its grounds, (2) a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting, or (3) a building or grounds so restricted due to a special event of national significance. The punishment would be a fine or imprisonment for not more than 10 years, or both, if it involves a weapon or results in "significant bodily injury." For lesser offenses, the punishment could be a fine and imprisonment for not more than one year. The critics’ concerns So what is Napolitano concerned about? Here’s an excerpt from his interview with Fox News’ Eric Bolling. (Napolitano didn’t respond to our interview request made through his website.) "This is not like a traffic ticket," Napolitano said. "For standing and protesting, the type of thing that for 230 years Americans took for granted because it was protected by the First Amendment - 'Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech' – has actually been abridged. By legislation the president signed last Thursday, supported overwhelmingly by both parties, with very very little public debate and very little debate in Congress, basically allows Secret Service agents to decide where there are ‘no-free-speech zones’ …. And anybody by the Secret Service, protected by the Secret Service, can ask those agents to ban protests wherever they are. So I can think of three violations (of constitutional protections): speech violations, association violations, the right to petition the government for a redress of your grievances. What good is free speech if the people in the government are so far away from you that they can't hear you?" The ACLU expressed concerns about the bill as well, but in a more measured fashion. In a blog post, Gabe Rottman, a legislative counsel and policy advisor in the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office, wrote that "it's important to note — contrary to some reports — that H.R. 347 doesn't create any new crimes, or directly apply to the Occupy protests. The bill slightly rewrites a short trespass law, originally passed in 1971 and amended a couple of times since, that covers areas subject to heightened Secret Service security measures." Rottman added, "Any time the government lowers the intent requirement, it makes it easier for a prosecutor to prove her case, and it gives law enforcement more discretion when enforcing the law. To be sure, this is of concern to the ACLU. We will monitor the implementation of H.R. 347 for any abuse or misuse. … Rest assured we'll be keeping an eye on how this law will be interpreted and used by law enforcement — especially in light of the coming elections." The 'secret' signing So was the bill signed "in secret"? If it was, then how would we know about it to write this fact-check? The strongest evidence that the bill was signed "in secret" was that Obama didn’t sign it in a public ceremony. The White House released a brief statement after it was signed. The statement said, in its entirety, "On Thursday, March 8, 2012, the President signed into law H.R. 347, the ‘Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011,’ which makes it a federal crime to enter or remain knowingly in any restricted area of the White House, the Vice President’s official residence, or their respective grounds without lawful authority." But that statement wasn't secret. In fact, it was a statement from White House Press Secretary Jay Carney that was emailed to journalists on the White House email list -- a list estimated to include several thousand addresses, according to the White House. In addition, the White House told PolitiFact that the bill had been listed on a White House web page for pending legislation before it was signed. And it's important to note that most bills are signed without public ceremonies, according to Senate historian Don Ritchie. So there wasn't the hoopla that surrounds some signings, but it was no secret. In addition, the existence of the bill itself had been known for more than 14 months, and its passage by both chambers of Congress -- and its delivery to the president for his signature -- was public for the whole time. The bill was introduced in January 2011 by Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla. Within weeks, it was considered by both the relevant subcommittee and the full committee. On February 28, it was debated on the House floor, in speeches televised on C-SPAN. Rooney urged his colleagues to vote for the measure and the bill was seconded on the floor by a Democrat, Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia. No one rose to speak against the bill. The bill then proceeded to a vote, under a process called "suspension of the rules" -- a fast-track process used for bills considered non-controversial by the leadership. Using this streamlined process, a bill needs a two-thirds vote to pass, rather than just a simple majority. In this case, the House voted in favor of the bill, 399-3. At that point, the bill went to the Senate, where it became stalled. In November 2011, an amended version made it through the Judiciary Committee, and on Feb. 6, 2012, the Senate announced that it had passed by "unanimous consent" -- a process by which Senators approve a bill without a formal vote, after all Senators have been consulted and none have offered objections. Because the Senate passed an amended version of the bill, it had to go back to the House to be reconciled. On Feb. 27, 2012, the House began a new debate on the amended bill, in which Rooney and Johnson once again spoke on its behalf. Once again, no one rose to speak against the bill. And once again, the bill was put to a vote under suspension of the rules. For a second time, the vote was lopsidedly in favor -- 388-3. With the House and Senate both having passed the bill, it went to the president for his signature on March 1, 2012. Eight days later, Obama signed it, and it became Public Law 112-98. So while it’s true that Obama didn’t invite the media or other observers in for a signing ceremony, the bill had gone through a very public process on its way to becoming law. It twice received a debate (albeit brief ones) on the House floor. The House twice voted on it publicly, in proceedings aired on C-SPAN. And after the second House passage, it was hardly a state secret that the bill was headed to the president’s desk for his signature. Our ruling Napolitano said the law was signed "in secret." But the path of H.R. 347 to the president's desk was very public. It was introduced in public, discussed in public, voted on in public, and then signed the same way as most bills. The White House says it posted the bill on its web page for legislation awaiting the president’s signature. It’s true that there weren't cameras present, but if they had been, what would they have captured? That Obama signed the bill. That fact was announced by the White House the same day in a statement sent to thousands of journalists. There may be legitimate reasons to question whether the law infringes on constitutional rights. But there were many occasions during its public consideration when critics could have questioned lawmakers and the White House about the law. We rate the claim Pants on Fire. | null | Andrew Napolitano | null | null | null | 2012-03-30T16:09:36 | 2012-03-15 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-06419 | Minimum wage = $16,000/year CEO-Goldman Sachs (Lloyd Blankfein) $16,000/Hour. | false | /rhode-island/statements/2011/oct/26/occupy-providence/occupy-providence-protester-says-goldman-sachs-ceo/ | In downtown Providence, as in other cities around the globe, protesters inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement are trying to raise awareness about economic inequalities. On a recent visit to Occupy Providence’s encampment at Burnside Park, a Providence Journal reporter spotted a hand-written sign that compared the earnings of a minimum wage worker with those of Goldman Sach’s CEO, Lloyd C. Blankfein. The sign read: "Minimum wage = $16,000/year CEO-Goldman Sachs (Lloyd Blankfein) $16,000/Hour." It goes without saying that Goldman’s CEO earns piles more money than most Americans, never mind Rhode Island’s minimum-wage workers. Ever since the New York investment bank accepted a $10-billion government bailout during the financial crisis in 2008, Goldman Sachs has made national headlines for its super-sized executive compensation packages. But we had our doubts about whether Blankfein, Goldman’s chief executive, actually earned in one hour what a minimum wage worker in Rhode Island earned in an entire year. So we decided to check it out. The facts The minimum wage in Rhode Island is $7.40 per hour, so simple math shows that someone who works 40 hours per week for 52 weeks (or 2,080 hours) will earn $15,392 a year. (The minimum wage was the same in 2010 as this year. Many minimum wage workers don’t get benefits, unlike CEOs. But we’ll get to that later.) The protest sign said $16,000, which is pretty close. But calculating the pay of chief executives is more complicated because a large share of their compensation is typically in the form of stock options, pension contributions and other non-cash payments. In 2010, Goldman reported it paid Blankfein a salary of $600,000 plus a bonus of $5.4 million, for a total of $6 million, according to its 2011 proxy statement, the most recent available data. That’s 375 times more than a minimum age worker would earn in Rhode Island. But it’s a mere $2,885 an hour, not $16,000. (We’re basing this calculation on a 40-hour work week.) But wait, there’s more. Besides his salary and bonus, the company reported that it gave Blankfein $12.6 million in restricted stock, boosting his annual compensation to $18.6 million. If he worked 40 hours per week, his hourly rate would amount to $8,942. And that’s without benefits. Goldman also paid Blankfein $464,067 in 401(k) matching contributions, term life insurance premiums, medical and dental premium payments, long-term disability insurance premiums, life insurance premiums and perks such as his company car and driver. (The protesters might have mentioned that the $185,000 Goldman paid for Blankfein’s car and driver last year is more than 3½ times Rhode Island’s median household income in 2010.) In all, Blankfein’s compensation in 2010 totaled about $19.06 million. But once again, simple math shows that the estimated cash value of his compensation that year is $9,165 an hour -- not $16,000 an hour as the protest sign declared. Our ruling The Occupy Providence protest sign was close when it stated that the minimum wage in Rhode Island is $16,000 a year (it’s actually just under $15,400). And its point -- that CEOs such as Blankfein make enormous sums of money while people at the bottom of the economic ladder make almost nothing -- is well taken. But the claim that Goldman Sachs’ CEO earned $16,000 an hour was way off. We rate it False. (Get updates from PolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on our PolitiFact Rhode Island Facebook page.) | null | Occupy Providence | null | null | null | 2011-10-26T06:00:00 | 2011-10-19 | ['None'] |
