claimID stringlengths 10 10 | claim stringlengths 4 8.61k ⌀ | label stringclasses 116 values | claimURL stringlengths 10 303 | reason stringlengths 3 31.1k ⌀ | categories stringclasses 611 values | speaker stringlengths 3 168 ⌀ | checker stringclasses 167 values | tags stringlengths 3 315 ⌀ | article title stringlengths 2 226 ⌀ | publish date stringlengths 1 64 ⌀ | climate stringlengths 5 154 ⌀ | entities stringlengths 6 332 ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
pomt-10127 | Obama "voted for ... $3-million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/oct/10/john-mccain/obama-sought-the-money-but-its-no-mere-projector/ | Note: This item has been updated since it originally was published, with new information that has changed the ruling. Seeking to paint his Democratic rival as a spendthrift, Sen. John McCain highlighted a request Sen. Barack Obama once made to help a Chicago landmark. “He voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork-barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3-million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois,” McCain said during the Oct. 7, 2008, presidential debate. “My friends, do we need to spend that kind of money?” McCain was referring to a spending request for the 2008 budget. And, indeed, the Web site of Obama’s Senate office shows Obama asked for $3-million for the Adler Planetarium. According to Obama’s office, the equipment had begun to fail and deprived people of a learning experience. “The projection equipment in this theater is 40 years old, and is no longer supported with parts or service by the manufacturer,” his office said in a June 21, 2007, announcement. McCain refers to the item as an "overhead projector," conjuring images of those little projectors on carts in public school libraries all over America, but calling this piece of equipment an overhead projector is like calling the space shuttle a bottle rocket. The projector at Adler that would be replaced is 2½ tons, 18 feet in diameter and elevates from 12 to 20 feet. It's used to display 7,000 stars and planets that are visible, said Mark Webb, director of theaters at Adler. It has motors and gears. “The characterization of it as an overhead projector is not very accurate,” said Webb, who has been at the planetarium more than 25 years. While the museum has not settled on a specific replacement, the $3-million would help cover most of the cost of a new system of projectors. It will be computerized with light sources that would display all the visible stars plus the deep space stars and planets. It would have hard drives and software to transfer megabytes of data, he said. The projector system is part of a $10-million theater upgrade at Adler, the first U.S. location with a planetarium. As PolitiFact has previously reported , Obama has sought — but not necessarily received — $931.3-million in spending, including the projector system money. More broadly, annual votes for spending bills mean Obama, like other Congress members, has likely supported a lot more earmarks. But Obama didn’t actually vote for the projector as McCain stated. The request — which was a tenfold hike from a failed request a year earlier — never made it past the Senate appropriations committee, said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense. And Obama isn’t a member of the panel. But Obama did go for the money. “I think for most voters it’s a fine line to draw,” Ellis said. We originally rated McCain’s statement as Mostly True when we confined our review to the earmark issue. But after several readers alerted us to the true nature of the projector, we decided further reporting and study of the details of the project were required. McCain is right that Obama sought the money (though not a vote), but because McCain mischaracterizes the size of the projector to enhance his argument that money is being wasted, we have changed our ruling. We say Half True. | null | John McCain | null | null | null | 2008-10-10T00:00:00 | 2008-10-07 | ['Chicago', 'Barack_Obama'] |
tron-02250 | Kissing Bug Spreading “Silent Killer” Disease | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/kissing-bug/ | null | medical | null | null | null | Kissing Bug Spreading “Silent Killer” Disease | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02658 | “Evilstick” Toy Wand Hides Demonic Image | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/evilstick-toy-demonic-image/ | null | miscellaneous | null | null | null | “Evilstick” Toy Wand Hides Demonic Image – Truth! | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03287 | A baby was eaten by giant rats in South Africa. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/baby-eaten-giant-rats/ | null | Crime | null | Bethania Palma | null | Baby Eaten by Giant Rats | 21 December 2016 | null | ['South_Africa'] |
pomt-04380 | George Bush never suggested that we eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/19/barack-obama/obama-says-bush-never-sought-defund-planned-parent/ | During a town hall presidential debate in which audience members got to ask the questions, one woman asked Mitt Romney how he would differ from the last Republican to occupy the White House: George W. Bush. "Since both you and President Bush are Republicans, I fear a return to the policies of those years should you win this election," said undecided voter Susan Katz. "What is the biggest difference between you and George W. Bush, and how do you differentiate yourself from George W. Bush?" Romney detailed several ways he would depart from Bush’s policies, then President Barack Obama chimed in, saying Romney was actually further to the right than Bush. "George Bush never suggested that we eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, so there are differences between Gov. Romney and George Bush," Obama said, as one example. Planned Parenthood provides low-cost reproductive health services but is also the nation’s leading provider of abortions. Romney and other Republicans have vowed to eliminate its federal funding, a move Obama opposes. But where did the 43rd president stand on the subject? We decided to check it out. Planned Parenthood and federal funding The organization, founded in 1921, has received federal funds since 1970, when President Richard Nixon signed a law amending the Public Health Service Act. Title X of that law provides funding for family planning services, including contraception and family planning information. Planned Parenthood now operates more than 800 clinics in all 50 states. The bulk of their work is women’s health care: cancer screenings, STD treatment, sex education, contraceptives, pregnancy care and breast exams. In many states, they also perform abortions -- more than 330,000 a year. The group receives millions in federal money every year, in the form of grants and reimbursements for the health services its provides. In 2009, its federal funding totalled $360 million. Planned Parenthood says abortions account for 3 percent of its services, which are prohibited from being paid for with public money. The group says it is careful to keep the money separate. Still, it’s that 3 percent that makes it a target in the national abortion battle. What Bush did In one of his first acts as president, Bush reinstated what is known as the Mexico City policy, or (as abortion rights advocates called it) the global gag rule, in January 2001. The rule denies money to overseas family planning clinics (such as Planned Parenthood’s international arm) that provide abortion counseling in foreign countries. At the end of Bush’s term, International Planned Parenthood Federation said that during those eight years, they lost more than $100 million for family planning and health programs. The consequence of losing those funds, the group said: 36 million unplanned pregnancies and 15 million induced abortions. When Obama took office, he revoked the Mexico City policy. What Bush didn’t do As president, Bush called himself a "compassionate conservative" and spoke of supporting "a culture of life." He steered money to faith-based groups, and he signed a federal ban on late-term abortions in 2003. When he ran for re-election in 2004, Planned Parenthood endorsed Democrat John Kerry, the first time the group formally backed a presidential candidate. That said, we searched media reports from Bush’s eight years in office and found no instances of the president pushing to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood’s work in the United States. We contacted Planned Parenthood itself, which also couldn’t cite evidence of Bush targeting their federal money. On the contrary, we found ample evidence that Bush was satisfied with the status quo. In 1999, when he was first running for president, he declined to sign a pledge to defund Planned Parenthood, saying he supported "incremental changes helpful to America's pro-life movement." The Obama campaign also pointed us to information on Title X funding (which pays for the health services Planned Parenthood provides) during the Bush years. His 2002 budget proposal eliminated contraceptive coverage for federal employees but maintained funding for Title X, including $66 million for Planned Parenthood. A budget bill he signed in 2007 provided "the largest increase in Title X family planning funding since 2000, a $16.8 million increase from the previous year," according to a Planned Parenthood press release. Romney’s stance Eliminating funding for Planned Parenthood has gotten more attention since a Republican majority, backed by the new tea party wave of conservatism, took control of the House of Representatives in 2011. "This is when we're going to defund Planned Parenthood. Now is the season for us to do this," Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., said in February 2011. (Stearns later lost his primary battle to a more ardent tea party candidate.) The House voted in February 2011 to block Planned Parenthood funding, and all money for family planning. (The Democrat-controlled Senate rejected the package.) The message also caught on in the Republican presidential primary contest. Newt Gingrich, at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition dinner that same month, said, "I would immediately move to defund Planned Parenthood and take that money and devote it to adoption services to create an alternative to abortion." Romney, for his part, has repeatedly pledged to revoke Planned Parenthood’s funding. His website says he would "eliminate Title X Family Planning Funding — Savings: $300 Million. Title X subsidizes family planning programs that benefit abortion groups like Planned Parenthood." And after he told the Des Moines Register on Oct. 9, 2012, that there’s no abortion legislation on his agenda, he was forced to re-state his anti-abortion stance: "The actions I’ll take immediately is to remove funding for Planned Parenthood. It will not be part of my budget. And also I’ve indicated that I will reverse the Mexico City position of the president." With the spotlight on the organization, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards told the Washington Post in August, "I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never seen a presidential election where women’s basic access to birth control is practically on the ballot. Defunding Planned Parenthood is practically on the ballot. It’s been incredible to witness the last year and a half and this debate we’ve had over access to care. ... This is not something that John McCain was campaigning to do. George Bush wasn’t either. I’ve never seen anything quite like it." Our ruling Obama said in the debate that, "George Bush never suggested that we eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood." In fact, one of Bush’s first acts as president was to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood and other groups working overseas that counsel women about abortion. But as for eliminating Title X funding for health services that Planned Parenthood provides in the United States -- which is what Romney and other Republicans of today favor -- Obama is right. We found no evidence that Bush sought such a change, and Title X funding actually increased during his presidency. We rate Obama’s statement Mostly True. Editor's note: This report has been changed to note that abortion rights advocates refer to the Mexico City policy as "the global gag rule." Anti-abortion advocates oppose referring to the policy by that term. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2012-10-19T13:22:22 | 2012-10-16 | ['Planned_Parenthood', 'George_W._Bush'] |
goop-02128 | Jennifer Aniston Slammed Celine Dion Over Anti-Donald Trump Remarks? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-celine-dion-donald-trump/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Jennifer Aniston Slammed Celine Dion Over Anti-Donald Trump Remarks? | 5:10 pm, November 28, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03979 | After his release from prison, Brock Turner was beaten by a dildo-wielding flash mob. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/brock-turner-beaten-by-flash-mob/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Brock Turner Beaten with Sex Toys by Flash Mob | 21 September 2016 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02707 | Drake Scared By Haunted Houdini House? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/drake-scared-haunted-house-houdini/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Drake Scared By Haunted Houdini House? | 11:05 pm, June 28, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00791 | I've never been for prevailing wage because it drives up the cost | in the works | https://www.politifact.com/ohio/promises/kasich-o-meter/promise/822/eliminate-prevailing-wage-rules-public-constructio/ | null | kasich-o-meter | John Kasich | null | null | Eliminate prevailing wage rules on public construction projects | 2011-01-07T15:00:20 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08570 | Says with the ongoing economic downturn, child abuse is on the rise. | mostly true | /oregon/statements/2010/sep/28/jeff-merkley/jeff-merkley-says-economic-downturn-oregon-seeing-/ | Sen. Jeff Merkley appeared at the new Children’s Center in Clackamas County to raise awareness about an increase in child abuse and, according to his news release, to highlight "the correlation to the economic downturn." "Even one case of child abuse or neglect is too many, and with the ongoing economic downturn, the numbers of Oregon children suffering from abuse is on the rise," said Merkley. "We must do everything in our power to reduce the number of children being abused and help provide sanctuary to those in need." The Children’s Center received some federal money last year. And the visit was a good photo op for a freshman senator during a congressional break. But at Politifact Oregon, we wondered if child abuse really is on the rise and if there is actually a cause-and-effect connection between child abuse and dismal economic times. Merkley is correct about the increase: More Oregon children are suffering abuse and neglect. The Oregon Department of Human Services reports that 11,090 children were victims of abuse or neglect last year, a 6.4 percent increase from 2008. Population growth isn’t the only culprit behind the higher numbers. The state reports that the rate of abuse increased from 11.8 victims per 1,000 children to 12.5 per 1,000. A check with the agency’s number-crunchers indicates the trend holds this year, with abuse reports up between 6 percent and 7 percent between July 2009 and July 2010. Though reports don’t always turn out to be confirmed cases, officials say they expect the number of child victims will rise again for 2010. But is the increase because of high unemployment? Merkley’s spokeswoman, Courtney Warner Crowell, said she hadn’t seen any research linking a rise in abuse to an economic downturn. But she said several people she’d talked to blamed the increase in child abuse on the economy. But there isn’t any statistical evidence drawing a direct link between increased child abuse and a bad economy. "We can’t say that factually and we can’t prove it," says Katharine Cahn, executive director of the Child Welfare Partnership at Portland State University. The number of child abuse victims can rise, even in good times, Cahn says, simply because more people are reporting the abuse. State stats do show alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and parental run-ins with police among the common stress factors that contribute to child abuse. Cahn concedes that people do feel stressed and depressed when the economy goes bust and may drink or use drugs in an attempt to cope. And that, she says, may be the indirect tie to Oregon’s rising numbers. So, it appears that while Oregon’s junior senator was right about the numbers of kids abused, the sour economy may not be deserve all the blame. We find the claim Mostly True. Comment on this item. | null | Jeff Merkley | null | null | null | 2010-09-28T06:00:00 | 2010-09-01 | ['None'] |
hoer-00551 | 'Chinese Miner Found Alive After 17 Years Underground' | statirical reports | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/hoax-miner-found-alive-seventeen-years-underground.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | HOAX - 'Chinese Miner Found Alive After 17 Years Underground' | May 14, 2014 | null | ['None'] |
pose-01179 | To improve campus leadership, the state should offer financial support that enables public school principals and others in leadership positions to receive optional advanced leadership training. | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/texas/promises/abbott-o-meter/promise/1269/launch-school-principals-leadership-training-progr/ | null | abbott-o-meter | Greg Abbott | null | null | Launch school principals leadership training program | 2015-01-20T14:00:00 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01521 | The U.S. State Department has ordered 160,000 Hazmat suits for Ebola, prompting concerns that the federal government is anticipating the rapid spread of the virus. | half-true | /punditfact/statements/2014/sep/19/blog-posting/infowars-us-ordering-16000-hazmat-suits-sign-ebola/ | As Ebola continues to spread in Africa, the United States has committed over $100 million in aid, in the form of both supplies and personnel. But fringe voices on the Web are suggesting that Ebola is even a bigger threat than the U.S. government is letting on. The conspiracy website InfoWars reported this week that "the U.S. State Department has ordered 160,000 Hazmat suits for Ebola, prompting concerns that the federal government is anticipating the rapid spread of a virus that has already claimed an unprecedented number of lives." The InfoWars report cites a press release from Lakeland Industries, which manufactures protective clothing, and the InfoWars report says that "only 1,400 federal workers are currently in the region (western Africa), suggesting that the 160,000 figure is far higher than what would be required merely for sending medical workers abroad." From there, InfoWars cites a German virologist to the effect that Ebola’s death toll will climb to 5 million (the Ebola outbreak has claimed 2,630 deaths at time of writing), and suggests that "Ebola could have gone airborne to at least a limited extent." (We found plenty of other examples of the Hazmat story floating around the Internet.) We’re not going to touch speculation about Ebola’s evolution, but we wanted to check his claim that the State Department has ordered 160,000 Hazmat suits for Ebola, and that their order reflects the federal government’s anticipation of a "rapid spread" of Ebola. The press release The Lakeland press release, which announces its increased "manufacturing capacity" for the "specialty protective suits to be worn by health care workers and others being exposed to Ebola," only has a sentence relating to the State Department’s order. "With the U.S. State Department alone putting out a bid for 160,000 suits," they say, "we encourage all protective apparel companies to increase their manufacturing capacity for sealed seam garments so that our industry can do its part in addressing this threat to global health." That’s not much to go on, but there’s a crucial distinction that InfoWars glosses over: The press release mentions a bid, not an "order." That means that while a purchase of 160,000 suits may be in the works, it’s not final yet and may not even happen. U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) spokesman Matt Herrick said that he couldn’t "speak to specific procurement that is in process and not awarded," but confirmed that the Lakeland press release "is in reference to USAID and our ongoing efforts to secure personal protective equipment to combat the spread of Ebola." The bid InfoWars is referring to comes from USAID, which is technically independent of the State Department. The two organizations, though, work closely together. USAID USAID has been providing protective equipment to partners in Africa since March, Herrick said. That includes Hazmat suits like the ChemMax 1 suit referred to in Lakeland’s press release. The suit, while not Ebola-exclusive, is designed to protect against infectious agents. Beyond the suits, USAID’s assistance to African organizations has come in the form of disease-control experts, funding and a variety of emergency supplies. Herrick referred us to this series of press releases on USAID’s efforts. "Last month, USAID airlifted more than 16 tons of medical supplies and emergency equipment to Liberia," Herrick said, including 10,000 Hazmat suits, water treatment units, and plastic sheeting to create Ebola treatment units. That might seem like a lot of suits, but "the equipment set is designed to be worn just once and then disposed of once treatment is administered," said Herrick. "So many sets are needed for each health provider." "USAID has procured and delivered more than 100,000 suits to date, and we are on track to procure and deliver more than 130,000 additional suits," Herrick said. "The equipment is provided to local health care workers and nongovernmental partners working in the affected countries." Herrick wouldn’t elaborate on how the suits from the bid related to USAID’s plans, but the figures he gave are crucial context. The 160,000 suits aren’t actually "far higher than what would be required merely for sending medical workers abroad," as InfoWars claimed. USAID has provided almost that many suits already, and there seems to be an immediate need for more. This information is also public via USAID’s press releases, so it's not as though they’re privately predicting a "rapid spread" of Ebola beyond the scope of the current outbreak. Our ruling The website InfoWars claimed that the State Department "has ordered 160,000 Hazmat suits for Ebola," demonstrating that "the federal government is anticipating the rapid spread of a virus that has already claimed an unprecedented number of lives." The federal government agency in question is USAID, but that’s something of a technicality. A USAID official told us that the suits are one use only, so 160,000 suits aren’t actually an astronomical amount. In fact, USAID has already delivered 100,000 suits to the Ebola-infected regions of Africa. Their new bid, while an expansion of their efforts, is in line with what USAID has done so far, and doesn’t demonstrate that the federal government is anticipating any sort of "rapid spread." We rate the claim Half True. | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2014-09-19T11:00:00 | 2014-09-15 | ['United_States_Department_of_State', 'Ebola_virus_disease'] |