tron-01121 | Plant a Pig to Stop Mosque Construction | truth! & fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/plant-a-pig/ | null | crime-police | null | null | null | Plant a Pig to Stop Mosque Construction | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05236 | Georgia Public Service Commission member Stan Wise "has received about 95 percent of his campaign money from the utilities he is supposed to be regulating." | half-true | /georgia/statements/2012/jun/05/pam-davidson/ga-candidate-questions-incumbents-donor-list/ | Elected officials are often accused of being beholden to the folks who bankroll their campaigns. In one Georgia race, a similar attack by one candidate for a seat on the state’s influential Public Service Commission against the current officeholder has sparked a verbal volleyball match between the two candidates. PolitiFact Georgia was eager to leap in. It all began a few weeks ago when PSC candidate Pam Davidson launched her campaign against incumbent Stan Wise with a statement on her website. "Over the past 18 years, the incumbent candidate has received about 95 percent of his campaign money from the utilities he is supposed to be regulating," she wrote. "This fosters a cozy relationship with those utilities, and Georgia consumers, quite literally, have paid the price." The Public Service Commission regulates natural gas, telecommunications, electric power companies, limousines, bus carriers and towing companies. It does not regulate cable television, telephone service, propane gas and interstate transportation. Davidson made a promise written in bold letters with the next sentence in her statement: "I will not accept campaign contributions or gifts from the entities regulated by the PSC either before or after the election." Davidson nearly won the Republican Party primary race for a PSC seat in 2008 against Lauren "Bubba" McDonald, despite Davidson’s 13-1 fundraising disadvantage. We asked Davidson for information to back up her claim. The candidate said it was an estimate on her part and soon thereafter had a staffer compile data on Wise’s disclosures for one of those 18 years. Before we review those contributions, PolitiFact Georgia had to examine the nuances of Davidson’s statement. The candidate said Wise received nearly all of his contributions "from the utilities he is supposed to be regulating." Wise called that part of the statement incorrect and "silly." Georgia’s campaign finance laws prohibit PSC members from accepting contributions from businesses regulated by the agency, Wise noted. Those businesses can make contributions to members of the Georgia Legislature. "[H]er claim on its face is completely false," Wise said. Wise said he’s "proud" of the contributions he’s received. He doubted that 95 percent of contributions he’s received came from individuals connected to companies regulated by the PSC, describing those donations as "employees exercising their constitutional right to free speech." Davidson countered that Wise may be in line with the letter of the state law on contributions. But he’s fallen out of step with the spirit of the rules, she said. "He’s getting money indirectly," she said. "If the CEO or lobbyist gives me money, it’s for all intents and purposes from the utility." Davidson provided us a report on Wise’s disclosures in 2006. PolitiFact Georgia simultaneously did its own research and reviewed nearly 500 campaign contributions recorded by Wise from 2001 to 2012 that were available on state government websites. Our analysis shows about 66 percent of the contributions were made by people who work for companies regulated by the PSC. An additional 25 percent came from attorneys who work for law firms with clients who do business before the commission. Some of those law firms are the largest in Georgia, and attorneys who work there regularly donate to political candidates in all sorts of campaigns. About 9 percent came from donors we believe have no ties to any utilities. There were some contributions we could not determine whether or not the donors worked for or represented any utilities, and we did not include them in our analysis. We discussed this with Helen O’Leary, senior counsel for Georgia Watch, an organization that advocates for pro-consumer policies at the state Capitol and the PSC. She said some PSC members receive a large percentage of their contributions from donors who work for utilities, particularly attorneys. O’Leary said the organization wished those individuals would refrain from giving to PSC candidates. But there is nothing in current state law that prohibits those contributions. "As an attorney who has appeared before the PSC in matters affecting ratepayers, it is frustrating to take positions against rate increases when you know that opposing counsel, members of his law firm, and employees of the utility he represents have made tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to the same elected officials that will decide these important cases," she said. So where does this leave us? Davidson would get a higher rating on the Truth-O-Meter if she had said that close to 95 percent of Wise’s contributions came from individuals and attorneys who work for or represent the interests of utilities. There’s no proof that her exact statement is accurate. Her over-reaching point appears correct -- people associated with the utilities are contributing about 90 percent of PSC Commissioner Stan Wise’s campaign war chest. However, that money is not coming directly from the utilities, which is prohibited under the law. Many of the lawyers who donated to Wise have colleagues who’ve also given large sums of money to candidates in other races, so some context is necessary. Davidson might be making a good political point, but her statement needs a lot of context to move any higher on the Truth-O-Meter. Our rating: Half True. | null | Pam Davidson | null | null | null | 2012-06-05T06:00:00 | 2012-05-18 | ['None'] |
hoer-00041 | Scratch Card 'Silver Nitro Oxide' Coating Causes Skin Cancer | bogus warning | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/silver-nitro-oxide-cancer-warning.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Bogus Health Warning - Scratch Card 'Silver Nitro Oxide' Coating Causes Skin Cancer | November 27, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05513 | A photograph shows President Obama holding a rocket launcher in a car with Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-caliph-isis-photo/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | President Obama with ISIS Leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi | 9 December 2015 | null | ['Barack_Obama'] |
goop-00027 | Ashton Kutcher Making ‘Punk’d’ Movie? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ashton-kutcher-punkd-movie/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Ashton Kutcher Making ‘Punk’d’ Movie? | 5:49 pm, November 7, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04620 | An aide "acted on his own" and "was not representing the Thompson campaign" when he sent an email criticizing the sexual orientation of U.S. Senate candidate Tammy Baldwin. | pants on fire! | /wisconsin/statements/2012/sep/17/tommy-thompson/thompson-says-aide-wasnt-representing-campaign-ema/ | Hours before U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin of Madison gave the most important speech of her political career, to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., a disparaging email made the rounds. Baldwin is facing former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson in a bid for a key open U.S. Senate seat, the one now held by Democrat Herb Kohl. The email criticized Baldwin, who had said that her Sept. 6, 2012, convention speech would focus on "heartland values." Here’s the email message: "Yesterday, Madison-Liberal Tammy Baldwin cited "heartland values" as the topic for her prime time speech to the DNC tomorrow night. Clearly, there's no one better positioned to talk "heartland values" than Tammy" The email included a link to a YouTube videoand then added these words: "A primer of her values---note event, and enjoy." The video is of Baldwin, who would be the first openly gay member of the U.S. Senate, dancing on stage with a costumed band at a 2010 gay pride event in Madison. The email -- and several similar tweets -- were sent to more than a dozen conservative political contacts, including bloggers and those in the media, by Brian Nemoir, senior adviser/communications for the Thompson campaign. One of the recipients forwarded the email to WisPolitics.com, which wrote the first story on the matter and called the messages"a negative hit from Tommy Thompson’s campaign."The tweets were sent from Nemoir’s personal account, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.That account has since added privacy settings. The emails drew a far broader audience, and quickly drew attention -- and criticism -- since it was the first time Baldwin’s sexual orientation had been made an issue in the contentious campaign. In an email to reporters, another Thompson aide, Darrin Schmitz, wrote that Nemoir "acted on his own" and "he was not representing the Thompson campaign in this matter." Is that accurate? Let’s pause for a quick note: When we examine claims from campaign spokespersons, we typically attribute the statement to the candidate. After all, that is what spokespersons are hired to do -- speak for the candidate. We will do that here when evaluating the statement issued by Schmitz, who like Nemoir, has frequently spoken to the media on behalf of the campaign. Five days after the emails were sent, Thompson told reporters after an appearance in Milwaukee:"I thought it was a mistake, I'm sorry, and he's apologized, I believe. He shouldn't have done it." Thompson also said a person's sexual orientation is "absolutely not an issue" in the race. After the email was made public, Nemoir’s role with the campaign changed, and he was replaced as the campaign’s spokesman, according to Thompson. But what about that not-part-of-the-campaign claim about the email? When asked to back up that position, Schmitz said Nemoir’s email was an "unauthorized statement." "As you well know, this is not the first time an employee of any business, organization, campaign or media outlet has shared personal thoughts through a work email," Schmitz said in an email. Maybe so, but some things just don’t add up. In the past, most of Nemoir’s correspondence with reporters had been through his email address with his consulting firm, Full Impact Communications. This email was sent from his email account with the Thompson campaign. The email contained Nemoir’s name and listed his then-position with the campaign: senior adviser/communications. It also contained the web address for the Thompson campaign. It certainly appeared official. What’s more, it arrived a key political moment in the campaign. It was sent out hours in advance of Baldwin’s convention speech, and was tied directly to the theme of that speech "heartland values." Although the email text didn’t note her sexual orientation in depth, the link made the message was clear: Baldwin does not represent "heartland values" because she is gay. "This sounds like a good/bad cop routine. An aide makes an attack through the campaign but the organization disavows the attack," said Darrell West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution. "This can be a very effective strategy if the media pick up the attack." West added that "making an issue of someone's sexuality is not a casual decision. Campaigns think very carefully about the up and downside of that." He likened the message to "lobbing a nuclear bomb into a meadow." Our rating A Thompson consultant said the campaign was not responsible for an email that criticized Baldwin as not representing "heartland values." But the email came from the campaign’s chief spokesman on a campaign account at a key political moment in the campaign. It was sent to conservative bloggers and others. It was clearly meant to draw attention to the video of Baldwin’s appearance at the gay pride event. The average reader of the email got the message loud and clear: Thompson’s campaign was criticizing Baldwin. Schmitz’s statement is false, and it’s ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire. | null | Tommy Thompson | null | null | null | 2012-09-17T09:00:00 | 2012-09-06 | ['United_States', 'Tammy_Baldwin'] |
snes-02952 | CBP seized the phone of American-born JPL scientist Sidd Bikkannavar and demanded access to its stored data. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jpl-scientist-cbp-phone/ | null | Inboxer Rebellion | null | Kim LaCapria | null | American-Born JPL Scientist Forced to Unlock a NASA Phone by U.S. Customs and Border Protection? | 13 February 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05652 | Despite President Barack Obama's promise to cut healthcare costs, "the average cost of a family policy is up $1,300." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/20/republican-national-committee-republican/rnc-ad-blames-obama-1300-spike-family-health-care-/ | Republicans are expecting to use health care as a wedge issue in the 2012 elections -- an approach made clear in a web ad released by the Republican National Committee on March 19, 2012. "Barack Obama promised to cut health care costs," the ad says. After airing a clip of Obama saying, "We will bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family," the ad continues: "But it didn't happen. Six in 10 americans are seeing their premiums rise. The average cost of a family policy is up $1,300. And a key part of Obama's health care takeover will cost $100 billion more than promised. Higher costs for patients, higher costs for taxpayers. Another broken promise for Obama." Elsewhere, we’ve given Obama a rating of Stalled for his promise to lower family premiums by $2,500. So the RNC has a point that Obama over-promised on family premiums. But is the RNC on safe ground when it blames Obama for "the average cost of a family policy" rising by $1,300? The ad references a widely respected study produced annually by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent group that studies health care, and the Health Research and Educational Trust. It’s a sample based on surveys of benefits administrators working for about 2,000 employers that offer health care plans. The 2011 edition of this survey found that the average cost of all private plans was $15,073, which was up from the $13,770 found in 2010 -- a difference of $1,303, almost exactly what the ad said. So the RNC’s number is legitimate. But we think it’s worth adding some context. First, the figure in question refers to the entire cost of the health coverage -- that is, both the portion paid by the employee and by the employer. And as it happens, most of the $1,300 increase between 2010 and 2011 was picked up by the employer -- not the employee. Employees and their families saw their cost of health care increase by a much smaller amount -- $132. Employers, by contrast, had to foot a $1,171 increase. The ad is technically correct when it uses the $1,300 figure, and additional employer health care costs don’t simply disappear; they can directly reduce the amount of money available for employee pay, meaning that employees may indirectly bear that burden. "Workers sooner or later pay pretty much all of the cost of the insurance that employers ‘provide,’ " said Henry Aaron, a health care specialist at the Brookings Institution. Still, when watching the ad, it’s easy for a viewer to assume that the average family is shelling out $1,300 more -- but that’s not the case. It’s only about one-tenth of that, at least directly. Second, the link between Obama’s policies and health care premium increases is more nuanced than the ad makes it, because most of the health care law hasn’t taken effect yet. Jonathan Oberlander, a health policy professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said that he is uncertain about how the law will affect health costs in the long run, but he added that it’s premature to draw a straight-line link between the law and rising premiums. "Blaming the health care law for rising premiums or faulting it for failing to lower them is misleading," Oberlander said. One private-sector study of health insurance premiums, by the firm Aon Hewitt found that overall, the new law "is anticipated to increase costs by an average of 1.5 percent in 2011," which the firm said was in line with other studies. The increase was greater than that for individually purchased plans and smaller for large employer plans. This average increase of 1.5 percent is well below the overall increase in premiums found in the Kaiser/HRET study, which suggests that factors other than the law were driving the overall increase. One piece of evidence to support this view can be found in the Kaiser/HRET report itself. Since 1999, both the employee’s and the employer’s health care premium costs have each risen at an average of 13 percent to 14 percent a year. So these increases have been going on for a long time, primarily because of technological advances and rising physician and pharmaceutical costs. Such longer term trends are more important benchmarks anyway, experts say. "What happens over a year or two typically means little," said Aaron of Brookings. "What happens over longer period does matter." Our ruling The RNC ad uses a legitimate figure, though its meaning can’t be fully understood without additional context. Families aren’t shelling out $1,300 more for health coverage this year; they are paying $132 more, with their employers picking up the rest, a financial burden that may, or may not, be passed on indirectly to the employee. Meanwhile, uncertainty remains about why premiums have risen in the past year. Given that some provisions of Obama’s health care law are already in effect, such as the requirement that health plans include children to age 26, the law has probably had some impact. However, premiums were already on an upward track well before the law was passed. On balance, we rate the claim Half True. | null | Republican National Committee | null | null | null | 2012-03-20T17:11:00 | 2012-03-19 | ['None'] |