pomt-02776 | One-third of all bank tellers (are) on public assistance. | mostly true | /punditfact/statements/2013/dec/08/james-carville/james-carville-13-bank-tellers-are-public-assistan/ | One of the economic challenges facing the country is a growing inequality of income. Wealthier people are getting richer while the great majority of Americans are either making no gains or actually losing ground. The political parties differ on how they frame this problem. Republicans tend to say the solution is to create more jobs. Democrats agree but add that the quality of a job, primarily the pay, matters just as much. Democratic strategist James Carville waded into this debate during ABC’s This Week. Carville picked an industry where the gap between the upper and lower ends is particularly strong. "Can I just make one jaw-dropping point? This week it came out, a UC Berkeley study … said one-third of all bank tellers are on public assistance," Carville said. "Why don't we pass a law to say if you were bailed out or you get free money from the fed or your deposits are insured or you're too big to fail, if the government backs you to that extent and you're that profitable an industry, you have to pay people a living wage?" We’ll set aside the question of bailouts and livable wages. Our focus is on the claim that a third of bank tellers are on public assistance. As Carville said, that statistic comes from a study by the University of California - Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education. A New York City group, the Committee for Better Banks, commissioned the analysis. The committee says it represents the interests of frontline and back office bank workers. "Salaries for bank tellers nationwide are so low that 31 percent of bank tellers and their family members are enrolled in some type of public assistance program," the committee cites in its report. That public assistance takes many forms. The grand total is nearly $900 million, with Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program accounting for over half. Food stamps, the Earned Income Tax Credit and welfare (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) make up the remainder. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the country had 560,000 tellers in 2010. The median wage was about $11.55 an hour, or $24,100 a year. About three-fourths of these people worked full time. In contrast, the median pay for a bank CEO was more than $550,000 last year and industry profits were over $140 billion. Carville pretty accurately quoted the report except in one respect that doesn’t make an enormous difference. He said one-third of bank tellers are on public assistance. The report actually spoke of bank tellers and their family members. That would include a worker’s child who gets health care through the Children’s Health Insurance Program. But since that child is eligible because the family makes less than a certain amount, we think it’s a minor point. The Berkeley Center recently did a similar analysis of fast food workers. When PunditFact looked into claims based on that report, we found that there was some disagreement among experts as to whether children’s insurance and the Earned Income Tax Credit should be counted as public assistance because these programs help families making as much as $50,000 a year. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 10 percent of bank tellers make more than about $32,000 a year. The government might have designed these programs to help somewhat more comfortable working families but that doesn’t change that the majority of bank tellers have very modest household incomes. The center used the same analytic method in both the fast food and bank teller studies. It is a model that involves a complex blending of different government data sets. In our last fact-check, experts generally agreed that the approach would produce reasonably accurate results. Our ruling Carville said that one-third of bank tellers are on public assistance. In large part, Carville was faithful to a labor market analysis conducted on behalf of a group that advocates for better pay for lower-level bank employees. Carville made a minor error in talking about the bank tellers themselves when the study included their children. And there is debate among experts as to whether children’s insurance and the Earned Income Tax Credit should be counted as public assistance. Because of those caveats, we rate the claim Mostly True. | null | James Carville | null | null | null | 2013-12-08T17:10:19 | 2013-12-08 | ['None'] |
pomt-13111 | Prior to Obamacare here in Wisconsin, 95 percent of Wisconsinites were covered by insurance. After Obamacare, 95 percent of Wisconsinites were covered by insurance. It hasn’t had an impact. | false | /wisconsin/statements/2016/nov/04/ron-johnson/debunking-ron-johnson-claim-obamacare-had-no-impac/ | U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson has offered many critiques of Obamacare, but in an October 2016 debate he claimed that in Wisconsin the health care law has also failed to accomplish its most fundamental goal — insuring more people. In an Oct. 14 debate with challenger Russ Feingold in Green Bay, Johnson criticized the Affordable Care Act for boosting premiums and limiting access to doctors. And he said this: "The fact of the matter is, prior to Obamacare here in Wisconsin, 95 percent of Wisconsinites were covered by insurance. After Obamacare, 95 percent of Wisconsinites were covered by insurance. It hasn’t had an impact." Let’s take a look at the numbers. Wrong number When we reached out to Johnson’s team for supporting evidence, spokesman Ben Voelkel said Johnson made a mistake in his claim. He meant to say 94% were insured before Obamacare and 95% after. That’s not a huge difference, but it changes Johnson’s point that the law "hasn’t had an impact." Voelkel said those numbers came from the 2010 and 2014 Wisconsin Family Health Survey, conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. That looks at how many people had insurance for all or part of the preceding year. The Affordable Care Act was signed into law in 2010, but the individual health insurance mandate and most other core elements didn’t take effect until 2014. Using the 2010 survey is problematic since DHS changed its methodology and warns against comparing surveys before 2012 with those after. That doesn’t make a big difference in this case, however, because the 2012 survey showed the same 94 percent insured rate as 2010. But 2014 isn’t necessarily a great choice for an "after" statistic, since it was a transition year. And there’s more recent data available. DHS hasn’t released the results of its 2015 survey yet, but the U.S. Census Bureau and other surveys have. And those numbers tell a different story than Johnson. Uninsured numbers drop The U.S. Census Bureau gathers figures annually on insurance status and shows a significant drop in the number of Wisconsinites without insurance since Obamacare took effect. After hovering between 9 percent and 9.4 percent uninsured from 2008 to 2013, Wisconsin dropped to 7.3 percent in 2014 and 5.7 percent in 2015, according to the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey. That’s a drop of nearly 40 percent from before Obamacare to after. "Johnson’s claim is way off base," said Jon Peacock, research director for the nonprofit, non-partisan Wisconsin Council on Children and Families. Peacock said the American Community Survey is the best source for such health data. Like the DHS survey, it counts people as insured if they had health insurance for any part of the prior year. Other sources show the same trend. The Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit think tank focusing on national health issues, says the percentage uninsured in Wisconsin dropped from 9 percent in 2013 to 7 percent in 2015, based on the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, a point-in-time survey that measures whether the survey taker currently has health insurance, showed an even larger drop, from 11.7 percent uninsured in 2013 to 5.9 percent in 2015. Our rating Johnson claimed that 95 percent of Wisconsinites were insured both before and after Obamacare. The claim runs into problems on several fronts. He misspoke on the statistic he was trying to cite, and he references a 2014 survey when more recent data is available. But above all, he uses the numbers to claim Obamacare hasn’t had an impact on the number of uninsured in Wisconsin. And that’s simply not the case. We rate the claim False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/426b9f15-987a-490a-a236-7ce830040a17 | null | Ron Johnson | null | null | null | 2016-11-04T09:58:37 | 2016-10-14 | ['Wisconsin', 'Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act'] |
pomt-13549 | Prop 56 cheats schools out of at least $600 million. | mostly false | /california/statements/2016/aug/26/no-56-campaign/big-tobacco-misleads-mostly-false-claim-prop-56-ch/ | Opponents of Proposition 56, California’s proposed $2 per pack cigarette tax hike, are flooding radio airwaves with attacks on the measure. The initiative is one of many on the state’s November ballot. The No on 56 campaign is funded by tobacco companies Phillip Morris and R.J. Reynolds. Its campaign says online and in radio ads that the measure "cheats schools out of at least $600 million a year." The industry attacks are not surprising. And they’ll likely continue as opponents of the measure have raised more than $35 million, while supporters have collected about $17 million. We wondered whether there’s any truth to the claim that Prop 56 ‘cheats’ schools out of all that money. Our research Nearly three decades ago, voters in California approved Proposition 98 requiring a minimum level of funding for public education. It requires the state to dedicate roughly 40 percent of new General Fund revenues to K-12 schools and community colleges. Prop 56 would generate up to $1.4 billion in tax revenue its first year. But instead of sending that revenue to the General Fund, Prop 56 would place it in a special fund to help pay for Medi-Cal, which provides health coverage for millions of low-income Californians. We asked the No on 56 campaign for evidence that the tobacco tax measure ‘cheats’ schools. A spokeswoman pointed to language in the measure that exempts Prop 56 from the school funding guarantee. The campaign said this exemption is proof that the measure undermines the funding guarantee and ‘cheats’ schools. But the experts we spoke with say there’s nothing new about this proposal. Past tobacco taxes, in 1988 and 1998, also established special funds rather than sending money to the General Fund. One of the experts said the opponents’ claim is misleading. "When I think of this claim that the schools are going to be cheated -- particularly that word ‘cheated’ out of this money -- that suggests something that’s wrong or illegal. And this is not the case," said Steve Boilard, executive director of Sacramento State University’s Center for California Studies. "There’s plenty of examples where new revenue is raised that is not subject to the Prop 98 funding guarantee." Boilard pointed to Proposition 63, a tax on wealthy Californians that funds mental health services. Curran Kelleher / Flickr Others reject claim State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson rejected the claim that the new tax measure ‘cheats’ schools. In a recent letter circulated by the Yes on 56 campaign, he wrote: "Make no mistake, Proposition 56 will not divert a dime away from schools. Rather, it will raise revenues for school based tobacco prevention and intervention programs." A report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates Prop 56 will add $20 million for those school based programs. The Sacramento Bee’s fact-checking team, PoliGRAPH, recently examined the same claim about Prop 56 ‘cheating’ schools. It found that it "isn’t fair to say the measure 'cheats' schools out of $600 million a year. Nothing in the measure reduces school funding. If the measure passes, the budget for schools does not decrease." Our ruling The No on 56 campaign is running ads that say the proposed tobacco tax "cheats schools out of at least $600 million a year." The measure includes an exemption from the state’s school funding guarantee. A portion of its revenues, estimated at up to $1.4 billion, could otherwise have been directed toward school funding. But past tobacco taxes and a tax to fund mental health services have also legally avoided this guarantee. Those had exemptions allowing their revenues to fund health services. This doesn't mean, however, that money will be taken from schools or community colleges under Prop 56. The measure, in fact, sends about $20 million to schools for tobacco prevention programs. The claim that Prop 56 "cheats" schools goes too far. It might have been accurate to say the measure exempts most all revenue from going to schools. But the term chosen by No on 56 is misleading. We rate the claim Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/aabdc989-5155-4716-837a-cae1783eac21 | null | No on 56 campaign | null | null | null | 2016-08-26T06:00:00 | 2016-08-16 | ['None'] |
hoer-00305 | 'Account Reported for Annoying and Insulting Facebook Users' | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/facebook-reported-annoying-insulting-phishing.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Phishing Scam - 'Account Reported for Annoying and Insulting Facebook Users' | August 23, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02510 | Did a Car Run Over a Trump Protester on a Highway? | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/run-over-trump-protesters/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Did a Car Run Over Trump Protesters on a Highway? | 2 May 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11241 | Says "precisely zero terrorists, terrorist groups or terror plots have ever been connected with the U.S.-Mexico border to do harm to people within the United States." | false | /texas/statements/2018/may/03/beto-orourke/beto-orourke-zero-terrorists-harm-Americans-Mexico/ | At a North Texas campaign stop, Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Beto O’Rourke declared there have been "precisely zero" terrorists, terror groups or plots against Americans also connected to the U.S.-Mexico border. None ever? That seemed like a big gulp. We heard the El Paso congressman's comment by watching his campaign’s Facebook Live video of his 35-minute Jan. 3, 2018, "town hall" in Greenville, the county seat of Hunt County. O’Rourke took aim at President Donald Trump’s desire for a border wall, saying: "At this time of vicious rhetoric, paranoia and fear and hatred and bigotry aimed at the rest of the world, can you get this: a 2,000-mile, $25 billion, 30-foot-high, pure concrete wall at a time of record U.S.-Mexico border security, at a time that zero, precisely zero, terrorists, terrorist groups or terror plots have ever been connected with the U.S.-Mexico border to do harm to people within the United States?" O'Rourke cites testimony O’Rourke made a similar statement on Facebook in 2015, writing: "As a member of the House Homeland Security committee in the 113th Congress, I asked the director of the FBI, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center and the Secretary of Homeland Security if there was currently any terrorist threat on the Southern border. They answered that there was not, nor had there ever been, any terrorist, terrorist plot, or terrorist organization that was able to exploit our border with Mexico." When we asked O’Rourke’s campaign to provide his basis for declaring no connections ever between terrorists or terror plots and the U.S.-Mexico border, campaign spokesman Chris Evans emailed us a document centered on whether terrorists made moves along the border into late 2014. The document, titled "Border ISIL Fact Sheet #1," references 2014 video clips of and numerous news reports about Department of Homeland Security officials rebutting claims that ISIS had plans to enter the U.S. through Mexico. Some of the reports note that conservatives, including U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, the Republican who seeks re-election against O’Rourke this November, raised concerns that members of ISIS could enter or might have already entered the U.S. Federal officials pushed back. According to a New York Daily News account cited in O’Rourke’s document, Jennifer Lasley, a Homeland Security official, told House members at a Sept. 10, 2014, hearing: "We don't have any credible information that we are aware of, of known or suspected terrorists coming across the border." A Texas document O’Rourke’s information was more than three years old when he made his claim in Greenville. So as part of gauging his claim, we searched the Nexis database for news accounts posted since 2011 of terrorist plots connected to the border, finding none. We also took note of nine past PolitiFact fact-checks of border terrorist claims that did not prove accurate. In February 2018, for instance, we found Pants on Fire a claim that "along the southern border of the U.S.," the government apprehends "seven individuals a day who are either known or suspected terrorists." No facts backed up that border-specific claim. Nationally in 2017, Homeland Security reported stopping 2,554 individuals on its terrorist watch list from entering the country, most of whom tried to enter by air. Earlier, though, PolitiFact Florida in 2016 found Mostly True a claim that according to reports, U.S. Customs and Border Protection had "apprehended several members of known Islamist terrorist organizations crossing the southern border in recent years." There had been one such report, by a Texas agency. Yet in its 2015 document assessing state-level border security efforts, the Texas Department of Public Safety also acknowledged no plots uncovered. The document, obtained at the time by the Houston Chronicle, notes that Mexican drug cartels draw on transnational gangs to commit crimes in Texas. It goes on: "Illegal aliens from countries documented by the U.S. Department of State as having a known terrorism presence continue to be smuggled into and throughout Texas and the nation on a regular basis, and it is impossible to determine how many of these individuals have actually entered the U.S. undetected." "Texas," the document says, "leads the nation in the apprehension of ‘special interest aliens’ (SIA), and there is a legitimate concern that terrorists from around the world could exploit our country’s porous Southwest border to enter the U.S. undetected, if they have not done so already." Such individuals, the document says, are "citizens of 35 countries that could represent a terrorist threat," most of which are in the Middle East and North Africa. Smuggling Somali nationals The report also singles out law enforcement encounters with Somali nationals described as having connections to terrorist groups. Of the Somali travelers, the document says, one was a member of terror group al-Shabaab and claimed to have defected and another was previously denied a visa and on "multiple U.S. terrorism watch lists." A third, Ahmed Muhammed Dhakane – the only one identified in the document – was an active member of the terror group, the document says, and a "guerilla fighter and human smuggler who knowingly helped move into the U.S. several potentially dangerous Somali terrorists who he believed would commit violent acts if ordered to do so." The document also mentions an American citizen who, "for a period of several years until January 2010," smuggled 272 Somalis into the country through Cuba and Mexico. "Investigators stated that he acknowledged that leaders of al-Shabaab solicited his services but that he declined," the report states. "However, investigators found an email exchange in which he acknowledged, ‘I helped a lot of Somalis and most are good but there are some who are bad and I leave them to Allah.’" Newspaper specifies terrorist ties More detail came to our attention in a Jan. 15, 2017 Christian Science Monitor news story that also pinpointed other cases tracing terrorist plots or organizations to the Mexico-U.S. border. The story, citing court documents, identifies the smuggler of Somalis as Anthony Joseph Tracy. Under the scheme, the story said, Tracy's clients flew from Kenya to Dubai to Moscow to Cuba. From there, the story says, they would fly to Belize and then travel to Mexico to make their way across the U.S. border. Tracy, the story says, pleaded guilty to a single charge of conspiring to induce non-citizens to enter the country without legal authorization. The Monitor story also lists the cases of Mahmoud Kourani, Adnan El Shukrijumah and Abdullahi Omar Fidse. According to the story, Kourani was a Hezbollah fundraiser smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico in 2001. He was later sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to "conspiring to support a terrorist organization," according to a June 15, 2005 Associated Press news account. Shukrijumah, who landed on the FBI’s most-wanted list after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, was said to have hidden in northern Mexico—among varied places—and then plotted a foiled 2009 New York City subway suicide bombing attack. It’s unclear whether that plot involved the U.S.