snes-02560 | Mia Khalifa was diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mia-khalifa-hiv/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Was Mia Khalifa Diagnosed with HIV? | 21 April 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04409 | Author Saul Alinsky dedicated his 1971 political tome 'Rules for Radicals' to Lucifer. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/saul-alinsky-dedicated-rules-for-radicals-to-lucifer/ | null | Questionable Quotes | null | David Emery | null | Saul Alinsky Dedicated ‘Rules for Radicals’ to Lucifer | 20 July 2016 | null | ['Saul_Alinsky'] |
pomt-08205 | The law, right now, permits companies that close down American factories and offices and move those jobs overseas to take a tax deduction for the costs associated with moving the jobs to China or India or wherever. | true | /rhode-island/statements/2010/nov/21/sheldon-whitehouse/whitehouse-says-companies-get-tax-break-moving-job/ | It's bad enough when companies take U.S. jobs and move them overseas to take advantage of lower labor costs. But does the U.S. tax code actually offer an incentive for firms to engage in such "offshoring?" That was the assertion of Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse earlier this fall when he went on the floor of the Senate to argue for a bill, designated S-3816 and known as the "Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act." The proposal, he said, "would close some really perverse loopholes in the tax code that, right now, reward American companies for moving American jobs overseas. The law, right now, permits companies that close down American factories and offices and move those jobs overseas to take a tax deduction for the costs associated with moving the jobs to China or India or wherever." There's nothing controversial about allowing companies to deduct their expenses for doing business, but does the tax system actually help companies cover the cost of moving local jobs to another country? Absolutely, said Thea Lee, deputy chief of staff of the AFL-CIO, a 12-million member labor organization that opposes offshoring. "You can take a business deduction for the costs associated with moving the job. So if you close down your factory in Providence, pack everything up and have to train the workers and ship the machinery overseas, all the costs associated with that are tax deductions," she said. As a result, companies get back roughly a third of their expense at the expense of U.S. taxpayers, she said. "There have been a lot of attempts over the years to get rid of this," but corporation lobbyists have argued that the loophole is needed because it creates more jobs, said Lee. "You can believe that or not. I don't give it a lot of credence." Robert E. Scott, senior international economist with the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning think tank that deals with issues of concern to low- and middle-income workers, confirmed that relocation expenses are deductible and that existing tax law makes no distinction between whether a company moves part of its operations to another state or to another country. "Businesses that have expenses of any kind are allowed to deduct them against income, and that would include any kind of shutdown expenses having to do with a plant," he said. "They could also play games, potentially, with writing down any undepreciated value, so if they decide to scrap equipment they're shipping to China they could write down the depreciated value and take that off against their taxes as well. Both are options available to companies, and I suspect they are widely used." On the same day Whitehouse made his statement, Scott A. Hodge, president of The Tax Foundation, a business-backed group that studies tax policy, released a statement saying the problem that served as the premise of the legislation isn't as big as people imagine. He cited a Bureau of Labor Statistics report from the second quarter of 2010 showing 338,064 mass layoffs. When seasonal layoffs are subtracted, only 6 percent of the remaining workers -- 10,206 people -- lost their jobs during that quarter due to any movement of work. When the destination of the relocation was known (most of the time it wasn't) about 29 percent of the movement was to places outside the U.S. We checked more-recent numbers from the third quarter of this year; they showed a similar pattern.) "The bottom line is that offshoring accounts for a small percentage of overall job losses . . . The offshoring of jobs may make for good headlines and political points, but it is not supported by the data," Hodge concluded. In this case, the bill, which would also have given companies two years of payroll tax relief for jobs they brought back to the U.S. from overseas, was opposed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in part because it contained another provision limiting the ability of companies to defer paying U.S. taxes on money earned overseas. The chamber argued that it would limit the ability to compete overseas. S-3816 was essentially voted down Sept. 28 after it garnered only 53 of the 60 votes required to close off debate. Among 57 Democrats, 52 supported it (one didn't vote), 40 of 41 Republicans opposed it (one didn't vote) and the two independents were split. So the law Whitehouse decries is still the law. There is little debate that the current system allows companies to get a tax break for their expenses when they send jobs outside the U.S. We rate Whitehouse's statement True. | null | Sheldon Whitehouse | null | null | null | 2010-11-21T00:01:00 | 2010-09-27 | ['United_States', 'China', 'India'] |
chct-00303 | FACT CHECK: Did The Las Vegas Shooter Have Better Rifles Than The Marines Do? | verdict: false | http://checkyourfact.com/2017/10/06/fact-check-did-the-las-vegas-shooter-have-better-rifles-than-the-marines-do/ | null | null | null | Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 4:33 PM 10/06/2017 | null | ['None'] |
vogo-00276 | Statement: “We’ve now had over 30 pieces of legislation, not only out of the first committee but signed into law,” state Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher said at a mayoral candidate forum Feb. 2. | determination: true | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/mayor-2012/fletchers-legislative-track-record-fact-check/ | Analysis: Fletcher, one of three high-profile Republicans running for mayor, has made an effort along the campaign trail to distinguish himself as a moderate. | null | null | null | null | Fletcher's Legislative Track Record: Fact Check | February 8, 2012 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02926 | As CFO, Alex Sink oversaw "a $27 billion loss in the state's pension fund." | half-true | /florida/statements/2013/nov/01/republican-party-florida/florida-gop-says-alex-sink-oversaw-27b-loss-pensio/ | Just hours after Democrat Alex Sink announced her run for the congressional seat left vacant after C.W. Bill Young’s death, the Republican Party of Florida started a full-court press attack. The Florida GOP posted a YouTube video criticizing Sink on a host of issues, presumably attacks they pulled from their arsenal when she ran against Rick Scott for governor in 2010. "As Florida’s CFO, Alex Sink failed Florida taxpayers by using the state plane as her own personal charter, overseeing a $27 billion loss in the state’s pension fund and supporting a $5.2 billion increase in Florida’s debt," the video’s text reads. We’ll examine other claims from the ad during the race, but in this fact-check we’ll focus on looking into Sink’s tie to the state pension fund. Is it accurate to say she oversaw $27 billion in losses? As the state’s chief financial officer, Sink’s responsibilities included accounting, auditing and managing Florida’s finances. She also served on the State Board Administration of Florida, the office that oversees the pension fund. In their Feburary 2013 report, the SBA put the value of pension assets at $132 billion. In 2007, the year Sink took office, the pension was worth $136.3 billion, according to the SBA. In 2010, her last year as CFO, that value was down to $109.3 billion. That makes the net loss $27 billion, as the ad said. This claim echoes those made by the party when Sink ran for governor against Republican Rick Scott. As we’ve noted before, there are several important caveats to this claim. The action of comparing how much the pension is worth at different points in history is not as devastating as it might sound. There’s no permanent loss in value until the assets are sold. Although the pension was temporarily worth less in 2010 than in 2007, the money isn’t gone by any means. When the nation started recovering from the recession a couple of years ago, the Florida pension followed suit. "The pension fund is in pretty good shape right now," said Kurt Wenner, vice president for tax research at Florida TaxWatch, a business-backed institute focused on tax issues. "It certainly wasn’t a critical situation." Besides the figures not being permanent, the implication that Sink, as CFO, is to blame for the loss in value is also misleading. Three SBA trustees jointly oversee the pension fund: the governor, the attorney general and the CFO. There’s nothing that suggests Sink’s responsibilities should be singled out above those of either former Gov. Charlie Crist or former Attorney General Bill McCollum (who were both Republicans at the time, by the way). Our ruling The Republican Party of Florida said there was a loss of pension assets of $27 billion during Sink’s term as the state’s CFO. But that doesn’t represent a permanent loss of funds. We also see no reason why Sink deserves more of the blame than the other two trustees. And, Sink was CFO during a historic recession. Given these sizeable caveats, we rate the Florida GOP’s claim Half True. | null | Republican Party of Florida | null | null | null | 2013-11-01T15:52:55 | 2013-10-30 | ['Alex_Sink'] |
snes-00587 | Have Leaked Documents Been Published Showing Donald Trump’s ‘True’ Weight? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-weight-girther-leaked-documents/ | null | Politics | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Have Leaked Documents Been Published Showing Donald Trump’s ‘True’ Weight? | 16 May 2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00822 | Justin Bieber Beat Up by Clippers Player at Starbucks | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/bieber-beat-up/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Justin Bieber Beat Up by Clippers Player at Starbucks | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-03270 | Joe Biden To Step Down October 5 | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/biden-to-step-down/ | null | politics | null | null | null | Joe Biden To Step Down October 5 | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04157 | The price tag amounted to nearly $4,200 for every man, woman and child in the state. | mostly false | /new-jersey/statements/2012/dec/23/steve-lonegan/steve-lonegan-says-hurricane-sandy-aid-package-amo/ | Count conservative activist Steve Lonegan among those not pleased with President Obama requesting $60 billion in aid for New Jersey, New York and other states hit hard by Hurricane Sandy. That money’s coming from somewhere – taxpayers – and the bill appropriating the money reportedly has millions in pork-barrel projects attached to it, according to Lonegan, state director for the New Jersey chapter of Americans For Prosperity. Lonegan issued a news release on the matter Tuesday, calling the request to Congress "ridiculous," and noting that "the price tag amounted to nearly $4,200 for every man, woman and child in the state." We asked Lonegan spokesman Mike Proto whether Lonegan meant the $4,200 as a cost or grant for each New Jerseyan. "Neither," he said. "It’s just simply doing the math of what it (the aid package) would equate to." Lonegan, however, used the words "price tag" in his statement, which implies cost or debt. And in our calculations, the numbers don’t add up. Let’s first review the facts that led to Obama’s request. Hurricane Sandy walloped the state on Oct. 29, shredding houses along the Shore and inland. Millions lost power for extended periods and 40 people from 13 counties in New Jersey died as a result of the storm. Obama came to New Jersey and toured the damage with Gov. Chris Christie. Obama also later toured New York. The damages amount for New Jersey has fluctuated, but Christie’s latest estimate is approximately $37 billion. The total damages estimate for all three states is $82 billion, according to estimates from Christie, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy. Proto said Lonegan’s calculation is based on the New Jersey damage estimate and U.S. Census Bureau population data for 2011. Dividing $37 billion by the state’s population of 8,821,155 equals $4,194, which is correct, when looking at Lonegan’s estimate of "about $4,200" per person. But there’s a couple of problems. First, Lonegan didn’t use $37 billion in his news release, he used $60 billion - four times. That makes the per-person amount $6,801. Second, any federal aid package is going to be paid by the entire country, not just New Jerseyans. The current U.S. population is 314,981,492. That means a $60 billion aid package would cost every U.S. man, woman and child $190.48. A $37 billion aid package would cost each person $117.46. Lonegan favors no aid for the damages caused by Sandy. "There is a moral question here," Lonegan said in an e-mail. "Should a group of people who have had their homes damaged by a hurricane have more political clout than a single person who has had their home destroyed by a tragedy?" Aid of any amount would further increase debt, Lonegan added. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) spoke Monday on the Senate floor about the need for funding to help New Jersey rebuild, and acknowledged cost concerns. "Unfortunately, there are those voices who are saying the cost to help families rebuild and recover is too much; that it should be reduced; that in this emergency, unlike many other similar emergencies in the past, we should do something smaller and wait to do the rest later," Menendez said. "Those who make such arguments could not be, respectfully, more wrong." Our ruling Lonegan said in a news release that the "price tag" for $60 billion in aid requested by Obama "amounted to nearly $4,200 for every man, woman and child in the state." Price tag implies cost. That calculation is only correct if it’s based on New Jersey’s damages of $37 billion, an amount Lonegan didn’t mention in his news release. A $60 billion aid package would amount to $6,801 for every New Jerseyan. Further, the nation would share in the cost of an aid package, not just those in the Garden State, bringing the per-person cost to less than $200. Since there is an element of truth to Lonegan’s claim, we rate this statement Mostly False. To comment on this story, go to NJ.com. | null | Steve Lonegan | null | null | null | 2012-12-23T07:30:00 | 2012-12-18 | ['None'] |
snes-02415 | Televangelist Paula White sold American flags that were personally blessed by President Donald Trump. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/paula-white-prayer-flags/ | null | Religion | null | Dan Evon | null | Is Paula White Selling Prayer Flags Blessed by Donald Trump? | 17 May 2017 | null | ['United_States', 'Donald_Trump'] |
snes-04849 | Indiana-based WNDU accidentally revealed that Indiana's primary was rigged for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump by prematurely releasing election results. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/indiana-primary-rigged/ | null | Ballot Box | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Indiana Primary Rigged for Clinton and Trump | 28 April 2016 | null | ['Indiana', 'Hillary_Rodham_Clinton', 'Donald_Trump'] |
snes-06053 | Hockey's Stanley Cup was once left in a snowbank. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stanley-cup/ | null | Sports | null | Snopes Staff | null | The Misadventures of the Stanley Cup | 30 September 2002 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07603 | Since 1980, over 145 incidents have been documented of suction entrapment in swimming pools and spas, including 36 deaths of children. | true | /texas/statements/2011/mar/23/leticia-van-de-putte/state-sen-letiticia-van-de-putte-says-there-have-b/ | Filing legislation that would require someone selling property to disclose whether a home swimming pool or hot tub has a hazardous drain, state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, said in a press release: "Too many Texas children are harmed and killed in pools." "Since 1980, over 145 incidents have been documented of suction entrapment in swimming pools and spas, including 36 deaths of children," according to her Feb. 16 press release. Her proposed legislation amends the state’s seller’s disclosure notice so that sellers say whether the property has a single blockable main drain in a pool, hot tub or spa, which "may cause a suction entrapment hazard for an individual." Van de Putte spokeswoman Sarah Gomez told us the senator has offered pool safety legislation the past three sessions. In 2009, the Senate approved her measure requiring residential pools and spas built or installed in Texas to be enclosed by barriers preventing small children from entering unsupervised, among other stipulations. It died in the House. Responding to our request for back-up for the senator’s numbers, Gomez sent us the background from a 2007 federal law, an earlier study of entrapment dangers and articles indicating a federal agency has long tracked entrapment incidents and resulting deaths. The background section of the 2007 Virgina Graeme Baker Pool and Safety Spa Act, a federal law setting tougher safety standards for public pools and spas, says that at least 33 children 14 and younger died from 1985 through 2000 as a result of drain entrapment. Gomez also provided a May 2006 study by Safe Kids Worldwide, a Washington-based group which launched in 1988 to advocate childhood injury prevention. The group joined with Nancy Baker to advocate for the act named after her daughter, who drowned in a hot tub at a family friend’s home in Virginia after she was entrapped by the drain’s suction. The study states that "entrapment occurs when part of a child’s body becomes attached to a drain as a result of the powerful suction of the water circulation system, or an arm or leg is inserted into a drain with a missing or broken cover." A child can drown if the suction overpowers his or her ability to disengage. According to an October 2003 Pool & Spa News article, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed 147 suction entrapment incidents from 1985 and March 2002, resulting in 36 deaths — not all of them children. We asked Gomez about the senator’s reference to 36 child deaths, Gomez said