-Mexico border; the Monitor story says Shukrijumah was killed near the Pakistan-Afghan border in 2014. The story states that Fidse entered the U.S. from Mexico at the Hidalgo, Texas port of entry in 2008 and told officials he was a Somalian refugee. Officials later learned that he lied about his background, the story says, and Fidse confided to an FBI informant that he supported Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda and Al Shabab. "Fidse was denied asylum," the story says. "Instead he was prosecuted and sentenced to eight years in prison for lying to federal agents." The 2015 DPS document, despite detailing some such activities, notes a lack of evidence of terrorist plots or activities associated with the border, stating: "We judge that foreign terrorists almost certainly are aware of the U.S.-Mexico border’s vulnerability to illegal entry, though we currently are not aware of any specific and credible information indicating a terrorist plot associated with the border." State Department: No ‘credible information’ Web searches led us to a recent federal analysis with a similar nothing-known bottom line. The State Department’s 2016 Country Reports on Terrorism, published in July 2017, states that the agency’s work with Mexico has maintained border security. "Counterterrorism cooperation between the Mexican and U.S. governments remained strong," the department summed up, going on: "There are no known international terrorist organizations operating in Mexico, no evidence that any terrorist group has targeted U.S. citizens in Mexican territory, and no credible information that any member of a terrorist group has traveled through Mexico to gain access to the United States." To our inquiry in April 2018, Nicole Thompson, a State Department spokeswoman, said by email that the judgment that no terrorist had traveled through Mexico to gain U.S. access still held. We were unsuccessful eliciting judgments on terrorist threats tied to the border from the Department of Homeland Security as well as border and homeland security officials for the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Cato Institute: No terrorist plots We also reviewed a non-government analysis, reaffirmed in 2018, that found no terrorist plots involving adults crossing the U.S.-Mexico border--but one ultimately foiled plot involving ethnic Albanians who'd entered the country as youngsters accompanying their parents. In 2016, Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst for the Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy research organization, wrote a "risk analysis of the visa categories" used by foreign-born terrorists who had carried out attacks in the U.S. between 1975 and 2015. Over the 40 years, Nowrasteh concluded, nine terrorists carried out or had plans to carry out U.S. attacks after entering the country illegally. "Those nine terrorists killed zero people in terrorist attacks on U.S. soil from 1975 through 2017," Nowrasteh said in a Jan. 19, 2018, article on the institute’s website. "Of those nine terrorists who entered illegally," Nowrasteh elaborated, "only three did so along the border with Mexico: Shain Duka, Britan Duka, and Eljvir Duka crossed as children with their parents in 1984. They are ethnic Albanians from Macedonia. They were three conspirators in the incompetently planned Fort Dix plot that the FBI foiled in 2007, long after they became adults and more than two decades after they entered illegally." That plot, the New York Times reported in 2007, was stopped thanks in part to government infiltrators. The newspaper said the plotters were part of a group of extremists who "represent the newest breed of threat: loosely organized domestic militants unconnected to — but inspired by — Al Qaeda or other international terror groups." That Fort Dix plan, Nowrasteh commented by phone, wasn’t one 23 years in the making. "It was just…you’re going to have an immigrant terrorist, he had to have entered at some time, and these kids happened to enter when they were children," Nowrasteh said, "and then grew up to become really bad terrorists who didn’t kill anybody and got caught." Nowrasteh said he gathered the identities of terrorists from nine data sets and documents and used "news stories, court documents, government reports and publicly accessible databases" to round out his research. Also by phone, Sanho Tree, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, said he didn’t know of terror plots with ties to the southern border but sees "serious vulnerability" in that terrorists could collaborate with drug cartels. Then again, Tree said, that’s not likely at moment because "no head of a cartel wants to engage with terrorists because if they’re ever caught, then the entire weight of the U.S. federal government falls on their head and not on their rivals." A 2011 assassination plot To our inquiries, experts including Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a right-leaning foreign policy think tank, referenced a 2011 plot to assassinate Adel al-Jubeir, then the Saudi ambassador to the United States. Iranian-born Manssor Arbabsiar, a Texas car salesman, who ventured south from Texas into a Mexico border city to enlist a Mexican drug cartel willing to carry out the hit. Arbabsiar had plans beyond that, including wanting to attack the Israeli embassy to the U.S. in Washington, D.C., and Israeli and Saudi embassies in Argentina, according to a January 2015 Chronicle news story. Arbabsiar thought his plan was underway, the story says, but the federal government was building a case against him. Arbabsiar, ultimately sentenced to 25 years in prison, later would cooperate with federal officials and say he acted alone, according to the Chronicle. Gartenstein-Ross told us: "Fortunately the person who was trying to orchestrate it ended up talking to a" Drug Enforcement Administration "agent who was standing in, posing as a cartel member, but that was clearly a plot, which was directed up through the southern border" to kill Jubeir, who later became the Saudi minister of foreign affairs. Gartenstein-Ross said by phone that Iran is said to have been behind the plot to assassinate the ambassador, but that’s also in dispute--though whether there was a plot isn’t disputed. Gartenstein-Ross made the same point as Tree did about potential border-linked threats. "It’s much more of a potential danger rather than a danger that has materialized, but when you have a potential danger that has not materialized, things could change fairly quickly," he said. By email, Nowrasteh suggested to us that the assassination "plot" proved to be no more than an individual getting duped by an informant--a point also made to us by phone by O'Rourke's spokesman, Evans. Nowrasteh wrote: "This case doesn’t show that terrorists crossed the Mexican border or that this was a real threat. The Mexican ‘source’ during the investigation was a DEA informant the entire time, and the convicted terrorist had no contact with any real cartel member." Jessica Vaughan, an analyst for the Center for Immigration Studies, which says it has a "pro-immigrant, low-immigration vision," countered, when we inquired, that it shouldn’t matter if federal law enforcement unplugged Arbabsiar’s plan. It was still a terrorist plot, she said by phone. To our inquiry, Fred Burton, a former State Department official serving as chief security officer for Stratfor, an Austin-based geopolitical intelligence company, also pointed out Arbabsiar’s stymied plans. Burton said he’d describe the intended assassination as a "transnational terror plot that originated in Mexico that affected the target in the United States." Burton said he was unaware of other terror plots connected to the border. Next, we circled back to O'Rourke's campaign with what we'd learned. In reply, Evans reminded us that O'Rourke was told directly by Homeland Security at a 2014 hearing that there'd been no terrorists or terror plots against Americans tied to the border. "There's been no indication that that information has changed," Evans said by phone. Our ruling O’Rourke said that "precisely zero terrorists, terrorist groups or terror plots have ever been connected with the U.S.-Mexico border to do harm to people within the United States." State Department declarations support this claim while experts told us such instances have proved extremely rare. However, zero means nothing--and it’s not so that there have been absolutely no cases of terrorists or terrorist plots tied to the border. It also looks to us like authorities have foiled every known plan. We rate this claim 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 | Beto O'Rourke | null | null | null | 2018-05-03T16:18:26 | 2018-01-03 | ['United_States', 'Mexico–United_States_border'] |
pomt-05725 | Says in the 2012 State of the Union address, President Obama "didn't even mention the deficit or debt." | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/05/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-president-ignored-debt-problems-s/ | Firing up a crowd of supporters in Ohio ahead of Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney chided President Barack Obama for his economic record. "He gave a speech the other day at his State of the Union address. He didn't even mention the deficit or the debt, even as the world is reeling, watching what's happening in Europe, recognizing that, unless we change course, we will face that as well and, yet, he has nothing to say about it," Romney said at a rally in Cleveland on March 2, 2012. No mention of the deficit or the debt? We decided to give the speech a read. 2012 State of the Union The first evidence we found that Romney’s claim is bogus shows up in the 12th paragraph of the speech, given Jan. 24, 2012. "In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than 3 million jobs. Last year, they created the most jobs since 2005. American manufacturers are hiring again, creating jobs for the first time since the late 1990s. Together, we’ve agreed to cut the deficit by more than $2 trillion. And we’ve put in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like this never happens again." About midway through the speech, Obama tossed out this proposal for paying down the national debt: "In the next few weeks, I will sign an executive order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home." In offering a plan for helping under-water homeowners, he gave this assurance it wouldn’t push the country further into the red: "I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit and will give those banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust." Obama framed his proposals on tax cuts saying, "A return to the American values of fair play and shared responsibility will help protect our people and our economy. But it should also guide us as we look to pay down our debt and invest in our future." Then, about the deficit: "When it comes to the deficit, we’ve already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more, and that means making choices. Right now, we’re poised to spend nearly $1 trillion more on what was supposed to be a temporary tax break for the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans. Right now, because of loopholes and shelters in the tax code, a quarter of all millionaires pay lower tax rates than millions of middle-class households. Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary. "Do we want to keep these tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans? Or do we want to keep our investments in everything else –- like education and medical research; a strong military and care for our veterans? Because if we’re serious about paying down our debt, we can’t do both." That’s six mentions of either the deficit or the debt. Our ruling Romney said that Obama "didn't even mention the deficit or the debt" in his State of the Union address. We never heard back from Romney’s campaign about that claim, and we’re at a loss to understand how he could make it. At least six different times in his 2012 State of the Union address, Obama mentioned the debt or deficit by name. And if Romney meant that Obama made no mention of how to address the government’s debt problems, well, yes he did. He proposed paying down the debt using money no longer being spent in Iraq and advocated for letting a top-bracket tax cut expire so as not to add to the deficit. For a ruling we turn to our Truth-O-Meter definitions: This statement "is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim." Six mentions in a speech in which Romney said there were none? That’s Pants On Fire. | null | Mitt Romney | null | null | null | 2012-03-05T15:31:32 | 2012-03-02 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pose-01213 | “Barack Obama will help the Gulf Coast restore the wetlands, marshes and barrier islands that are critical to tamping down the force of hurricanes. He will work with local governments to develop the best strategies for protecting and expanding wetlands. As president, Obama will immediately close the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, which experts say funneled floodwater into New Orleans.” | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/1304/help-restore-gulf-coast-wetlands-protect-against-h/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Help restore Gulf Coast wetlands that protect against hurricanes | 2015-08-20T14:24:15 | null | ['New_Orleans', 'Barack_Obama', 'Gulf_Coast_of_the_United_States', 'Mississippi_River_–_Gulf_Outlet_Canal'] |
pomt-04898 | As a congressman, Mark Neumann "voted four times to increase our debt." | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2012/aug/05/eric-hovde/hovde-says-neumann-voted-four-times-increase-us-de/ | In the Republican U.S. Senate race, Mark Neumann has portrayed himself as a budget-cutter extraordinaire during his four years in Congress, but one of his rivals is painting him as a piggish paragon of waste. "In Congress Mark Neumann voted for over 2,000 earmarks, including the ‘Bridge To Nowhere,’" a TV ad by fellow Republican Eric Hovde charges. "Congressman Neumann voted four times to increase our debt." Neumann did vote in 1998 for a massive transportation bill that included many earmarks, including that infamous Alaska bridge project, we reported in an item during Neumann’s failed 2010 bid for the Republican nomination for governor. But what about the claim of voting to raise the nation’s debt ceiling? The debt ceiling is the legal cap on borrowing by the federal government. Raising it is routinely done under presidents of both parties, but periodically that move stalls, as in the summer of 2011 when a stalemate pushed the nation to the edge of default. Neumann’s record on the issue takes us back to 1995 when he entered Congress as a member of the GOP freshman class that ushered in the Republican Revolution under new House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Voting records show Neumann had four chances to vote for or against extending the debt ceiling. In all four instances, he voted to increase the limit, according to the online database maintained by the Library of Congress: -- October 26, 1995: Neumann helped squeak through an attempt to boost the debt limit, in a broader bill, on a 227-203 vote largely along party lines. President Bill Clinton vetoed the bill. -- November 9, 1995: Neumann, along with nearly every House Republican, voted to temporarily push the public debt limit to $4.967 trillion. Clinton vetoed this as well. -- March 7, 1996: Congress again sent Clinton a broad fiscal bill that included an increase in the debt limit to $5.5 trillion. The vote was bipartisan, with 127 Democrats joining the majority on a 328-91 vote. Thirty Republicans dissented, but Neumann joined the majority. Clinton signed it. -- July 30, 1997: Neumann again voted with most Republicans and 52 Democrats to boost the limit to $5.95 trillion, again as part of a broader bill. The tally was 346-85, with 32 Republicans voting no. The president signed it. Like so many of the claims in the four-way GOP primary, Hovde’s ad takes a snippet of information that is accurate, but strips it of important context. The thrust of the ad is that the votes show Neumann to be pro-spending and government growth. In the 2012 campaign Neumann is running on a platform to balance the budget on a five-year plan. A look at the votes shows they came as Neumann and other conservatives pushed the Democratic president for significant spending cuts. Compromise talks failed, leading, famously, to two temporary government shutdowns. The 1995 votes were part of the legislative battle over the GOP’s balanced budget act, which aimed to accomplish a balanced budget in seven years. In fact, in three of the four votes Hovde cites, the debt-limit increase was part of very broad fiscal measures. The March 1996 debt action, for example, was tucked into a multifaceted bill to reduce federal regulation of business, and as we noted it drew significant Democratic support. Finally, the August 1997 increase in the debt limit was approved as part of an act the New York Times described as "sweeping legislation intended to balance the federal budget for the first time since 1969." The government actually ran a surplus from 1998 to 2001, thanks to what observers said was a combination of an earlier tax increase, spending restraints, economic growth and stock market gains. Foreshadowing the 2011 showdown, Neumann, an early crusader on the perils of debt, was trying to leverage the deadline over raising the debt ceiling to get deeper spending cuts. That sounds a lot like Hovde’s position, which he laid out at a candidate forum in April 2012. He said he could support a debt-ceiling increase but only if its tied to strict spending restraints that balance the budget within two years. Our rating In a TV ad, Hovde paints Neumann as a go-along-to-get-along congressman who was cavalier about federal spending and helped raise the nation’s debt. Neumann did vote four times to extend the debt ceiling, but the ad leaves out important details: The votes were part of a historic drive by Republicans to balance the budget, and were wrapped into huge fiscal bills. That pushes his claim down to Half True on the Truth-O-Meter. | null | Eric Hovde | null | null | null | 2012-08-05T09:00:00 | 2012-07-13 | ['None'] |
pomt-06132 | Says America spends "over 17 percent of its GDP on health care costs when our closest competitor nations are spending about 12." | true | /new-jersey/statements/2011/dec/25/cory-booker/cory-booker-says-united-states-spends-more-17-perc/ | If the United States wants a robust economy, Newark Mayor Cory Booker said the country needs to rein in its spending on health care. During a recent stump in New Hampshire for President Barack Obama, Booker, a Democrat, said he’s proud that there are leaders in the U.S. making progress, but said the health care law Obama signed wasn’t "perfect." He claimed the U.S. has a major problem: it spends more on health care as a percentage of gross domestic product, the total value of all goods and services produced within a nation, then its closest competitors. "I'm the first person to tell you that health care legislation wasn't perfect -- wasn't perfect -- and that we have a severe problem. America cannot spend … over 17 percent of its GDP on health care costs when our closest competitor nations are spending about 12," Booker said during a Dec. 9 speech in Manchester, N.H. "We're not going to be able to sustain a bold economy unless we start controlling these costs. But I'll tell you one thing right now, I'll defend Barack Obama as the day is long because what he did to me was heroic." The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development keeps tabs on the health spending of the 34 nations that belong to the group. According to the organization’s latest data, Booker’s numbers are spot on. Spending on health care in the U.S. in 2009 totaled 17.4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product. That puts the U.S. at the top of the group for medical spending. The Netherlands took second place, at 12 percent of its gross domestic product. Following behind by tenths of a percentage point: France at 11.8 percent; Germany at 11.6 percent; Denmark at 11.5 percent; and Canada and Switzerland, both at 11.4 percent. PolitiFact New Jersey reached out to health care experts to gauge the significance of the difference. Robert Field, a professor of law and health management and policy at Drexel University, said in an email that "experts differ on how much we should be concerned" but, he said, "without question, there are two major worries - health care costs are the biggest driver of Medicare spending growth, which will be the biggest driver of federal deficit growth in coming years, and there is a tremendous amount of inefficiency, so we are not getting better health for our extra spending." David Auerbach, a health policy researcher with the RAND Corporation said there’s "cause for worry because we seem to be growing faster than [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries in the past decade or so." "We still don't have much more in the system in the way of checks on spending and it could well continue into the future eating into government and personal spending for other needs," Auerbach said. Our ruling Booker claimed that the U.S. spends "over 17 percent of its GDP on health care costs when our closest competitor nations are spending about 12." The United States outspends 33 other large, industrialized democracies on medical costs. The country’s health care spending hit 17.4 percent of the nation’s economy in 2009, compared with 12 percent for the Netherlands, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We rate the statement True. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. | null | Cory Booker | null | null | null | 2011-12-25T07:30:00 | 2011-12-09 | ['None'] |
goop-01978 | Melania Trump Did “Shade” Michelle Obama With “Sugary Christmas Decorations,” | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/melania-trump-christmas-decorations-michelle-obama/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Melania Trump Did NOT “Shade” Michelle Obama With “Sugary Christmas Decorations,” Despite Claims | 8:37 pm, December 22, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14624 | I have never supported cap and trade. | mostly true | /florida/statements/2016/jan/29/marco-rubio/rubio-says-he-has-never-supported-cap-and-trade-de/ | Sen. Marco Rubio defended past support of a cap-and-trade bill in the Florida House by saying it was an attempt to protect the state from future federal regulations. Fox News moderator Bret Baier asked Rubio about the issue at a Republican presidential primary debate in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 28, 2016. Baier said Rubio had "wanted Florida to get ahead of other states and establish a cap-and-trade system" while he was House speaker in 2008, and asked why Rubio had changed his mind. Rubio denied he backed a popular plan supported by then-Gov. Charlie Crist, claiming he was looking to insulate Florida from restrictions a future president might impose. "I have never supported cap and trade, and I never thought it was a good idea, and I was clear about that at the time," Rubio said. Rubio has been very outspoken during this campaign about his opposition to cap and trade, which lets businesses trade pollution credits if they don't meet emission caps. But is his retelling of what happened in 2008 accurate? Cap and trade mission We literally went to the tape to find out, because the key evidence in this claim is a snippet from a March 13, 2008, appearance Rubio made on WFSU’s Florida Face to Face. Rubio was discussing HB 7135, an energy and climate change bill championed by Crist that included the Florida Climate Protection Act. That part of the law allowed the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to formulate a cap-and-trade program for greenhouse emissions from electric utilities. "Florida should position itself for what I believe is inevitable, and that is a federal cap-and-trade program. Florida should do everything it can to be an early complier so it can access early compliance funds and so that it can help influence what that cap-and-trade looks like at the federal level," Rubio said on the show, which ran during the legislative session. "And so I’m in favor of giving the Department of Environmental Protection a mandate that they go out and design a cap-and-trade or a carbon-tax program and bring it back to the Legislature for ratification some time in the next two years." Crist used a portion of this clip during his 2010 Senate primary campaign against Rubio in an attempt to show Rubio favored a cap-and-trade program. WFSU, which operates The Florida Channel covering state government, demanded Crist stop using footage of the show because of a law barring use of its footage in political campaigns. This limited portion of the show has been resurrected online during the presidential primary, leading some conservative sites to question Rubio’s stance on the issue. But wait, as they say, there’s more. Rubio’s campaign had complained the clip was out of context, and it appears it really was. They have pointed to a longer edit of the footage that shows Rubio going on to say: "I’m in favor of them designing it. I’m not in favor of them designing it and implementing it. I’m in favor of them designing it and then bringing it back to the Legislature. The way we’re going toclean up our environment, the way we’re going to lower carbon emissions, is not through government mandates." That certainly changes the context of his statement. Rubio’s campaign did not respond to PolitiFact’s questions about his potential support of cap and trade, but they have addressed this issue before. In 2007, Rubio wrote an op-ed for the Miami Herald that said Crist should be applauded for his efforts, but "the government mandates he has proposed will not only fail to achieve their desired result, they carry actual negative consequences." Rubio did cite proposals from his book 100 Innovative Ideas for Florida's Future to increase ethanol production, develop bio-fuels and provide tax incentives for better fuel efficiency. But he concluded that "instead of adopting measures that will have little if any impact on our environment and make life in Florida more expensive, we need a strategy that encourages environmental conservation, fuel efficiency and energy diversity, while continuing to stimulate our economy." Rubio also said in a March 2007 speech that Florida was ripe to change energy policy because it was both environmentally sound and potentially lucrative. "This nation, and ultimately the world, is headed towards emission caps and energy diversification," he said. "Those changes will require technological advances that make those measures cost effective. The demand toward such advances will create an industry to meet it. Florida should become the Silicon Valley of that industry." Rubio did seem to change his tune a bit by 2009, when he was being criticized for his full-throated opposition of cap and trade after presiding over the passage of HB 7135. Environmentalists and scientists noted Rubio had shepherded the entire process as House speaker. "The legislation was passed to move forward on cap-and-trade policy, and certainly Marco Rubio didn't stand in the way of that legislation passing and my understanding was that he was supportive of the process," John Reilly, a leading climate change expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hired by Rubio to advise lawmakers, told the Miami Herald. "He certainly seemed to accept the science of climate change." Rubio argued then that he wanted to take executive authority away from Crist, although the DEP countered they would have always needed legislative approval. Cap and trade planning fell by the wayside as Crist waged a losing Senate primary battle against Rubio. "It has worked out as it was designed to work out, which was to stop a cap-and-trade system in Florida," Rubio said in 2009. Some critics at the time doubted that was Rubio's true plan, as it was a big gamble that the Legislature would shut down any proposed DEP cap and trade proposal. But a 2015 article in the National Journal said that while the bill passed (and it passed the House and Senate unanimously), Rubio did add wording that prevented the plan from being implemented. The final bill indeed only allowed DEP to develop a potential plan, and required legislative approval to become practice. The National Journal quoted former House minority leader and state Rep. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, who said, "I fully credit him with the gutting of the bill." Our ruling Rubio said, "I have never supported cap and trade." As House speaker in Florida, Rubio did preside over the unanimous passage of an energy bill that allowed the state to develop a cap-and-trade plan for electric utility emissions. But it appears his comments on the bill have been taken out of context, and that there may have been some legislative craftiness afoot. Rubio said he wanted Florida to cook up a plan of its own before federal regulations were imposed on the state. He also voiced opposition to government mandates and inserted a roadblock to letting any plan actually be implemented, details that get left out when Rubio is accused of supporting the measure. He now is much more vocal in his opposition of cap and trade, but it looks as if he has always favored a largely hands-off approach from government. We rate Rubio’s statement Mostly True. | null | Marco Rubio | null | null | null | 2016-01-29T12:17:17 | 2016-01-28 | ['None'] |
pomt-15291 | The five Guantanamo detainees swapped for Bowe Bergdahl "are right now back on the battlefield." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/23/donald-trump/trump-guantanamo-prisoners-swapped-bowe-bergdahl-a/ | Donald Trump says you can tell that America’s current leaders are the only people in the country who haven’t read his book, The Art of the Deal, because they make such bad deals. At a campaign rally in South Carolina July 21, 2015, Trump, the wealthy businessman-turned-Republican presidential candidate, called out the White House for making deals he disagrees with. One he cited specifically was the controversial decision to exchange five Guantanamo detainees for Taliban prisoner Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in May 2014. Bergdahl has since been charged by the military with desertion and misbehaving before the enemy. "We get a traitor, a no-good, rotten traitor like Bergdahl," Trump said. "And they get five killers that they most wanted in the whole world, who are right now back on the battlefield, trying to kill everybody, including us. Okay? What kind of a deal is this?" Are the five former detainees -- who were senior Taliban operatives -- now "back on the battlefield" and re-engaged in terrorism? We decided to take a closer look. In September 2014, we gave a Pants on Fire rating to a claim that "Three of five detainees swapped (for Bergdahl) are now ISIS leaders." Has something changed since then? Best as we can tell, no. The five detainees (sometimes called the Taliban Five) were released to the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar. Qatar is understood to be a neutral state, as opposed to a "battlefield" for insurgent activity. Under the agreement, the five released detainees are not allowed to leave the country. This travel ban was initially supposed to last one year, ending June 1, 2015, but it has been extended. Multiple administration officials and experts told us the Taliban Five haven’t left Qatar, and we couldn’t find any evidence to the contrary. "They’re all still in Qatar," said Myles Caggins, a spokesman for the National Security Council. The United States and Qatar are working together to keep tabs on the Taliban Five. Caggins declined to comment on specific security and surveillance arrangements. But he said "the State Department is in continual discussion with the government of Qatar" regarding the former detainees. Another barrier to the ex-detainees’ return to the battlefield is an additional travel ban beyond the U.S.-Qatar agreement. Four of the five are restricted from leaving the country due to a travel ban imposed by a 1998 United Nations Security Council Resolution, said Barnett Rubin, associate director of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean the former detainees aren’t trying to reconnect with the Taliban or other insurgent groups. At least one of the Taliban Five is suspected by the United States of having attempted to contact Taliban associates. And Afghan intelligence officers arrested two suspected insurgents who tried to visit former detainee Mohammad Nabi Omari in Qatar, according to the New York Times. It’s also possible that some or all of the Taliban Five have had more contact with the Taliban or other jihadist networks without the public (or even the government) knowing, said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. But mere communications, or even giving orders from a distance, is not the same thing as literally being "back on the battlefield." "There are indications that they would like to return to the battlefield," Gartenstein-Ross said. "There’s reason for concern, but there’s not evidence to support (Trump’s) particular claim." Even if the Taliban Five has re-engaged in insurgent activities electronically -- a contention that, we reiterate, is not confirmed by any publicly available information -- it would be a stretch to conclude that this counts as returning to the battlefield. "At least one of them called some of his relatives. I don't know what he said on the phone. If making a phone call now constitutes returning to the battlefield, we are in 1984 territory," Rubin said, referring to the George Orwell novel. Our ruling Donald Trump said the five Guantanamo detainees swapped for Bowe Bergdahl "are right now back on the battlefield." The Taliban Five are known to be in Qatar, where they have been since their release over a year ago. Qatar is considered neutral ground -- not a battlefield -- and they are not allowed to leave the country. At least one of the five has been in contact with suspected insurgents, but experts said there is not enough information available to know the extent of these communications. And even if they had communicated with insurgents from afar, that would not the same as literally going back to the battlefield. Because there is no evidence to support Trump’s claim, we rate it False. | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2015-07-23T13:25:53 | 2015-07-21 | ['Bowe_Bergdahl', 'Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp'] |
vogo-00033 | Statement: “DeMaio’s funded by Tea Party extremists, who oppose pay fairness for women. DeMaio’s pledged to support their extreme agenda in Congress,” declares a television ad from Rep. Scott Peters in his congressional campaign against Carl DeMaio. | determination: misleading | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/politics/fact-check-peters-hit-on-demaio-and-equal-pay/ | Analysis: The ad begins with a young woman shuffling her kids off to school and then sitting down at a desk in her office. She opens her paycheck as the narrator notes that women make only 77 percent of what men do. The woman frowns and types Carl DeMaio’s name into a search engine. | null | null | null | null | Fact Check: Peters' Hit on DeMaio and Equal Pay | September 26, 2014 | null | ['United_States_Congress', 'Carl_DeMaio', 'Tea_Party_protests'] |
pomt-12290 | Under the House health care bill, Medicaid spending "actually goes up 20 percent over the next 10 years." | half-true | /punditfact/statements/2017/jun/28/newt-gingrich/gingrich-misleads-point-house-bill-grows-medicaid-/ | Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said all the media coverage that declares the Republican health care bills would cut Medicaid is wrong, because he claimed the program actually gets a significant boost over the years. Reports about both the House and Senate bills have pointed out the measures reduce funding for Medicaid, the joint state and federal health insurance program for the very poor. Using the House bill as an example, Gingrich said it’s really the opposite. "After all the news media talking about cutting Medicaid in the House Republican bill, I did some research," Gingrich said June 27, 2017, on Fox & Friends. "It actually goes up 20 percent over the next 10 years." Gingrich said Republicans had a "communications problem" for not pointing this growth out when discussing the bill, resulting in coverage focused on deep Medicaid cuts. Those news reports mostly focus on analyses by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The bill before the Senate would reduce Medicaid spending by $772 billion over 10 years by 2026, the CBO said. A similar analysis for the bill that passed the House in May would winnow Medicaid spending by $834 billion in the same time frame. So where is Gingrich getting his 20 percent increase in Medicaid spending from? We reached out to his office and didn’t hear back. But it appears he’s talking about the rate at which Medicaid will grow over the next decade — something the program’s slated to do whether Republicans pass a health care law or not. The GOP proposals, however, put major limits on future funding for that growth. Medicaid costs keep going up Medicaid originally was a program for low-income children, pregnant women, elderly and disabled individuals, and some parents, but it excluded other low-income adults. As part of its efforts to provide health coverage options for as many people as possible, the Affordable Care Act allowed states to expand Medicaid and help pay for it with more federal dollars. Thirty-one states plus Washington, D.C., currently have extended Medicaid benefits to essentially all adults making up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level. The poverty line for a family of four is $24,600 in 2017. That coverage is expensive, and it’s only going to cost more as the years go on. For calculating how the GOP bills may affect Medicaid spending, the CBO used baseline figures from March 2016 to draw estimates for how much the program would cost. "There are two reasons Medicaid costs go up: More people are being served and the cost of serving them is going up," said Joan Alker, Georgetown University public policy professor and executive director of the Center for Children and Families. Costs could rise due to increasing drug prices, inflation, an aging population with more older Americans, or any number of other considerations. "CBO's baseline projects what Medicaid will need to account for these factors," Alker said. From 2017 through 2026, the federal government would spend more than $5 trillion on Medicaid under current law, the CBO projected. Another way to measure that growth is to calculate the percent change from current spending levels to that estimated 2026 level. If the Affordable Care Act stayed in place and nothing changed, the CBO said Medicaid spending would increase from $393 billion in 2017 to $624 billion in 2026. That’s a 58.8 percent increase. Now come the semantics: The House and Senate bills both slow the rate of that increase in spending, although they do so in different ways and on different schedules. But they both assume major reductions in how high the dollar amount for funding increases. Opponents of the GOP bills call that a cut. The CBO calls that "reductions in outlays." Gingrich is saying it’s an increase. How? How the GOP bills slow Medicaid spending It looks like Gingrich focused on the projection for how the House bill would affect future funding. Starting with the $393 billion in spending in 2017, Medicaid spending would go up steadily each year to reach $474 billion in 2026, under the House bill. That’s a 20.6 percent increase. The Senate’s plan would increase funding to $466 billion in 2026, or about 18.5 percent higher than 2017. The projections assume what would happen if the bills took effect, with reductions starting in 2018. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com The CBO said that under the House’s bill, 14 million fewer people would be enrolled in Medicaid by 2026, relative to current law. The Senate bill would see 15 million fewer enrollees. Keep in mind that Medicaid spending goes up under any scenario. It’s just at a far lower rate under the Republican health care bills. Policy analysts told us it makes reductions to Medicaid with no allowance for how the program may need to grow in the future. "If he's claiming that there's no cut in the (House bill) because Medicaid spending in 2026 would be higher than it is now, that's largely irrelevant," Ben Sommers, a Harvard University health policy and economics professor, told PolitiFact. "Given that this dramatically reduces spending to what would occur under current law, most people would call this a ‘cut.’ " Such reductions also put new limits on how many people have access to Medicaid. The changes all but guarantee states will have to alter eligibility requirements and take away benefits — without regard to whether people actually need them. "The bills restrain the rate of increase well below Medicaid’s actual rate of increase," said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor. "Of course it’s a cut. If federal growth is kept artificially low, the only choice is to spend more to make up the deficit." Our ruling Gingrich said under the House health care bill, Medicaid spending "actually goes up 20 percent over the next 10 years." By any CBO projection and under any proposed legislation, Medicaid spending will increase over the next decade — because health care costs are increasing. The House health care bill limits that increase to 20 percent, while maintaing the status quo requires a 60 percent increase, according to the CBO. Both the bills in the House and the Senate limit the growth of spending. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details. We rate it Half True. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | Newt Gingrich | null | null | null | 2017-06-28T15:10:44 | 2017-06-27 | ['None'] |
tron-01966 | The groom who unmasked his unfaithful bride at the wedding reception | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/groomsrevenge/ | null | humorous | null | null | null | The groom who unmasked his unfaithful bride at the wedding reception | Mar 16, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00513 | Beanie Babies are Hatching Spiders | statirical reports | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/beanie-baby-spider-eggs-hatching.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Don't Worry! Beanie Babies are NOT Hatching Spiders | November 7, 2014 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01050 | Is Jessica Simpson Pregnant Again? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/is-jessica-simpson-pregnant-again/ | null | null | null | Michael Lewittes | null | Is Jessica Simpson Pregnant Again? | 12:56 am, May 6, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02969 | Gov. Lincoln Chafee has imposed "a mandatory abortion fee" on all Rhode Islanders who buy health insurance through the state’s Obamacare exchange. | half-true | /rhode-island/statements/2013/oct/23/barth-bracy/anti-abortion-activist-barth-bracy-says-people-who/ | The Affordable Care Act, widely known as Obamacare, is controversial enough. But the question of coverage for abortion adds yet another layer of contentiousness. Antiabortion activists do not want their premiums used to pay for a procedure they regard as murder. They have been pushing without success to require the Rhode Island health insurance exchange, known as HealthSource RI, to give consumers a choice by offering plans that do not include abortion coverage. Barth Bracy, executive director of the Rhode Island Right to Life Committee, said in an Oct. 2 news release that because no plans on the exchange exclude abortion coverage, all customers must pay a fee for such coverage -- and Governor Lincoln Chafee is responsible. Wrote Bracy: "We have been fighting in the General Assembly since 2011 trying to blunt Chafee’s extreme agenda on government subsidies for insurance plans that cover abortion-on-demand and, more recently, his imposition of a mandatory abortion fee on all Rhode Island individuals, families and businesses who wish to purchase health insurance through HealthSource RI." We wanted to know whether there really is a separate, mandatory abortion fee and, if so, whether Chafee had anything to do with it. First, a little background. Chafee created Rhode Island’s health insurance exchange in September 2011 through an executive order after an effort to do so through legislation stalled in the General Assembly over abortion language. Abortion opponents, including close to 40 legislators, sued to overturn the order. The lawsuit is pending in Superior Court. When we asked Bracy for the source of his claim, he sent us to the "Special Rules" portion of the Obamacare law (Section 18023 of the U.S. Code). Beginning with paragraph b(2)B, the law says the entity that issues an insurance plan through an exchange must "collect from each enrollee . . . a separate payment" for money that will be used for abortion coverage. (How much is that payment? The insurance companies are required under the law to break out the monthly cost of abortion coverage based on the assumption that everyone gets abortion coverage. If it's less than $1 per subscriber, it is considered to be $1. For all of the plans in the Rhode Island marketplace, it's the $1 minimum.) This separate payment for abortion coverage would certainly seem to meet the definition of the "abortion fee" Bracy is referring to. It turns out to be a hidden fee. "The customer is not billed a separate fee," Dara Chadwick, spokeswoman for HealthSource RI said in an email. The way the system is set up, the issuer of each plan (an insurance company such as Blue Cross) does not bill the customer directly. HealthSource RI does. She asserted that another portion of the law, subsection b(3), prohibits separate billing because abortion services can only be mentioned in the summary of benefits when the person is enrolled. We're not convinced, but that's a side issue. Regardless of the mechanics of this fee and whether or not consumers see it, it's clear that the fee is required by federal law. It was not imposed by Chafee. Bracy said Chafee is responsible because there are insurance plans that exclude abortion coverage, yet none are being offered by the Rhode Island marketplace. More important, he said, the Chafee administration could have offered people a choice and made such a plan part of the exchange, but didn’t. (By 2017, all exchanges must offer a plan that doesn’t cover abortion.) "The fact that ALL the Exchange plans do cover elective abortion, and thus there is no exception to the abortion premium (thereby making it mandatory for all who wish to purchase insurance through the exchange), can rightly be attributed to Chafee," said Bracy. Chafee spokeswoman Christine Hunsinger disagreed. "It would be inappropriate for the governor to dictate what is or is not covered. It's the Executive Committee on Health Reform that determined the benchmark plan and the essential health benefits." The plans the insurance companies chose to submit covered abortion. Our ruling Rhode Island Right to Life's Executive Director Barth Bracy said Governor Chafee has imposed "a mandatory abortion fee" on all Rhode Islanders who buy health insurance under Obamacare. There is a fee, whether it's hidden in the bill or presented as a line item as the law seems to require. That element of his statement is accurate. Did Chafee impose the fee? That's a big stretch. It’s a federal requirement, although Chafee, who created the insurance exchange system in Rhode Island, could have pushed for a plan that didn’t cover abortion, which would have allowed antiabortion consumers to have a choice on the issue. Because the statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context, we rate it Half True. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at politifact@providencejournal.com. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | null | Barth Bracy | null | null | null | 2013-10-23T00:01:00 | 2013-10-02 | ['Lincoln_Chafee', 'Rhode_Island', 'Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act'] |