Van de Putte misread that statistic. "It was 36 total deaths," she said. "It was not intentional and she was not trying to mislead anyone." Next, Tanya Chin Ross, director of policy for Safe Kids Worldwide, pointed us to a May 2010 memo from the product safety commission tracking drain entrapments and deaths each year from 1999 to 2009, listing 94 entrapments in pools, spas and whirlpool tubs — including 49 incidents in residential facilities. The agency’s tally suggests that at least six entrapped children died from 2001 through 2009, a result that would make the total of confirmed child deaths from such incidents since 1985 at least 39. According to the memo, the commission eliminated reports that didn’t involve drain entrapments or were duplicates. Commission spokeswoman Kathleen Reilly told us that the agency investigates incident reports it receives directly. Otherwise, the agency tries to confirm claims "by getting as much data as possible," including hospital and police reports, she said. Reilly told us that between 1985 and 2009, the agency received reports of 154 incidents resulting from pool, spa, hot tub or whirlpool entrapments, including 54 deaths; she didn’t have a count for children who died. Finally, we sought Texas-specific data. Carrie Williams, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of State Health Services, told us the agency tabulates pool drownings, but not yet drain entrapments. All told, it looks like Van de Putte understates the 154 people, at least, who have been sucked into a U.S. pool or spa drain. While her backup information didn’t prove that 36 children died as a result, the sources we culled suggest that at least 39 children have perished. We rate her statement as True. | null | Leticia Van de Putte | null | null | null | 2011-03-23T06:00:00 | 2011-02-16 | ['None'] |
snes-00532 | Tommy Robinson was jailed in order to silence his reporting on a sex abuse trial in England, and to "protect Muslim pedophiles." | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tommy-robinson-arrest/ | null | Crime | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Was a Far-Right Activist Jailed for Breaching a Court Order Designed to ‘Protect Muslim Pedophiles’? | 29 May 2018 | null | ['England'] |
goop-00218 | Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux Split ‘Dividing Hollywood’? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-justin-theroux-split-hollywood-friends/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Jennifer Aniston, Justin Theroux Split ‘Dividing Hollywood’? | 3:58 pm, September 25, 2018 | null | ['Jennifer_Aniston'] |
pomt-11810 | Californians pay "the highest electricity bills" in the nation. | false | /california/statements/2017/nov/16/john-cox/does-california-have-highest-electricity-bills-nat/ | Californians pay a premium to live in the Golden State. Our housing costs are astronomical, gas prices are the highest in the nation and many state taxes are at or near the top. In a recent interview on Capital Public Radio, Republican candidate for governor John Cox said he wants to reduce the financial strain on Californians. "The state has been rendered unaffordable by the politicians in Sacramento. It’s got the worst business climate in the nation. We’re a laughing stock. And I want to change that," Cox, a San Diego businessman, said in the interview conducted Oct. 21, 2017. Cox cited several of the state’s high costs from housing to gas prices. We fact-checked those in a related article. He went on to say, however, that Californians also pay "the highest electricity bills" in the country. California, the center of the nation’s solar industry, is known for both producing and consuming huge amounts of electricity. But do we also pay the most on our electricity bills? We decided to shine a light on this claim. Our research California has the nation’s sixth highest retail price of electricity in the residential sector, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which provides independent analysis of energy data. So, one might assume with this high cost Californians also pay more than most states on their bills. In fact, it’s just the opposite, at least for two key sectors. California’s average residential monthly electricity bill in 2016 was $95.20, or less expensive than 39 other states, according to EIA data. Nationwide, the average bill was $112.59 per month. Meanwhile, the state’s average industrial monthly electricity bill was $3,408, or 42nd in the nation. That was about half the national average. California’s average commercial monthly electricity bill was $866, or fifth highest in the nation, much closer to the top, but by no means "the highest." "California has some of the highest rates, but they also have some of the lowest consumption per customer, so they have lower bills than most states," said Marc Hanish, an EIA expert on state electricity profiles. Indeed, California ranks 49th in the nation in per capita electricity consumption. Hanish said that’s driven both by high prices and by the state’s strong commitment to energy efficient buildings and appliances. Cox’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Our ruling Candidate for governor John Cox recently claimed California has "the highest electricity bills" in the country. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows California’s average monthly electricity bills in 2016 ranked far below the national average, particularly in the residential and industrial sectors. They were 40th and 42nd, respectively. The state’s average monthly commercial electricity bills were more expensive, at fifth highest, though still not "the highest" as Cox claimed. California’s electricity prices are more expensive than in many states. Customers in the state, however, consume far less electricity than the national average, which drives down the cost of bills. Even if Cox had claimed California had the highest electricity rates, he would still be off the mark. Cox’s campaign offered no evidence to back up his claim. We rate it False. FALSE – The statement is not accurate. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | John Cox | null | null | null | 2017-11-16T11:19:47 | 2017-10-21 | ['None'] |
pomt-11834 | Since 1965, California has built "six (college) campuses but 23 prisons." | false | /california/statements/2017/nov/09/delaine-eastin/false-claim-california-has-built-nearly-four-times/ | Candidate for California governor Delaine Eastin bills herself as the education candidate. She has, after all, spent her career in education - serving as a community college professor, as the state’s superintendent of public instruction and on the boards of the University of California and California State University systems. Early in her campaign, the Democratic candidate has called for a "reinvestment in education," including funding for universal preschool and tuition-free college. Also on the topic of higher education, Eastin has claimed in recent months that California has failed to prioritize college construction in favor of prisons. "We’ve built six total (college) campuses — one UC, three CSUs, two community colleges — since 1965. That’s six campuses but 23 prisons," Eastin said in an interview with Capital Public Radio on Oct. 16, 2017. This is not the only time Eastin has made this colleges-to-prisons comparison. In May, during her speech at the 2017 California Democratic Party State Convention, Eastin asserted that California had built "just six colleges but 22 prisons" since 1985. Was Eastin right? Has California built nearly four times as many prisons as colleges since 1965, or perhaps since 1985? We set out on a fact check. Our research First, we looked at prisons. The portion of Eastin’s claim about 23 prisons built since 1965 is correct, according to a chronological list produced by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Twenty-one have opened since 1985. Altogether, California operates 35 state prisons and houses about 129,000 inmates, according to a March 2017 report by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office. California is also home to 12 federal prisons. But because the state is not responsible for their construction or operation, we have decided not to include them. Colleges A glance at the history of the UC and CSU systems shows Eastin is again correct, at least on this portion of her claim: The University of California at Merced opened in 2005, the lone campus in the 10-campus UC system added since 1965. Meanwhile, the state has constructed three California State University campuses during this period: Cal State San Marcos in 1990, Cal State Monterey Bay in 1995 and Cal State Channel Islands in 2002. They are the newest additions to the 23-campus CSU system. We found, however, a glaring error on Eastin’s count of community colleges. There have been 41 of those campuses built since 1965 -- not the two she claimed in the radio interview. That’s according to a list on the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office website. See a list of the colleges below: California Community College Construction Infogram "I think it speaks to the important role that California community colleges play in meeting local education demand," said Erik Skinner, the community college system’s deputy chancellor, about the pace of construction. Skinner said the system has also opened 70 smaller community college "satellite centers," across the state during this period. Nine of the system’s full-scale community colleges have been built since 1985, again far more than the two Eastin claimed for this time period in her convention speech. "An error in good faith" Eastin’s