pomt-06225 | The U.S. economy "is three times as big as China's." | mostly true | /virginia/statements/2011/dec/05/eric-cantor/eric-cantor-says-us-economy-three-larger-chinas/ | Congressman Eric Cantor recently weighed in on how the United States’ economy compares to the domestic output in China, which is seen as an rising economic rival. "Our economy is three times as big as China’s," Cantor, R-7th, said when asked about China’s currency during a Nov. 14 meeting with reporters. There’s been plenty of speculation on about just how much progress China’s economic engine has made in catching up to the United States, so we wanted to check to find out if Cantor was correct. We ran the congressman’s statement past Derek Scissors, a research fellow in Asia economic policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation. Scissors said that when measuring the two countries by a standard comparison of each nation’s gross domestic product, Cantor is almost on target. For 2009, Cantor’s number is right, Scissors said. But using the latest annual numbers from 2010, he’s off just a bit. "For 2010, it’s more like two and a half to one (advantage for the U.S.)," Scissors said. We asked Cantor’s office where he got his information for the statement. Megan Whittemore, a Cantor spokeswoman, cited numbers from the World Bank, showing that U.S. GDP in 2010 was about $14.6 trillion while China’s GDP was nearly $5.9 trillion. "So the U.S. economy is about 2.5 times the size of China’s economy, but the congressman rounded up to three," Whittemore said in an e-mail. Cantor is not alone in making the claim that the U.S. economy is outpacing China’s by a 3-to-1 ratio. In a Jan. 19, 2011, joint news conference with Chinese President Hu Jintao, President Barack Obama said the U.S. economy is still three times larger than China’s, according to a USA Today blog post. A March 11, 2011, report from the Congressional Research Service said that after three decades of brisk economic growth, China has the second largest economy in the world behind the United States. But the report added that despite China’s rise, "the United States’ economy is three times larger than China’s." But that’s not the end of the story. There are different ways of measuring a country’s Gross Domestic Product. One way is to compare each country’s GDP using nominal exchange rates that convert China’s economic data into U.S. dollars, according to a 2007 Congressional Research Service report. It’s by that measure that the U.S. economy is three times bigger than China’s. But that Congressional Research Service report noted there’s been considerable debate among economists over the actual size of China’s economy. Many economists, the CRS noted, contend using the nominal exchange rate significantly understates the size of the Chinese economy. Another way to gauge GDP is to use purchasing power parity, or PPP, a measurement that converts foreign currency to U.S. dollars based on that currency’s purchasing power, the CRS report states. That measurement gives a huge boost to China’s GDP, making it much closer to the size of U.S. Data from a September 2011 report from the International Monetary Fund said that when measured on a purchasing power parity basis, China’s 2010 GDP was about $10.1 trillion, while the U.S. was at $14.5 trillion. By that gauge, the U.S. economy is only 30 percent larger than China’s. The Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook puts more stock in measuring China’s economy by using the purchasing power parity measure. It notes that measuring China’s GDP by the lower official exchange rate understates the China’s output compared to the rest of the world. "In China’s situation, GDP at purchasing power parity provides the best measure for comparing output across countries," the CIA’s factbook states. But using that GDP larger measure also has drawbacks, Scissors wrote in an April 2011 report. He said that purchasing power parity estimates change over time, noting that the World Bank cut the size of its 2005 purchasing power parity GDP estimate for China by 40 percent. Since 2005, Chinese inflation has outpaced that in the U.S., meaning the latest purchasing power measurements are out of date, Scissors wrote. He added that measuring GDP by that method overstates Chinese GDP. And we should also note that the 2007 Congressional Research Service report urged caution in using purchasing power GDP estimates for China, noting the prices of many goods and services in that country are distorted due to price controls and government subsidies. Our Conclusion: Cantor said that the U.S. economy is three times the size of China’s. By a standard and commonly-used measure of Gross Domestic Product, he’s pretty close. Annual figures from 2010 show the U.S. economy is two and a half times the size of China. That gives credibility to what Cantor is saying. But by a second measure, adjusting for purchasing power, the U.S. output is still larger than China’s, but the gap is much smaller. The U.S. economy by that score is only one-third larger than China’s. Neither set of statistics is universally accepted as the only way to gauge the size of China’s output. Both measures garner support and criticism from analysts. We rate the claim Mostly True. | null | Eric Cantor | null | null | null | 2011-12-05T11:01:35 | 2011-11-14 | ['United_States', 'China'] |
pomt-02604 | In the entire public school system in Camden last year, only three students graduated college ready. | mostly true | /new-jersey/statements/2014/jan/26/chris-christie/chris-christie-claims-only-three-college-ready-stu/ | Holding up three fingers, Gov. Chris Christie wanted the crowd to listen a second time to a statistic about the number of "college ready" students in Camden. "How bad has it been in Camden? How ‘bout this -- Last year, only three students graduated college ready," Christie said during his Jan. 14 "State of the State" address. "I want you to listen to that again. In the entire public school system in Camden last year, only three students graduated college ready." The Republican governor’s claim refers to a statistic recently cited by Camden Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard in regard to students whose SAT scores met the "SAT College and Career Readiness Benchmark" developed by the College Board, which administers the standardized test. That benchmark -- a combined score of 1550 -- indicates a 65 percent likelihood of achieving a B- average or higher during a student’s first year at a four-year college, which in turn is associated with a high likelihood of college success, according to the College Board. The highest possible score on the SAT is 2400. Christie said "three students graduated college ready" in Camden in 2013, but the actual statistic is related to the number of 12th-graders enrolled in Camden during the 2011-12 school year who took the SATs and hit that benchmark, according to data provided by the school district. Of the 214 students who took the exam, only three students reached that benchmark, the data shows. It’s worth noting that many other Camden students didn’t take the SATs at all. In addition to those 214 test-takers, there were 255 12th-graders enrolled that year who did not take the exam, the data shows. The district does not track how many students take the ACT, district spokesman Kevin Shafer said. Rouhanifard acknowledged how many Camden students go on to college without reaching that SAT benchmark or without taking the SATs. "A lot more than three students are going to college," he said. Still, the superintendent noted how once Camden students begin attending Camden County College, for example, a large number of them need to take remedial courses. The statistic about the SAT benchmark indicates that "the rigor isn’t always there and students aren’t always prepared," he said. But some education experts were divided last week over the value of using that SAT benchmark. Paul Reville, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said the benchmark was a "useful indicator for policy makers and others to use," and he said Christie was making a valid point about the failure to adequately prepare urban youth for college or careers. "The fact is that overall there are far too many students coming out of Camden and virtually every other urban center who are neither prepared for college nor career, and that’s a crisis," Reville said. "And so in that regard, irrespective of what rhetoric he might be using or facts to support it, I think the governor’s on target in pointing to this as a challenge that we need to deal with," he added. But Christopher Tienken, an assistant professor of education administration at Seton Hall University, argued that the benchmark does not account for other factors, such as a student’s grade point average. "I think we need to use multiple measures," Tienken said. "Putting all your eggs in the standardized testing basket, I think you run the risk of really misidentifying whether students are college ready or not." In a statement, the College Board said it developed the benchmark to help school officials and others evaluate the effectiveness of academic programs to better prepare students for college, but the group also said falling below that benchmark does not mean students will not be successful. "If a student does not meet the SAT benchmark score of 1550, it does not mean he or she can’t or won’t be successful in college," the statement read. The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment. Our ruling In his "State of the State" address, Christie said: "In the entire public school system in Camden last year, only three students graduated college ready." But that statistic does not refer to high school graduates in 2013. It refers to the three 12th-graders enrolled during the 2011-12 school year who took the SATs and received a combined score of at least 1550, a benchmark developed by the College Board to measure college readiness. Since Christie’s statement is "accurate but needs clarification or additional information," we rate it Mostly True. To comment on this story, go to NJ.com. | null | Chris Christie | null | null | null | 2014-01-26T07:30:00 | 2014-01-14 | ['None'] |
pomt-11960 | On whether higher federal deficits are acceptable. | full flop | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/oct/04/mick-mulvaney/did-budget-director-mick-mulvaney-flip-flop-higher/ | President Donald Trump’s budget director raised eyebrows during a recent appearance on Fox News Sunday when he seemed to display a tolerance for bigger deficits. Mick Mulvaney’s comments came during a discussion of Trump’s tax plan, which, due to a variety of tax cuts, has been independently projected to add nearly $5.6 trillion to the federal debt over the next 20 years when compared to the current path of debt growth. Host Chris Wallace reminded Mulvaney about his tenure in the House, when Mulvaney often took a hard line on deficits and the debt. "You were a deficit hawk," Wallace said. "What happened, sir?" After a brief back-and-forth about the groups that had projected the debt increase, Mulvaney responded, "I've been very candid about this. We need to have new deficits because of that. We need to have the growth, Chris. "If we simply look at this as being deficit-neutral, you're never going to get the type of tax reform and tax reductions that you need to get to sustain 3 percent economic growth. We really do believe that the tax code is what's holding back the American economy." Was Mulvaney’s embrace of future deficits a flip-flop, as Wallace suggested? We put his position on the Flip-O-Meter, which describes whether someone’s stand has changed and is not meant as a value judgment. The evidence shows it has changed. Railing against rising deficits Mulvaney’s remarks on Fox News Sunday clashed in tone and substance with a portion of his opening statement at his Senate confirmation hearing in January 2017. "We can turn this economy, and this country around, but it will take tough decisions today in order to avoid impossible ones tomorrow," Mulvaney told the Senate Budget Committee. "Our gross national debt has increased to almost $20 trillion. That number is so large as to defy description. ... I believe, as a matter of principle, that the debt is a problem that must be addressed sooner, rather than later. I also know that fundamental changes are needed in the way Washington spends and taxes if we truly want a healthy economy. This must include changing our government’s long-term fiscal path, which is unsustainable." Mulvaney’s tough-on-debt remarks at his confirmation hearing were consistent with his position while in Congress since 2010. Mulvaney made clear shortly after taking office that he had little patience with rising debt. In January 2011, Mulvaney joined a faction of Republicans seeking to cut federal spending by $2.5 trillion over 10 years, significantly faster than the official party position. He then told Politico that President Barack Obama’s 2011-12 budget proposal was "a joke. It’s hard to explain how detached from reality this is, to think that the country can spend another $1.6 trillion when it doesn’t have the means." And in an interview with Fox News that April, host Alisyn Camerota asked Mulvaney whether he would vote to to raise the debt limit, which some had called "Armageddon." (Experts have agreed.) Mulvaney responded, "It's no more Armageddon and no more catastrophic than what we're doing right now -- spending, what, $1.5 trillion we don't have this year." During a debate over raising the debt ceiling, Mulvaney ended up authoring a budget bill dubbed "Cut, Cap and Balance" in 2011 that would have capped spending and added a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution. Mulvaney also held a series of "Spending, Debt and Deficit" town halls around his district in 2011, telling attendees at one of the gatherings, in the Sun City Carolina Lakes development, that "the country’s debt is much worse than I ever thought. Forty-two cents of every dollar Americans spend is borrowed. Allowing this figure to increase compromises U.S. foreign policy." In January 2013, Mulvaney sought across-the-board cuts in federal spending to offset $51 billion in proposed aid for those hit by Hurricane Sandy. While Mulvaney acknowledged the need for Sandy aid, he added, "I believe we can provide that relief while finding ways to pay for it rather than adding to the nation's ballooning deficit." In March 2015, as lawmakers were considering whether to find ways around budgetary spending caps, Mulvaney sided with sticking to the caps because "deficits matter. Still," he told the Washington Examiner. The authors of the Almanac of American Politics 2016 noted Mulvaney’s strident position, writing, "In his first term, he often bucked his party’s leadership in the name of fiscal discipline and voted against several spending bills backed by House Speaker John Boehner." An explanation from Mulvaney Asked about the discrepancy, OMB spokesman John Czwartacki said it stems from the change in the political dynamics of Washington. When Mulvaney was in Congress, there was a Democratic president and, for much of the period, a Democratic Senate, both of which preferred to stimulate the economy through spending. Mulvaney did not have the "chance to support tax cuts with a chance of passage," so Mulvaney fought instead to decrease the deficit by challenging the Obama administration on spending, Czwartacki said. Since Trump’s election, Republicans have had unified control of Washington, so Mulvaney "is now in a place where he can drive the idea of spending restraint while at the same time emphasizing the need for economic growth through deregulation, fairer trade, and of course tax cuts." Experts say Mulvaney’s defense doesn’t add up Independent budget experts still see a stark contrast between Mulvaney’s views then and now. At an Oct. 4 tax policy panel on Capitol Hill sponsored by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, PolitiFact asked panel members what they thought of Mulvaney’s Fox News Sunday comments. Marc Goldwein, the group’s senior vice president, said as recently as a few months ago, when Trump released his annual budget proposal, Mulvaney "called for revenue-neutral tax reform," a sign that he came into his new position as "one of the true fiscal hawks in the Trump administration." However, he added, Mulvaney is "now saying that we need big debt to grow the economy. I think that's backwards. If you got Congressman Mulvaney from two years ago to look at this statement and told him that it was Obama's OMB director (saying it), I can only imagine what he would say." Stan Collender, a budget specialist and executive vice president at the MSL Group consulting firm, called Mulvaney’s switch "hypocrisy" and that "there are no extenuating circumstances" for it. Deficits from tax cuts should not get a pass if deficits from spending don’t, experts said. Both add to the debt. "Our nation's debt situation makes deficits at the current and predicted level unsustainable," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "It doesn't matter if the deficit comes from a shortfall in revenue or increased discretionary or mandatory spending -- it all adds to the debt." Our ruling Asked about the additional deficits that are projected to accompany Trump’s tax proposal, Mulvaney said "we need to have new deficits." That’s a sharp contrast with his long record of statements, both as a member of Congress and as a nominee for OMB director, that deficits and debt are a major problem. We rate his recent statement a Full Flop. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Mick Mulvaney | null | null | null | 2017-10-04T14:27:15 | 2017-10-01 | ['None'] |
pomt-08892 | A transcript released by Occidental College proves that Barack Obama was an Indonesian citizen. | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jul/30/chain-email/e-mail-claims-obamas-college-transcripts-reveal-in/ | One of our readers tipped us off to a chain e-mail that contains a purported Associated Press article claiming that, among other things, smoking-gun evidence has been found that proves Barack Obama really is not eligible to be president. "The group 'Americans for Freedom of Information' has released copies of President Obama's college transcripts from Occidental College," read the alleged AP article. "Released today, the transcript school [sic] indicates that Obama, under the name Barry Soetoro, received financial aid as a foreign student from Indonesia as an undergraduate. The transcript was released by Occidental College in compliance with a court order in a suit brought by the group in the Superior Court of California. The transcript shows that Obama (Soetoro) applied for financial aid and was awarded a fellowship for foreign students from the Fulbright Foundation Scholarship program. To qualify, for the scholarship, a student must claim foreign citizenship." We wondered if Occidental really had given out Obama's transcripts, and if it proved that he was a foreign imposter. First of all, as you may have expected, it's not really an AP article. Jack Stokes, a spokesperson for AP was unequivocal when he said, "It is not an AP story." A search of Google and Lexis-Nexis turned up no evidence of a group named Americans for Freedom of Information as of April 1, 2009. April 1 was the date of the purported AP story which materialized in 2009. A satirical WordPress blog was set up after the fact, as well as a far more serious AmericansforFreedomofInformation.com.Our friends at FactCheck.org found that the latter website was registered on May 11, 2009--after the date of the fake AP story. Website owner Debra Smith, says on her own personal website that she had nothing to do with chain e-mail. Nevertheless, it could still be true. Barack Obama did attend Occidental college for two years before transferring to Columbia University. He writes about the experience in his book Dreams From My Father, and three rare photos have surfaced that show the young Obama while atttending Occidental. The falsehood starts with the claim that Obama's transcript was released. That's not true, according to Jim Tranquada, director of communications at Occidental College. No court has ordered Occidental to release the transcript. Barack Obama's records at Occidental remain sealed under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Rights Act, which applies to all students. Unless Obama gives Occidental permission to release his record, it is illegal for them to do so, and Obama has not given Occidental permission, according to Tranquada. When Obama entered Occidental, he was known as Barry Obama. Around the time he left, he preferred Barack. Soetoro was the last name of Obama's stepfather, with whom he lived in Indonesia before moving in with his grandparents in the United States. "All the alumni and students that I have spoken to knew him as Barry or Barack Obama," said Tranquada. And he registered under the name Obama, not Soetoro, according to the college. Although the e-mail lied about the release of transcripts and the name, conspiracy theorists could argue that Obama won't release his records because he is hiding the fact that he is an Indonesian citizen and actually did receive a Fulbright. As for the Fulbright claim, Fulbright scholarships are almost never awarded to undergraduate students. They are almost exclusively awarded to students pursuing advanced degrees, according to James Lawrence, a public affairs officer for the Fulbright program. The American Indonesian Exchange Foundation now handles Fulbright awards for Indonesian citizens, and only those with an undergraduate degree and applying for a master's or doctoral degree are eligible. However, AMINEF was established in 1992, and it is unclear who handled Indonesian Fulbrights before that, or if Indonesian Fulbrights even existed in 1981. An attempt to contact the organization in Indonesia was unsuccessful. This chain e-mail is wrong about AP, the transcripts and the name, and we found no evidence of a Fulbright, so we're giving it a Pants On Fire. | null | Chain email | null | null | null | 2010-07-30T14:24:40 | 2010-06-28 | ['Indonesia', 'Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-11399 | In the Senate, (Mike) DeWine voted with Hillary Clinton to let illegal immigrants receive Social Security. And in Ohio, DeWine allowed illegal immigrants to receive driver's licenses. | mostly false | /ohio/statements/2018/mar/23/onward-ohio/ohio-tv-ad-misleads-attack-mike-dewine-about-immig/ | A TV ad portrays Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, a Republican candidate for governor, as out of step with President Donald Trump on immigration. Onward Ohio, a political action committee, launched a statewide TV ad on March 20. "If you like President Trump then you won’t like Mike DeWine," states the narrator. "In the Senate, DeWine voted with Hillary Clinton to let illegal immigrants receive Social Security. And in Ohio, DeWine allowed illegal immigrants to receive driver's licenses." DeWine’s May 8 primary opponent, Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, is a former chair of the PAC and echoed the attack on Twitter. The ad attacks DeWine’s position on other topics including his grade from the NRA, which we have previously fact-checked. We found that the ad doesn’t accurately explain DeWine’s Senate vote related to Social Security and requires some context to explain why as Attorney General he concluded that some undocumented immigrants should receive driver’s licenses. We emailed Onward Ohio and did not get a reply. 'Let illegal immigrants receive Social Security' The ad makes it sound as if DeWine wanted to provide a new entitlement for undocumented immigrants by allowing them to qualify for Social Security -- an attack we have seen before against Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., and Harry Reid, D-Nev. In reality, the 2006 vote concerned a much narrower issue -- the treatment of past payroll taxes paid by former undocumented immigrants who would have become legal under an immigration overhaul bill that included border security, a new temporary worker visa and a path to legal status. At the time, undocumented immigrants had a right to receive credit in their benefits calculation for Social Security payments they had made while working illegally, typically while using an unauthorized Social Security number. They received such credit only after they had received legal working papers and a genuine Social Security number. During a Senate debate over the broader bill, then-Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., offered an amendment to prevent anyone from earning credit for Social Security payments made using an unauthorized Social Security number. On May 18, 2006, the Senate voted 50-49 to table the amendment, effectively killing it. DeWine and Clinton, then a New York senator, were among those who voted in favor of tabling it. DeWine’s campaign spokesman Ryan Stubenrauch said that DeWine "voted to table the amendment because he believed that people should keep what they had earned if they could meet the steep requirements to become legal residents." DeWine had expressed support for the overall bill because it included border security and also addressed the 12 million undocumented immigrants. "It's a dangerous thing to have them in the underground. We have to put some paper on them and document them," he said several weeks before the bill passed. The House passed its own version, and the two chambers didn’t work out a compromise, so the bills died. 'DeWine allowed illegal immigrants to receive driver's licenses' This part of the ad could leave viewers with the misleading impression that DeWine took actions to allow all undocumented immigrants to get drivers’ licenses. DeWine’s recommendation while he was Ohio attorney general pertained only to a narrow slice of immigrants. In 2013, Ohio lacked a uniform policy regarding whether to grant driver’s licenses to immigrants who had temporary status through the 2012 program Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which began under President Barack Obama. Some state officials issued driver’s licenses, while others refused. On March 29, 2013, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles announced that Ohio would allow the issuance of temporary licenses to qualified participants in DACA. The bureau reached a decision after reviewing guidance by DeWine "that DACA grantees are eligible for temporary driver licenses under Ohio law." DeWine wrote in a March 19 letter to the Ohio Latino Affairs Commission that DACA recipients could get a Social Security number and work permit. "With these documents and any other documents normally required by the BMV, an individual can provide the BMV with the information necessary to receive a driver’s license," he wrote. "I encourage any citizen who is concerned about the law or policy to contact their legislators and voice that concern. As Attorney General, I do not have the authority to introduce or vote on legislation." DeWine’s campaign said he didn’t issue a formal advisory opinion -- he only expressed his view in a letter, and then it was up to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles to issue driver’s licenses. The TV ad cites a Cleveland Plain Dealer article that mentioned DeWine’s conclusion. David Leopold, an immigration lawyer at Ulmer & Berne in Ohio and former president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, worked in an advocacy capacity closely with Jose Mendez, a DACA recipient who pushed the issue at the time in Ohio. Leopold told PolitiFact that it wasn’t a case of DeWine allowing undocumented immigrants to receive driver’s licenses. He was simply interpreting the DACA policy under Ohio law. Since DACA holders were considered "lawfully present," they were able to provide the necessary information to apply for a driver’s license. There were around 1,900 immigrants with DACA status in Ohio by the end of May 2013 when U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service first started tracking state data. Overall, there were 95,000 undocumented immigrants in Ohio. As of 2013, the majority of states already gave driver’s licenses to DACA recipients. Two states, Arizona and Nebraska, implemented policies that excluded DACA grantees from driver’s license eligibility, but as a result of litigation or legislative action, both states later issued driver’s licenses, according to the National Immigration Law Center. Trump announced in 2017 he would rescind DACA. While a federal judge ordered his administration to continue renewals they are not required to process new applications. The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take it up and Congress hasn’t been able to reach any agreement on DACA. Our ruling Onward Ohio said in a TV ad that "in the Senate, DeWine voted with Hillary Clinton to let illegal immigrants receive Social Security. And in Ohio, DeWine allowed illegal immigrants to receive driver's licenses." On both of these attacks, the ad makes a sweeping statement without filling in viewers about the scope of what a bill and a policy actually said. The Social Security provision was more narrow than the ad suggests, because it addressed the treatment of past payroll taxes paid by people who at one time had been undocumented immigrants. While attorney general, DeWine concluded that undocumented immigrants who had temporary status through the federal DACA program were entitled to driver’s licenses, but that didn’t apply to all undocumented immigrants. There are kernels of truth here, but the ad fails to provide a complete picture of DeWine’s actions. We rate this claim Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Onward Ohio | null | null | null | 2018-03-23T12:00:00 | 2018-03-20 | ['Ohio', 'Hillary_Rodham_Clinton'] |
bove-00140 | Was Tom Moody Trolled By Communist Supporters From Kerala On Facebook? A FactCheck | none | https://www.boomlive.in/was-tom-moody-trolled-by-left-wing-supporters-from-kerala-on-facebook-a-factcheck/ | null | null | null | null | null | Was Tom Moody Trolled By Communist Supporters From Kerala On Facebook? A FactCheck | Nov 21 2017 6:28 pm, Last Updated: Nov 23 2017 12:13 pm | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05613 | President Barack Obama "reduced the cost of prescription drugs for nearly 3.6 million Americans in 2011." | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/mar/27/barack-obama/obama-ad-claims-credit-cheaper-prescription-drugs/ | As the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on the national health care law, a new Barack Obama campaign ad touts the improvements in Medicare benefits contained in the legislation. Video clips of President Obama speaking about eliminating Medicare fraud play are interspersed with still shots of the president embracing retirees. The text: "As president he signed the Affordable Care Act ... and reduced the cost of prescription drugs for nearly 3.6 million Americans in 2011." We’re checking whether the ad is accurate that the health law -- and Obama, by extension -- are to credit for that many Medicare recipients paying less for prescription drugs last year. The doughnut hole Medicare Part D, which covers prescription drugs for beneficiaries, has always contained a coverage gap. The plan pays for drugs up to a dollar amount, but then Medicare recipients must cover the entire cost of prescriptions until catastrophic coverage kicks in. Currently, beneficiaries in the Medicare Part D program must pay the first $310 for prescriptions. Then insurance then pays up to $2,830. At that point they’re in what's known as the doughnut hole with a gap in coverage until they hit an out-of-pocket limit of $4,550. At that point, their coverage takes over again, usually paying about 95 percent of the costs. Jack Hoadley, a health policy analyst at Georgetown University, co-wrote a study for the Kaiser Family Foundation last year on the coverage gap. He pointed out that even those who reach the catastrophic threshold do so only after they have been paying the full price of their prescriptions for several months. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, slowly phases out the doughnut hole through price discounts and government subsidies, eliminating it completely in 2020. The 2011 phase Last year, under the terms of the health care law, the doughnut hole shrank a little with those eligible for Medicare receiving discounts on drugs once they reached the coverage gap. Drug manufacturers were required to provide a 50 percent discount for covered brand name drugs, while there were federal subsidies (7 percent discount) for generic drugs, said Elizabeth Hargrave, a senior research scientist at the University of Chicago and co-author of the study with Hoadley. "The brand-name drug discounts do not cause beneficiaries to reach the catastrophic coverage more slowly – they’re counted as if beneficiaries paid these amounts out of pocket. So this is true savings even for beneficiaries who subsequently reach the catastrophic limit," Hargrave added. Both discounts will increase over time until the doughnut hole is effectively closed in 2020, she said. So the reduced drug costs are real. What about the number of people who benefitted? ‘Nearly 3.6 million Americans’ The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, estimated that total discounts added up to $2.1 billion, or an average of $604 per beneficiary. It also said 3,576,640 people enjoyed those savings. (For a state-by-state breakdown, check out the chart at the bottom of the fact sheet.) The CMS numbers are based on 2011 Part D claims data received through Feb. 29, 2012, the agency said. We didn’t see any reason to doubt the figures, but CMS is a federal agency under Obama, and this is an Obama campaign ad. So we ran it by Hoadley and Hargrave, who both said the 3.6 million figure checks out. Hargrave pointed us to another CMS chart, which totalled the number of beneficiaries in the doughnut hole in 2011 at 3,758,024 -- including the territories -- and about 3.6 million in the 50 states. (See the first chart in the zip file.) Our ruling Obama’s campaign ad credits the president, by fighting for and signing the health care law, with reducing the cost of prescription drugs for nearly 3.6 million Americans in 2011. The law is saving Medicare beneficiaries money by phasing out the coverage gap, or doughnut hole. It accomplishes that by requiring discounts from drug companies and by providing subsidies in increasing amounts until the gap is eliminated. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid said about 3.6 million people saved about $2.1 billion on drugs in 2011. The claim holds up. We rate it True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2012-03-27T16:36:42 | 2012-03-20 | ['United_States', 'Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-09098 | Health reform eliminates co-pays, deductibles, and other costs for preventative care and provides for free annual wellness checkups starting next year. | mostly true | /georgia/statements/2010/jun/23/jane-kidd/health-reform-gives-seniors-free-checkups-democrat/ | Even after all the hollering over health care reform, average citizens remain confused over how the bill will change their lives. Among them are retirees, a powerful voting bloc, which means Democrats who pushed for the reform have some explaining to do. How do they convince them that they have their best interests in mind? Enter Georgia's Democratic Party, whose chair Jane Kidd wrote a column to address these concerns. That opinion piece was e-mailed to the press. Thanks to health care reform, the op-ed said, seniors will get free services that can help keep them healthy. She wrote: "For example, while seniors today must pay for preventative care, health reform eliminates co-pays, deductibles, and other costs for preventative care and provides for free annual wellness checkups starting next year – ensuring that every Georgia senior has the care they need to better maintain their health." Free? Is this too good to be true? To back up their claim, Georgia's Democrats referred us to an article in The Record newspaper of Troy, N.Y., that cited the AARP. It states that "many preventative services . . . will now be free for Medicare beneficiaries, and they won’t have to shell out co-pays for those services." They also sent an article from CNN.com that said, "Medicare will provide free annual wellness visits and personalized prevention plans starting in 2011," and a fact sheet from WhiteHouse.gov that said the same thing. We called the AARP, a group known for its extensive research on issues that affect seniors. They confirmed that seniors who have Medicare will receive annual wellness visits and personalized prevention plans starting in 2011. These benefits were established by Title IV of the massive health care overhaul bill, dubbed "Prevention of Chronic Disease and Improving Public Health." By 2010, Medicare recipients will receive free "annual wellness visits" from their health care providers. The checkup will include the creation of a personal prevention plan and a schedule of recommended health screenings for the next five to 10 years, the bill states. Since the AARP took sides on the issue, we sought additional verification. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the government agency that administers these programs, confirmed the AARP account and gave some additional information. There is some question about whether members of Medicare Advantage plans -- the privately managed plans that operate under the Medicare umbrella -- will also receive these wellness visits for free. A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said federal law requires that Medicare Advantage plans provide, at a minimum, the services included in Medicare. So by 2011, these plans will also have to provide wellness visits without charge. Generally speaking, the health care law has several provisions that attempt to change Medicare so that it pays for good outcomes instead of paying per procedure, a system known as "fee for service." The free preventive care is part of that overall philosophy. Tests such as cancer screenings that are already free under Medicare will remain so, and additional tests may also be included, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said. Still, we at PolitiFact Georgia remained dubious. Is there no provision that will make seniors pay for the "free" preventive services in an indirect way? Well there's free. And then there's "free." It's free if you paid your Medicare taxes, and make below a certain income. Over time, higher-income seniors will find that their overall Medicare costs increase, according to tax expert Howard Gleckman, a resident fellow at the nonpartisan Urban Institute, Joseph Antos, a health policy expert with the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a nonpartisan think tank with conservative roots, and a PolitiFact Georgia review of the legislation. Under the current system, recipients with individual incomes of $85,000 or family incomes of $170,000 pay higher premiums to receive coverage. Under the new system, the pool of people who pay this bigger bill will gradually increase because the income thresholds will not be adjusted for inflation until 2019,according to Section 3402 of the legislation. For those who cross the threshold, this could mean an increase of roughly $50 a month, Antos said. All taxpayers, including seniors, who make more than $200,000 individually or $250,000 as a family will pay more in payroll taxes under Section 9015 of the bill. Also, seniors who like to work on their tans -- whoever you are -- should watch out. Indoor tanning salons will have to pay an excise tax under the new law. That cost will likely be passed on to customers, Gleckman said. But the overwhelming majority of retired seniors will find that free preventive services are just that. Free. We rate this claim Mostly True. | null | Jane Kidd | null | null | null | 2010-06-23T06:00:00 | 2010-06-10 | ['None'] |
snes-06186 | A man using the screen name 'DreamWeaverGrey' is luring women to their deaths over the Internet. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dreamweavergrey-warning/ | null | Crime | null | David Mikkelson | null | DreamWeaverGrey Warning | 12 September 2000 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02473 | Switzerland Gun Policy May Keep Their Murder Rate Down | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/swiss-gun-policy/ | null | miscellaneous | null | null | null | Switzerland Gun Policy May Keep Their Murder Rate Down | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01024 | President Trump has proposed defunding NASA’s interest in the International Space Station to allow for commercial development of the asset. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-want-turn-space-station-commercial-venture/ | null | Politics | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Does the White House Want to Turn the International Space Station into a Commercial Venture? | 13 February 2018 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-01143 | First Choice UK Holiday Prize Facebook Page | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/first-choice-uk-holiday-prize-facebook-page-is-a-scam/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | First Choice UK Holiday Prize Facebook Page is A Scam | April 19, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01224 | Did Federal Agents Raid a Mosque in Michigan? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/michigan-isis/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Did Federal Agents Raid a Mosque in Michigan? | 11 January 2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00638 | Katie Holmes, Jamie Foxx On “Thin Ice”? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/katie-holmes-jamie-foxx-split-thin-ice-not-true/ | null | null | null | Gossip Cop Staff | null | Katie Holmes, Jamie Foxx On “Thin Ice”? | 6:39 pm, July 15, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03343 | Brothers in Limpopo, South Africa, were arrested for raping a crocodile. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/limpopo-brothers-crocodile-assault/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Were Several Men Arrested for Sexually Assaulting a Crocodile? | 14 December 2016 | null | ['South_Africa', 'Limpopo'] |