spokesman Jon Murchinson acknowledged the inaccuracy of the community college statistic -- a figure that greatly throws off her "six colleges" to "23 prisons" comparison. He told PolitiFact California it was "an error in good faith as (Eastin) had heard the number from someone," and that she "regrets using it without verifying the source." He said she won’t be using it in the future. While Eastin missed the mark, a look at campus data shows the California community college system has significantly slowed its pace of construction. It built a combined 32 campuses in the 1960s and 70s but only nine in the nearly four decades after. Skinner, the system’s deputy chancellor, said construction is driven by population growth and economic conditions, which fueled the campus boom in the ‘60s and ‘70s. It has focused on adding to its existing colleges and on student completion rates in recent decades. Our ruling In a recent Capital Public Radio interview, candidate for California governor Delaine Eastin claimed the state has built only six college campuses, including two community colleges, "but 23 prisons" since 1965. Eastin was right in her count of state prisons. But she was way off the mark on colleges: California has opened 41 community colleges, three California State University campuses and one University of California campus for a total of 45 campuses since 1965. Eastin made a similar claim at the California Democratic Convention in May, though she used a more recent timeline. She said California had built "just six colleges but 22 prisons" since 1985. That statement is also inaccurate. Eastin’s campaign told us the candidate made a mistake and will correct her figures in future statements. We rate Eastin’s claim from her radio interview False. FALSE – The statement is not accurate. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. PolitiFact California intern Kathryn Palmer contributed research and writing for this article. Governor’s race Delaine Eastin is among several Democratic candidates competing to succeed Jerry Brown in the 2018 California governor's race. Others include former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; California Treasurer John Chiang; and Gavin Newsom, the state’s current lieutenant governor. Republican candidates include state Assemblyman Travis Allen and San Diego businessman John Cox. PolitiFact California is fact-checking claims in this race. See our "Tracking The Truth" governor’s race fact-checks here. Tracking the Truth: Hear a claim you want fact-checked? Email us at politifactca@capradio.org, tweet us @CAPolitiFact or contact us on Facebook. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com California Community College Construction Infogram | null | Delaine Eastin | null | null | null | 2017-11-09T17:12:26 | 2017-10-16 | ['California'] |
tron-00147 | Parents Warned about Ecstasy Being Given As Halloween Candy | mostly fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/parents-warned-about-ecstasy-being-given-as-halloween-candy-mostly-fiction/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | Parents Warned about Ecstasy Being Given As Halloween Candy | Sep 30, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00535 | Phantom “JAJKET” Item Shows Up on Walmart Receipts, Shoppers Charged $10 | investigation pending! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/walmart-jajket-receipt/ | null | business | null | null | ['scams', 'walmart', 'warnings'] | Phantom “JAJKET” Item Shows Up on Walmart Receipts, Shoppers Charged $10 | Jul 25, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
chct-00210 | Fact Checking Bernie Sanders' Recent Claims Regarding The New Tax Law | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/02/02/bernie-sanders-tax-law-fact-check/ | null | null | null | Jamie Gregora | Contributor | null | null | 11:49 PM 02/02/2018 | null | ['Bernie_Sanders'] |
pomt-14807 | In 2008, Maggie Hassan voted against legislation to "prevent sanctuary cities in New Hampshire." | mostly true | /new-hampshire/statements/2015/nov/25/jennifer-horn/did-maggie-hassan-vote-against-legislation-prevent/ | Ever since New Hampshire Gov. Maggie Hassan decided to run for U.S. Senate against incumbent Republican Kelly Ayotte, the two-term Democratic governor has come under GOP fire. The state Republican party recently took aim at Hassan’s record on immigration, suggesting that Hassan has supported so-called "sanctuary city" policies that protect illegal immigrants from federal laws. "In 2008, then-state Sen. Maggie Hassan voted to kill legislation that would have blocked any effort to promote sanctuary city policies in New Hampshire and protect illegal immigrants convicted of violent crimes," party chairwoman Jennifer Horn said in a memo titled "Maggie Hassan’s terrible campaign kickoff." PolitiFact New Hampshire decided to take a closer look at Hassan’s voting record in the state Senate. Before we get into the the specific New Hampshire legislation, let’s explain what the term "sanctuary city" means. As PolitiFact has noted before, there is no specific legal definition of "sanctuary city." Generally, though, the term refers to places where local law enforcement officers aren’t required to alert federal authorities to residents who may be in the country illegally. The policies have come into question nationally following the recent shooting death of a San Francisco woman, allegedly by a Mexican native with a criminal record. San Francisco’s quarter-century-old law declaring it a "city and county of refuge" generally bans public employees from assisting Immigration and Customs Enforcement with investigations or arrests unless required by a law or a warrant. In New Hampshire, the issue of sanctuary cities came up for debate during the 2008 legislative session. Then, former state Sen. Joe Kenney, a Republican, proposed legislation that would have barred New Hampshire from serving "as a sanctuary for illegal aliens." The bill also mandated that state law enforcement agencies enforce federal immigration laws "to the extent authorized by federal law." Hassan, then a state senator, was one of 13 Democrats who voted to kill the bill, which went down in a 13-10 vote along party lines. The state Republican Party pointed to that 2008 vote to back up their claim that Hassan voted against any effort to curb sanctuary city policies and protect illegal immigrants convicted of violent crimes. The bill, SB353, specifically stated New Hampshire "shall not serve as a sanctuary for illegal aliens" and police "shall enforce federal immigration laws to the extent authorized by federal law." A spokesman for Hassan’s senatorial campaign said she voted against it because it was an unfunded mandate. It’s worth noting New Hampshire was not home to any sanctuary cities then, nor were any efforts in the works to establish sanctuary cities in the state. And more than seven years later, New Hampshire still has no sanctuary cities, according to national lists and state officials. In other words, this was mostly symbolic legislation, since no efforts were under way to promote sanctuary cities then, nor are there any efforts now. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service published a 2006 report listing 31 cities and counties that "will generally promote policies that ensure such aliens will not be turned over to federal authorities." No New Hampshire municipalities appeared on the list. The Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors stricter immigration laws, regularly updates a map on its website detailing sanctuary cities, counties and states. No New Hampshire cities or counties appeared on that map either. And New Hampshire didn’t appear on a list created by the Ohio Jobs and Justice PAC, which was founded by Steve Salvi, a critic of sanctuary cities. In addition, both New Hampshire Deputy Attorney General Ann Rice and Tilton Police Chief Robert Cormier, who heads the New Hampshire Association of Chiefs of Police, said they are unaware of any sanctuary cities in the state. That brings us to the second piece of the bill, which would have required police to enforce federal immigration laws, to the extent allowed by federal law. Several years before SB353 was filed, in 2005, New Hampshire made national news because two of its police chiefs -- one in tiny New Ipswich and the other in the larger town of Hudson -- decided to use local criminal trespassing laws to arrest and detain immigrants who couldn’t prove they were here legally. A judge later ruled that the chiefs had violated the Constitution by trying to enforce federal laws, and the charges were dismissed after immigration lawyers challenged the trespassing charges levied against 8 men. New Hampshire police only have the authority to enforce state laws and local ordinances, not federal immigration laws, Rice said. Still, New Hampshire police do play a role in immigration enforcement. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency known as ICE, gets fingerprints from local law enforcement officers when they arrest and book a suspect. Under an initiative called Priority Enforcement Program, ICE then determines whether to detain the person for removal. ICE targets people who have been "convicted of significant criminal offenses or who otherwise pose a threat to public safety." If ICE decides the suspect should be detained, the federal agency requests a transfer from local law enforcement. "All we do, is we would contact ICE and they would make a determination," said Cormier, who doesn’t know of any local police departments that don’t comply. "We are sworn to uphold all state and federal laws, and part of that is to notify federal authorities if we get a hit on someone they are looking for," he said. Our ruling The New Hampshire Republican Party said that Maggie Hassan, as a state senator, "voted to kill legislation that would have blocked any effort to promote sanctuary city policies in New Hampshire." Hassan did vote against a 2008 bill that would have prohibited New Hampshire from serving as a "sanctuary for illegal aliens." However, it’s worth noting there were no efforts to establish sanctuary cities in the state at the time, nor are there any efforts today. The statement is accurate but needs additional information, so we rate it Mostly True. | null | Jennifer Horn | null | null | null | 2015-11-25T15:22:38 | 2015-10-21 | ['None'] |