pomt-00126 | We know dangerous criminals can slip through immigration at airports just like ours. Yet Joe Donnelly stood right here with the radical left against all efforts to secure our most vulnerable entry points. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/oct/26/national-republican-senatorial-committee/nrsc-distorts-joe-donnellys-immigration-record/ | A National Republican Senatorial Committee ad in the Indiana Senate race will have you believe Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly has a radical outlook on immigration. He doesn’t. "We know dangerous criminals can slip through immigration at airports just like ours," the ad says. "Yet Joe Donnelly stood right here with the radical left against all efforts to secure our most vulnerable entry points. Just like he stood with the radical left in Washington. Open borders, taxpayer-funded benefits. Putting them in front of Hoosiers. Joe Donnelly stood right here and showed us whose side he’s on." Donnelly has consistently voted in favor of tougher immigration enforcement. He has voted to defund sanctuary cities and called eliminating ICE a "terrible idea." He voted three times to fund Trump’s border wall, and even said he would be "fine" providing "$3 (billion), $3.5, $4 or $5" billion for the wall. We rated a claim that he voted to grant amnesty to undocumented immigrants Mostly False. The clip of Donnelly is taken from a protest against President Donald Trump’s travel ban at the Indianapolis International Airport on Jan 29, 2017. The executive order, signed Jan. 27, temporarily halted the entry into the United States of people from seven majority-Muslim countries impacted by terrorism. It also paused admission of all refugees for 120 days and indefinitely stopped the entry of refugees from Syria. "This is wrong," the ad shows Donnelly saying, emphasizing each word. But footage from that same speech shows he was actually quoting Republicans to support his position — not the "radical left". "(Senators) John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) came out today and said: This is wrong. This does not make us safer. And so I say to all of you here, thank you. Thank you for standing up for America and American values," Donnelly said. Donnelly was paraphrasing a joint statement McCain and Graham released on Jan. 29, 2017. "This executive order sends a signal, intended or not, that America does not want Muslims coming into our country," they wrote. "That is why we fear this executive order may do more to help terrorist recruitment than improve our security." Trump produced three iterations of the ban. The first two were struck down by the courts. The third was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump's travel restrictions currently apply to nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, North Korea and Venezuela. NRSC did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Our ruling NRSC said, "We know dangerous criminals can slip through immigration at airports just like ours. Yet Joe Donnelly stood right here with the radical left against all efforts to secure our most vulnerable entry points." Donnelly has mostly stood with Republicans when it comes to immigration. He stood with Democrats and several prominent Republicans, whom he quotes in the video, in decrying Trump’s executive order to halt the entry of people from countries impacted by terrorism. That’s not the "radical left". We rate this statement False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | National Republican Senatorial Committee | null | null | null | 2018-10-26T12:56:13 | 2018-10-24 | ['None'] |
pomt-03823 | Scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's were it not for "overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators." | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/mar/20/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-said-alzheimers-disease-could-be-/ | Are bureaucrats, high taxation and trial lawyers keeping America from tackling Alzheimer’s disease? Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., said they are during a speech to CPAC, the annual conservative conference. After recalling the history of vaccinations against polio, Bachmann said, "We have another disease ... that's hurting us today. It's called Alzheimer's. ... There is no known treatment for Alzheimer's on the horizon. … Scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's, if we'd only put our mind to it. So why aren't we seeking to cure diseases like Alzheimer's, or diabetes, juvenile diabetes, heart disease, cancer, Parkinson's disease? How did we possibly get to this point of political malpractice? Because our government, proclaiming to care so much, has created a cadre of overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators. That's not caring. It's time we care." We wondered if it was accurate for Bachmann to say that "scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's" were it not for "overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators." So we checked with a variety of Alzheimer’s researchers and policy experts. (Bachmann’s office did not respond to an inquiry for this article.) We found a strong consensus among Alzheimer’s disease experts that Bachmann’s factors are either minor obstacles or not obstacles at all. Instead, they cited two primary concerns -- insufficient funding and the complexity of the disease itself. First, let’s look at funding. "The only thing keeping us from developing successful treatments for Alzheimer's disease is the lack of adequate funding for research from NIH and other federal agencies," said Robert A. Stern, a neurologist and neurosurgeon, as well as a director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center at the Boston University School of Medicine. "That has nothing to do with her naive and scary statements. It only has to do with Congress deciding that it is worth spending money on." We should note that the Obama administration did shift $50 million into Alzheimer’s research for fiscal year 2012 and requested an additional $80 million for fiscal year 2013. It also dedicated nearly $80 million in stimulus money to Alzheimer’s for each of two fiscal years, 2009 and 2010. Still, these temporary increases were not built into the ongoing baseline. The baseline level has remained fairly constant since Obama took office, at about $450 million a year. And that amount is due to be cut back this year due to the across-the-board cuts known as sequestration. "After many years of expansion under the Clinton administration, the budget for the National Institutes of Health has remained relatively stagnant for more than a decade," said Deborah E. Barnes, an Alzheimer’s specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. "This has put the squeeze on scientists. In the past, the top 25 percent to 30 percent of research proposals would receive funding. Now it is the top 5 percent to 10 percent. This means that a lot of really good research is not being funded, and our progress toward finding a cure for Alzheimer's and other important disorders has been slowed. The funding for NIH comes from taxpayer dollars, so excessive taxation is clearly not the problem." The other key obstacle our experts cited is the nature of the disease itself. If Bachmann is looking for diseases that have been sidetracked by bureaucratic or regulatory hurdles, "Alzheimer's is about the worst example she could give," said R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin. The disease, she said, "develops over years from causes still unclear. The real dilemma for Alzheimer's drug trials -- or for trials of any disease that develops slowly with symptoms that may easily be due to other diseases and which may be of varying intensity -- is that there is no form of standard clinical trial that can test interventions and cures within a reasonable time frame." As a result, she said, the FDA has allowed various kinds of abbreviated trials that don’t evaluate progress in slowing or reversing the disease itself. Instead, they track "surrogate markers" -- indicators that seem to suggest that a drug is helping. But not all markers translate over time into clinical benefit, she said. Such practical challenges have produced a trail of broken hopes. In a 2012 "setbacks report" on Alzheimer’s drug research, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the nation’s leading trade group for drugmakers, tallied 101 "failed" Alzheimer’s drugs since 1998, with a rate of 34 setbacks for every drug approved. And even the medicines that have won approval have provided symptomatic relief to some patients, rather than actually rolling back the disease itself. One might expect PhRMA, one of the most influential pro-business lobbying groups in Washington, to applaud the notion that overzealous regulation, high taxation and aggressive plaintiffs attorneys are curbing the industry’s efforts. But in the case of Alzheimer’s, at least, the "setbacks report" doesn’t even touch on those issues. So what does the report point to instead? It talks largely about the practical challenges of dealing with a complicated disease. "Scientists still do not fully understand the underlying causes and mechanisms of the disease, particularly when it comes to separating potential causes from effects of the disease. This makes selection of viable targets for new medicines very difficult," the report says. It adds that "the limited utility of current models of the human disease is a huge barrier in preclinical testing of drug candidates." The difficulty of finding testable indicators of the disease, the report continues, "makes it particularly challenging to evaluate, enroll, follow up, and retain patients in clinical studies. Ultimately this leads to long and very expensive clinical trials." Our ruling Bachmann said that "scientists tell us that we could have a cure in 10 years for Alzheimer's" were it not for "overzealous regulators, excessive taxation and greedy litigators." The 10-year goal may or may not be plausible, but if it’s not, there’s wide agreement that the three factors Bachmann mentioned are not the primary obstacles. Instead, researchers pointed to stagnant funding and the fact that Alzheimer’s is a particularly tricky disease to research, given its slow and stealthy advances. If Bachmann was looking to score points about bureaucracy and taxation, she has made a particularly poor choice of case study. Bachmann has taken a popular theme and assigned it to a complicated health condition, simply to score political points. The experts say her claim is unfounded. We rate her claim Pants on Fire! | null | Michele Bachmann | null | null | null | 2013-03-20T16:55:24 | 2013-03-16 | ['None'] |
goop-01812 | Kate Middleton’s Private Diaries Exposed, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kate-middleton-private-diaries-exposed-not-true/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Kate Middleton’s Private Diaries NOT Exposed, Despite Report | 10:53 am, January 17, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04665 | An ACLU executive resigned because her children were made uncomfortable by the presence of transgender women in a bathroom. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/aclu-director-resigns-over-transgender-bathroom-policy/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Kim LaCapria | null | ACLU Director Resigns Over Transgender Bathroom Policy | 3 June 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01565 | Bay leaves contain a compound that decreases anxiety when burned. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/will-burning-bay-leaves-reduce-anxiety/ | null | Medical | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Will Burning Bay Leaves Reduce Anxiety? | 17 October 2017 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-01255 | Step Brothers 2 Is Set to Begin Filming In 2016 | fake news | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/no-step-brothers-2-is-not-set-to-begin-filming-in-2016/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | No, Step Brothers 2 Is NOT Set to Begin Filming In 2016 | March 22, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-06101 | Actor Leonardo DiCaprio will be portraying Martin Luther King in an upcoming film. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/leonardo-dicaprio-cast-mlk-new-film-will-wear-blackface/ | null | Racial Rumors | null | David Mikkelson | null | Leonardo DiCaprio Cast as MLK in New Film, Will Wear Blackface? | 16 April 2014 | null | ['Leonardo_DiCaprio', 'Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.'] |
tron-00730 | Two Americas – Lou Holtz Nails it | inaccurate attribution! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/two-americas-lou-holtz/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Two Americas – Lou Holtz Nails it | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00555 | A black male baby born today, if we do not change the system, stands a one-in-three chance (of) ending up in jail. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jun/15/bernie-sanders/bernie-sanders-says-black-male-baby-born-today-has/ | Several 2016 presidential candidates in both parties have discussed how the criminal justice system might be improved. The latest to address this issue was Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders during a June 11, 2015, interview on PBS. "A black male baby born today, if we do not change the system, stands a one-in-three chance (of) ending up in jail. This is (an) unspeakable tragedy." When we took a closer look, we found that the statistic may not be far off -- but it’s hard to know for sure, because the data Sanders relies on is so old. As with other dramatic talking points we’ve seen over the years, this one has been repeated and repeated over a decade and a half without being updated, despite evidence that the underlying trends have changed direction. The statistic dates back to a 2003 paper published by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a division of the U.S. Justice Department. The Bureau of Justice Statistics paper includes the line, "About 1 in 3 black males ... are expected to go to prison during their lifetime, if current incarceration rates remain unchanged." By contrast, the paper said, one of every six Hispanic males and one of every 17 white males can be expected to go to prison during their lifetime. (For this fact-check, we’ll ignore Sanders’ imprecise use of "jail," where people are held temporarily, rather than "prison," where inmates are typically serving substantial sentences.) Not only was this data published 12 years ago, but the paper is based on data from 2001 -- a full 14 years ago. Despite its age, the statistic has been cited repeatedly -- notably in 2013 with the publication of a report by the Sentencing Project, a group that advocates for prison reform and promotes alternatives to incarceration. That report’s claim -- that "if current trends continue, one of every three black American males born today can expect to go to prison in his lifetime" -- was footnoted to a 2011 paper by Marc Mauer, the Sentencing Project’s executive director. When we contacted Mauer, he said he doesn’t know of any updated research that would shed light on the percentage today. "It's a very complex analysis to produce, so that's at least part of the reason that it hasn't been replicated in recent years," Mauer said. We did, however, find reason to believe that the trend line that had been assumed in the 2003 paper has changed course. According to annual Justice Department reports, in 2001 there were 3,535 sentenced black male prisoners under state or federal jurisdiction for every 100,000 black male residents. By 2013, the equivalent number was 2,805. So black incarceration rates were 21 percent lower in 2013 than they were in 2001. That said, there’s little doubt that black men have disproportionately higher incarceration rates. For instance, a study published in the journal Crime & Delinquency found that nearly half of black males and almost 40 percent of white males in the United States have been arrested by the age of 23. But because of the complexities of modeling the statistics, Mauer said, it’s hard to know how much the decline in incarceration rates would specifically change the one-in-three statistic Sanders used. "We can't necessarily say that the one-in-three figure should be reduced by 21 percent, although if we did, it would bring it down to about 1 in 4, which is still quite dramatic," Mauer said. Our ruling Sanders said that "a black male baby born today, if we do not change the system, stands a one-in-three chance (of) ending up in jail." This calculation, while it’s the most recent one available, is 14 years old, and changes in the underlying data suggest that the actual odds of incarceration may be somewhat smaller today. Still, other evidence suggests that blacks have a disproportionate likelihood of ending up in prison. On balance we rate it Mostly True. | null | Bernie Sanders | null | null | null | 2015-06-15T17:13:57 | 2015-06-11 | ['None'] |
pose-00876 | As Milwaukee County Executive, Chris Abele will not raise your taxes. | promise broken | https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/promises/abele-o-meter/promise/908/not-raise-taxes/ | null | abele-o-meter | Chris Abele | null | null | Not raise taxes | 2011-05-11T10:21:33 | null | ['None'] |
obry-00043 | On Sept. 21 Rep. Todd Novak, incumbent Republican candidate for Wisconsin’s 51st Assembly District, sat down with Steve Walters of WisconsinEye for an interview. Novak beat his Democratic challenger, Jeff Wright, in a close contest Nov. 8. Novak told Walters one of his top priorities is funding transportation, but he was concerned about additional borrowing to fund improvements. He said more attention should be given to revenue enhancers, including toll roads and raising the gas tax. Novak acknowledged reluctantly that he would consider voting to raise the gas tax. | mostly_true | https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2016/11/18/is-wisconsins-gas-tax-among-the-highest-in-the-nation/ | null | null | null | Lauren Sklba | null | Is Wisconsin’s gas tax among the highest in the nation? | December 16, 2016 | null | ['Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Robert_Novak', 'Wisconsin'] |
snes-02705 | A photograph shows a man posing with a bear that he killed while it was hibernating, an act made legal by the passage of a new law. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kill-hibernating-bear/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Did This Man Shoot and Kill a Hibernating Bear? | 31 March 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01883 | Cranston's 2014-2015 "budget funds 100 percent of the local police and fire pension and other retiree benefit costs." | mostly true | /rhode-island/statements/2014/jul/09/allan-fung/does-mayor-allan-fungs-budget-cranston-cover-all-r/ | It wasn't that long ago that Cranston was facing an overwhelming bill for retirees and potential retirees, a crisis that prompted Mayor Allan Fung to seek concessions from the city's police and fire unions. The city was in trouble because, for years, its elected officials failed to invest enough money to cover the retirement benefits they were promising. So it caught our attention when Fung, who is running for governor as a Republican, sent out a letter with the city's new tax bills reporting that "Our budget funds 100 percent of the local police and fire pension and other retiree benefits costs." So is Cranston's pension problem fixed and up to speed? We decided to look at the numbers. Cranston actually has several pension plans. Police and fire workers hired over the past two decades, along with municipal employees, are covered by the state-run Municipal Employees' Retirement System. The state sets a percentage of payroll that municipalities in the MERS system must contribute to cover their costs. If the municipalities don’t pay up, the state withholds aid to make up the shortfall. For the current fiscal year, Cranston’s minimum was 13.69 percent of payroll; the city’s budget includes that amount -- about $4.8 million on the non-school side of the ledger. In other words, it’s paying 100 percent of the state-mandated MERS requirement. Then there’s the funding level, the percentage of what the plans need to meet their pension obligations. The city’s MERS plans are not funded exactly at 100 percent, but they're fairly close. According to the latest actuarial report, the city has 95.9 percent of the projected police retiree costs, 107.1 percent of the projected firefighter retiree costs, and 95.1 percent of all other municipal retiree costs. Any plan with a funded ratio below 80 percent is considered to be in trouble. However, the old police and fire pension programs, administered by the city, are a different story because, over the years, Cranston's elected officials neglected to put enough money into those programs to cover future retiree costs. Although they have been closed since 1995, the city would need an additional $231 million to fully fund them. (To put that amount in perspective, the city's entire budget for the current fiscal year is $262 million.) The old police pension is only 18.3 percent funded and the old fire pension program is just 24.1 percent funded, according to information from the city's latest actuarial report. They’re far from 100-percent funded. However, the city is now on a payment plan designed to wipe out that shortfall by 2042. (The date has been 2037, but a recent court settlement with the unions forced the date to be pushed back by five years.) Under that plan, the city should be paying $22,353,591 this year, according to the city's actuarial firm, Buck Consultants. Fung, in an email to PolitiFact Rhode Island, showed where the city's appropriation for this year will actually be $22,518 more than the recommended amount. To cover other benefits, primarily retiree health insurance, Buck recommended that the city budget $5.1 million. The city has set aside $4.6 million and plans to cover the remaining $500,000 by using about a third of its $1.6 million hospital stabilization account, which is savings accumulated because the city self-insures its workers. Fung, in an interview, said he didn't intend to leave the impression in his letter to taxpayers that the city had covered 100 percent of all its pension obligations. "If I had meant that, I would have said it was 100 percent fully funded, which is not true." Instead, he said his point was that, unlike in past years, the city is paying for 100 percent of its annual required contribution to solve its pension problems. We should note that Fung has not been shy about talking about the unfunded liability of the city's old pension systems, mentioning it in interviews and on other occasions. Our ruling Cranston Mayor Allan Fung said, "Our budget funds 100 percent of the local police and fire pension and other retiree benefit costs." The city is making the minimum required payments for retirement benefits through the state-run MERS system and to pay down this year's share of the bill for the huge long-term liability incurred by the city's older police and fire pension systems. But his statement could lead a reader to conclude that 100 percent of the city’s $231 million debt for the old plans is covered by this year's budget when, in fact, the only thing the city is paying in full is this year's installment on a plan that won't retire that debt for another 28 years. Because the statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, we rate it Mostly True. (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 | Allan Fung | null | null | null | 2014-07-09T00:01:00 | 2014-06-26 | ['None'] |