pomt-11242 | I come from the poorest ZIP code in San Antonio. | mostly true | /texas/statements/2018/may/03/lupe-valdez/lupe-valdez-I-come-poorest-zip-code-san-antonio-te/ | Lupe Valdez, who ran ahead of fellow Democratic candidates for governor in the party’s March 2018 primary, later told a commentator she’s better qualified than the other Democrat still in the race because of challenges she’s overcome. Valdez replied to an April 2018 question about why she’s the better pick heading in the May 22, 2018, primary runoff with Houston investor Andrew White: "First of all, I come from the poorest ZIP code in San Antonio and I had to struggle to get to where I am. I had to struggle to go to school. I had to struggle to go to college. I had to struggle in the military. I was always a person struggling to get further along. I know what it is to have to struggle in your everyday life. And the majority of Texans are still struggling today." Valdez has long lived in Dallas County, where she served as the county sheriff into 2018. Still, we were curious about the relative poverty of where she grew up on San Antonio’s Westside. Campaign cites editorial When we sought more information, Kiefer Odell of Valdez’s campaign replied by email that Valdez grew up on Calles Street, which runs just a few blocks, "in the 78207 zip code in San Antonio and lived there until she went to college." Odell pointed out a March 2016 San Antonio Express-News editorial describing the 78207 ZIP code, which had been featured nearly 50 years earlier in a CBS News documentary, "Hunger in America," In 78207, the editorial said, "nearly half of the adults don’t have a high school diploma. Nearly 60 percent of adults are not working. Unemployment is up. Income is far below the state’s median level. The poverty rate is stuck at 42 percent." The editorial said: "Generations have passed, and it’s hard to say that life in the 78207 ZIP code is demonstrably better than when ‘Hunger in America’ was released." Odell pointed too to a September 2017 account from the Rivard Report, a San Antonio news website, citing a new study finding 78207 among the city’s most distressed areas. The analysis by the Economic Innovation Group, a think tank and advocacy group whose mission is to "advance solutions that empower entrepreneurs and investors to forge a more dynamic American economy," includes a clickable U.S. map that enabled us to isolate San Antonio’s ZIP codes by levels of distress. According to the research, rooted in American Community Survey data for 2011-15, the inner-city 78207 ZIP code ranks among nine San Antonio ZIP codes with distress scores of 90 percent or more. Within 78207, the research suggests, 47 percent of adults lacked a high school diploma; 46 percent weren’t working; and 41 percent of residents lived in poverty. Parsing federal estimates From the start, we confronted a hitch in fact-checking Valdez’s claim; the U.S. Postal Service put ZIP codes in place everywhere in July 1963. At the time, Valdez, born in 1947, was in her teens. Still, we were able to get information tied to ZIP codes for recent years and nearly 20 years past plus data reflecting on poverty rates by neighborhood tracing as far back as 1960. With help from Jeff Bloem of the Minnesota Population Center at the University of Minnesota, a resource suggested by Lloyd Potter, the Texas state demographer, we downloaded information collected in 1989 for the 1990 Census. Our sort of those results showed that at the time, 51 percent of residents of the 78207 ZIP code lived in poverty and the ZIP code ranked first among local ZIP codes in its raw count of residents in poverty (28,155). On the flip side, three less populous San Antonio ZIP codes had bigger shares of residents in poverty -- 78203 and 78208 (57 percent each, with 4,234 and 2,901 residents in poverty, respectively) and 78215 (53 percent, 657 people in poverty). For close-to-current data, we queried the bureau’s American FactFinder to fetch estimated poverty rates by ZIP code according to the American Community Survey covering 2012-16. Results: In those years, the 78207 ZIP code ranked second in San Antonio with 41 percent of residents (20,122 people) living in poverty--trailing the less populous 78202 ZIP code, which had 45 percent of residents (5,426 people) living in poverty. According to our sort, San Antonio ZIP codes with the next-highest poverty rates were 78203 (37 percent, 2,343 people); 78208 (35 percent, 1,527 people); and 78225 (33 percent, 4,576 people). By email, Potter cautioned against reaching conclusions based solely on the differing percentages. Once you consider ACS margins of error, Potter advised, the 78207, 78202, 78203 and 78208 ZIP codes had poverty rates not statistically distinct from each other. 78207 "is one of four ZIP codes with the highest percent living in poverty" in San Antonio, Potter summed up, and "we couldn’t say anyone was more poor than the other with statistical certainty." Potter also pointed us to Heywood Sanders, a University of Texas at San Antonio professor. When we inquired, Sanders had handy older breakdowns of poverty by neighborhood. By email, Sanders provided a 1974 bureau report, based on surveys taken in 1969, indicating that Westside neighborhoods including Calles Street accounted for the city’s greatest concentration of low-income residents. In 1969, the report states, 51,215 of the area’s 117,800 almost entirely "Spanish language" residents, 43.5 percent, lived in poverty; the report states that 36.2 percent of residents of the next-worst-off San Antonio neighborhood lived below poverty. Sanders also checked his records for poverty levels gauged for the 1960 census. According to that census, Sanders told us, the census tract taking in Calles Street ranked about sixth in the city for its share of residents in poverty with worse-off neighborhoods mostly on the Westside, which was once known as the Mexican Quarter or, more colloquially, Little Mexico, Sanders said. Why so long? We also inquired into the roots of 78207’s persistent high poverty. Potter, saying that he works in the ZIP code, said it’s "commonly known to be one of, if not, the poorest areas of the city. Many people familiar with the city would be likely to say that even without looking at the data." Another authority, Christine Drennon, director of the urban studies program at San Antonio’s Trinity University, identified a few factors. By email, Drennon said that when housing in the area was "originally built in the early part of the 20th century, most of it was NOT deed restricted, yet (it) was situated amongst deed-restricted neighborhoods. In addition, the lots were smaller and the infrastructure nearly nonexistent. "That resulted," Drennon wrote, "in a non-Anglo population living in very humble housing which was later redlined and thus denied capital for rehab or upgrades. Due to local and federal policies like these, wealth was racialized, such that today this area is both poor and non-white. The housing was never replaced, thus it continues to house some of our poorest families," Drennon said. Patti Radle, a member of the San Antonio Independent School District board of trustees, said by phone that she’s lived in the 78207 ZIP code since 1969. Poverty abides, she said, "but it’s a wonderful place to live because of the character of attention to family." Affordable housing remains a need, Radle said, and smaller streets lack sidewalks though thanks to citizen activism, many streets are far better than before. Our ruling Valdez said: "I come from the poorest ZIP code in San Antonio." Poverty rates by ZIP code aren’t available for much of Valdez’s growing-up years though figures based on surveys taken in 1959, 1969, 1989 and from 2012 through 2016 show Valdez hails from the part of San Antonio long home to the greatest number of people in poverty. That said, a few other less populous ZIP codes occasionally had greater shares of residents in poverty. We rate her claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Lupe Valdez | null | null | null | 2018-05-03T12:00:00 | 2018-04-11 | ['San_Antonio'] |
afck-00182 | “Within the National Prosecuting Authority, the Asset Forfeiture Unit completed 389 forfeiture cases to the value of R349 million.” | correct | https://africacheck.org/reports/facts-alternative-facts-zumas-10th-state-nation-address-checked/ | null | null | null | null | null | Facts or alternative facts? Zuma’s 10th State of the Nation Address checked | 2017-02-10 07:12 | null | ['None'] |
Subsets and Splits
SQL Console for pszemraj/multi_fc
Filters dataset entries containing 'law' in categories, tags, or reason fields, providing basic topic classification but offering limited analytical insight beyond simple keyword matching.
Healthcare Related Entries
Retrieves sample records containing healthcare-related keywords but doesn't provide meaningful analysis or patterns beyond basic filtering.