pomt-10794 | I cut taxes 23 times when I was mayor of New York City. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2007/oct/09/rudy-giuliani/not-by-himself-he-didnt/ | Rudy Giuliani has repeatedly said that he cut taxes 23 times while he was mayor of New York. He repeated the claim during a debate in Dearborn, Mich., on Oct. 9, 2007. The problem is, he was opposed to one of the tax cuts he lists, and several other cuts were championed by others or involved state funds — not city funds. The most glaring example is the expiration of the 12.5 percent personal income tax surcharge on New York City residents. Peter Vallone, then the city council speaker and a candidate for governor, championed letting the tax expire, while Giuliani opposed him. After about five months, the mayor and the city council came to a budget agreement, and Giuliani changed his mind and let the tax expire. Some New Yorkers have disputed whether the mayor may appropriately take credit for the STAR program, a property tax rebate that Gov. George Pataki initiated and paid for with state funds, according to an analysis of the cuts by the New York Daily News. The Annenberg Political FactCheck, a fact-checking Web site, looked at the "23 tax cuts" line when the campaign used the figure in a Giuliani radio ad. FactCheck concluded, based on information from New York City's Independent Budget Office, that eight of the tax cuts Giuliani boasts about actually should be credited to state government initiatives. In addition, FactCheck said he did not deserve credit for the personal income tax surcharge and that overall, he could rightly claim only 14 of the 23 tax cuts. The Giuliani campaign has argued that Giuliani deserves credit for any tax cuts under his watch. Giuliani made the case himself to a reporter in an exchange that was captured on video. In the video, Giuliani said he deserves credit for the tax cuts because he publicly argued for them and lobbied for them, and that he was the chief executive of the tax base that was affected. Still, we find it's a stretch for Giuliani to personally take credit for 23 when many of them were primarily pushed by others. So we find his claim to be Half True. | null | Rudy Giuliani | null | null | null | 2007-10-09T00:00:00 | 2007-10-09 | ['New_York_City'] |
pomt-07289 | No other Northeastern state has passed a photo ID law | true | /rhode-island/statements/2011/may/22/rhode-island-aclu/aclu-says-ri-would-be-lone-northeastern-state-adop/ | Got ID? A bill before the General Assembly would require all voters in Rhode Island to show photo identification before casting a ballot. Sen. Harold Metts, D-Providence, and Secretary of State Ralph Mollis, who worked together to introduce the bill, say it would help prevent fraud and ensure the integrity of elections. Critics argue that fraud is rare and that obtaining a valid ID is an obstacle to voting for the poor, the elderly, people with disabilities and racial minorities. In opposing the bill, the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union stated in a news release, "No other Northeastern state has passed a photo ID law." Is Rhode Island truly alone among other states in the region? We elected to find out. Both the ACLU and the secretary of state’s office, who are on opposite sides of the issue, directed us to the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures. The first thing we learned is that nearly half of the states -- including Rhode Island -- only require voters to provide a signature at the polls. But that’s been changing rapidly. In 2000, just 15 states asked for ID, such as a birth certificate, Social Security card, photo ID or voter registration card. But today, the number has grown to 28. Another 13 state legislatures have taken up voter ID legislation this year, including 8 that are considering expanding their ID requirements to include photo identification. The laws "are becoming more prevalent and stricter," said Jennie Bowser, senior fellow at the National Conference of State Legislatures. "It has been slowly growing over the last decade. And there has been a big pickup in activity this year." Photo ID laws differ on what’s considered an acceptable form of ID and who is exempted from showing one. (Kansas, for example, exempts those whose religious belief prohibit photo identification.) Another variable is what happens when someone arrives at a poll without a photo ID. Florida’s canvassing board reviews whether the vote may be tallied. Hawaii asks voters without a photo ID to recite their address and date of birth. Several states accept a provisional ballot, but only count it when certain requirements are met. Georgia, for example, gives voters two days to present a valid ID. Idaho and Louisiana offer the option of submitting an affidavit, which if filled out falsely can result in criminal charges. Rhode Island’s proposed law (passed by the Senate, but held for more study in the House) would go into effect in stages. Beginning in 2012, voters would have to show a college ID, driver’s license, passport or other government issued card. IDs without a photo, such as a Social Security or Medicare card, would be accepted, but only until 2014. At that time, voters without a photo ID would have two choices. First, they would have to obtain, at no charge, a voter identification card from the state prior to going to a polling place. Second, they would have to go to their polling place and cast a provisional ballot that would have to be inspected by a review board before being counted. Now, returning to the ACLU’s claim, are there any states with photo ID laws in the Northeast? Since the ACLU didn’t say what it means by Northeast, we’ll use the U.S. Census Bureau definition: the six New England states plus New York, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that none of these states requires, or even requests, a photo ID. (In fact, only one Northeast state -- Connecticut -- requires any ID at all.) "As far as I know there is no Northeastern state that has photo ID as a requirement," agreed Sean Greene, manager of research for the Pew Center on the States, which tracks voter ID legislation. There are certainly states close to the Northeast with stricter rules. Delaware, Virginia and Ohio all require identification. Michigan and Indiana are among nine states nationwide that request or require photo IDs. "The majority of bills pending this year are photo [mandates]," said Bowser, of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Among them are two New England states, Maine and New Hampshire. Connecticut, too, has in the past considered photo identification, but has so far rejected the idea. In its attempt to portray Rhode Island as remarkably isolated on the issue, the ACLU has omitted some relevant facts: other states in the country are increasingly turning to photo ID laws; the majority of new bills under consideration across the country would require photo IDs; and two of Rhode Island’s neighbors in New England are considering such mandates. But the ACLU is factually correct when it states that no other state in the Northeast requires photo ID. That’s why our judges (whose IDs, incidentally, we did not request) voted to rate the ACLU claim True. (To comment or offer your own ruling, visit us on Facebook.) | null | Rhode Island ACLU | null | null | null | 2011-05-22T00:00:01 | 2011-05-04 | ['None'] |
pomt-02807 | Firearms homicides are down about 40 percent since Texas passed concealed-gun permit law. | mostly true | /texas/statements/2013/nov/27/jerry-patterson/texas-firearm-homicide-rate-down-least-one-third-1/ | An online campaign video from Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, one of the Republican hopefuls in the 2014 lieutenant governor race, touts his record on defending Second Amendment rights. "I stood alone in passing the Texas concealed-handgun law over the doomsday predictions of blood in the streets, ‘Wild Wild West’ and shootouts at every four-way stop," Patterson says, "and of course none of that happened. Matter of fact, firearms homicides are down about 40 percent." As a state senator from Pasadena, Patterson wrote the 1995 legislation that allowed eligible Texans to get licenses to carry concealed handguns, which was approved overwhelmingly after much debate by a Senate vote of 23-7 and a House vote of 101-46. In news stories from the 1995 regular legislative session, Austin Democratic Rep. Sherri Greenberg predicted gunplay in hospital emergency rooms and Dallas lawmakers said frustrated drivers would shoot each other in traffic. A March 16, 1995, Houston Chronicle news story quoted then-Sen. Greg Luna, D-San Antonio, as saying, "It is going to be a much more dangerous and deadly society we have imposed on ourselves in Texas." Did firearms murders subsequently decrease by 40 percent? By phone, Patterson told us he used national data on firearms homicides rates per 100,000 people since 1993 because he didn’t have state statistics. Nationwide figures were still relevant, he said, "because over the last 20 years, dozens of states have added concealed-handgun (licensing) laws that didn’t have them before." Patterson campaign spokesman Chris Elam emailed us web links to reports published in May 2013 from the Pew Research Center and the U.S. Bureau of Justics Statistics showing that in recent years, the rate of firearms homicides nationwide had fallen by 49 percent from a historic peak in 1993. But the Texas law took effect in 1996. Wouldn’t that year be the logical starting point for judging changes in deaths by firearms? Defending his claim, Patterson told us by phone that he used 1993 as a starting point because that was the year when lawmakers initially advanced his proposal, which Gov. Ann Richards vetoed. During this fact-check, he said, he "recognized the flaw in me saying 1993 when it actually didn’t come into effect until 1 January 1996, but I think the message," that murders did not spike, "is still accurate." Next, we looked for data on Texas gun murders since 1996. From the CDC, we found reports online covering 1996-2010, drawn from death certificate information reported by medical professionals and coroners, and we got 1996-2012 data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, most recently updated Sept. 16, 2013, with information on murders and other crimes known to law enforcement agencies. By the CDC tally, the rate of firearms homicides in Texas 1996-2010 fell 32.2 percent. Calculating with the FBI data for 1996-2012, the rate fell 42 percent. The U.S. and Texas declines in gun homicides are part of a larger trend -- U.S. violent crimes overall began falling significantly in the 1990s. Crime experts have advanced reasons including a decrease in crack cocaine use, economic factors, tougher police strategies and the aging of the baby-boom generation. Patterson said he does not claim that concealed-handgun laws reduce crime -- rather, he said, he is stating such statutes don’t increase crime, "in spite of the protestations to the contrary." Our ruling Patterson said firearms homicides decreased 40 percent since Texas passed a law permitting licensed residents to carry concealed guns. That claim was staked to changes nationally and a timeframe unreasonably starting before the law took effect. Still, Patterson’s figure is close to correct. Data for Texas show declines of either 32 percent or 42 percent since the state law took effect. We are not concluding that the measure authored by Patterson explains the decrease, which occurred nationally for multiple reasons. We rate this statement, which needed clarification, as Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Jerry Patterson | null | null | null | 2013-11-27T12:00:00 | 2013-11-19 | ['Texas'] |
tron-01518 | South Africa President Zuma’s 747 Boeing Airplane | truth! & fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/south-africa-president-zumas-747-boeing-airplane/ | null | government | null | null | ['foreign leaders', 'government waste', 'international'] | South Africa President Zuma’s 747 Boeing Airplane | Sep 16, 2016 | null | ['South_Africa', 'Jacob_Zuma'] |
goop-02113 | Faith Hill “Painfully Thin” From Marriage Problems, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/faith-hill-painfully-thin-marriage-problems-skinny/ | null | null | null | Holly Nicol | null | Faith Hill NOT “Painfully Thin” From Marriage Problems, Despite Report | 10:57 am, November 30, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-03672 | Teens playing “Spunkball” or “Sparkball” may set you on fire | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/spunkball/ | null | warnings | null | null | null | Teens playing “Spunkball” or “Sparkball” may set you on fire | Mar 16, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05518 | Donald Trump has been disqualified from running for President due to his comments about Muslims. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-disqualified-president/ | null | Politics | null | Dan Evon | null | Trump Disqualified from Being President? | 8 December 2015 | null | ['Donald_Trump'] |
pomt-07443 | If we had the same staffing ratio (of officers to residents) as Seattle, we'd have 300 more officers in our department." | true | /oregon/statements/2011/apr/21/michael-reese/chief-reese-says-if-portland-were-seattle-bureau-w/ | Well, if you’re done comparing our farmers markets, bikeways and standards of living, Portland Police Chief Mike Reese has identified another battle in the ongoing Portland-Seattle War: The police-to-resident ratio. Yep. In a recent appearance at the City Club of Portland, Reese noted that if Portland "had the same staffing ratio as Seattle, we'd have 300 more officers in our department." Could we really be falling that far behind? Could our bike paths really be so superior or produce so much fresher but our police force so much smaller? Naturally, we had to know. We called up the Seattle Police Department and asked just how many officers our sister city to the north has. As of February 1, 2011, they had 1,338 sworn officers. That number includes everybody from patrol officers to detectives to assistant police chiefs. According to the 2010 census, the city of Seattle is home to some 608,660 residents. Divide the number of residents by the number of officers and you get about one officer for every 455 residents. To see how many officers Portland would need to have the same ratio you just need to take our population -- 583,776, according to the 2010 census -- and divide it by 455. Do that, and you get 1,283. So, how many officers does Portland actually have? Well, according to bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson, we have 981 sworn officers in all -- about 300 fewer than we’d need to hit Seattle’s ratio. Reese is right. We have about 25 percent fewer officers than we would need to match Seattle’s ratio. That percent difference holds up when you consider just the number of patrol officers, too. (Seattle has some 550 patrol officers -- one for every 1,106 residents -- to Portland’s 392 -- one for every 1,490 residents.) But before we pronounce this a case closed, let’s consider one other variable: The Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro-area population is some 3,400,000* strong while the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metro-area population is roughly a third smaller at 2,200,000. The reason that has anything to do with Seattle police staffing is this: Seattle’s day-time population -- the number of folks coming in for work and entertainment -- gives the city’s population even more of an edge over Portland’s. Day-time population estimates for the 2010 Census haven’t been published just yet, but if we take a look back at the estimates from the 2000 Census they show Seattle’s population growing by more than 28 percent during the day, while Portland grew by 23 percent during the day. If we keep those ratios, Seattle’s population reaches 781,519 and Portland’s jumps to 718,097. Rerun the numbers and Seattle has one sworn officer for every 584 "day-time" residents. In order to match that ratio, Portland would need 1,229 officers. We’re 248 officers short this time around. We just can’t win. At least, as Reese noted during the same speech, our crime rate is down to levels not seen since 1967. Still, why are we lagging behind? Well, there are a number of variables here, but, perhaps most importantly, Seattle’s property-related revenue stream puts our own to shame. All told, Portland has an assessed property value of nearly $45 billion. (The actual market value for Portland is about double the assessed value according to the Tax Supervising and Conservation Commission, but Measure 5 and related laws keep the taxable value depressed.) Meanwhile, Seattle has an assessed property value of $123 billion -- nearly three times as much as we have to work with. Portland draws about 40 percent of its budget from property taxes. Whatever the case, it seems Reese is on to something here. If you take the population of each city, we’re short about 300 officers if we want to match Seattle’s resident-to-officer ratio. Even if you control for the number of people in the surrounding metro area, we seem to be lagging pretty considerably. We rate this claim True. *CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misstated the population of the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro-area population. The 2010 Census estimates the population to be more than 3,400,000. | null | Michael Reese | null | null | null | 2011-04-21T06:00:00 | 2011-04-15 | ['None'] |
goop-00527 | Beyonce, Jay-Z Rejected By Queen Elizabeth? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/beyonce-jay-z-queen-elizabeth-buckingham-palace/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Beyonce, Jay-Z Rejected By Queen Elizabeth? | 2:00 am, August 3, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02331 | There are over 100 pipelines between the United States and Canada right now. | mostly false | /florida/statements/2014/mar/26/jeb-bush/while-talking-about-keystone-xl-pipeline-jeb-bush-/ | Former Gov. Jeb Bush says the Keystone XL Pipeline is a "no-brainer." Bush took a question on the pipeline after a speech to the business and civic group Broward Workshop. AutoNation CEO Mike Jackson asked him this: "Just as a symbol -- as a symbol -- would you have approved something like the Keystone Pipeline or would you have studied it for eight years?" Bush responded: "I read something that was quite interesting. There are over 100 pipelines between the United States and Canada right now. Give me a break. What are we arguing about here?" We’re not going to weigh in on the pros and cons of expanding the pipeline but we can fact-check whether there are already 100 pipelines between the United States and Canada. Keystone Pipeline Keystone XL is a proposed pipeline that would carry 830,000 barrels per day of diluted oil sands from Western Canada to Nebraska and then to refineries on the Gulf Coast. Earlier in March, the U.S. State Department concluded the public comment period about the project. After six years of contentious debate between environmentalists and pipeline supporters, the decision now lies with President Barack Obama. We sent Bush’s claim to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which referred us to an October 2013 Congressional Research Service report. The report stated that CRS "has identified over 100 operating or proposed oil, natural gas, and electric transmission facilities crossing the U.S.-Mexico or U.S.-Canada border." A Bush spokesperson later referred us to this report as well. Bush had said there were over "100 pipelines between the United States and Canada right now," but the CRS report refers to operating and proposed facilities crossing the border with Canada or Mexico. With help from FERC and the Pipeline Safety Trust, a safety watchdog group, we counted the pipelines in the tables of the report and found 29 natural gas pipelines crossing the U.S.-Canada border and about 17 oil pipelines crossing the U.S.-Canada border. Philippe Reicher, a spokesman for the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association, told PolitiFact that the National Energy Board, which regulates pipelines crossing the border between Canada and the United States, has indicated that they have approximately 80 pipelines crossing the border. "That would include oil, gas, water, etc.," he wrote in an email. "In terms of large transmission pipeline systems similar to the proposed Keystone XL, we are probably looking between 18 and 22." Lorne Stockman, research director at Oil Change International, a group that opposes Keystone, pointed to a map from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, which shows all the existing and proposed liquids pipelines crossing the border. "Some of these carry products rather than crude, and only a handful currently carry tar sands crude," Stockman told PolitiFact. "Looks quite busy on this map, but I think we can all agree that 100 is a little overstated." Our ruling Bush said, "There are over 100 pipelines between the United States and Canada right now." Bush has a point that there are a number of major oil and gas pipelines that already cross the U.S.-Canada border. But his number is significantly off. A 2013 Congressional Research Service report referred to 100 pipelines, but that included operating or proposed oil, natural gas, and electric transmission lines, and it counted pipelines crossing both the U.S.-Mexico border and the U.S.-Canada border. If we only count operating pipelines that cross the Canadian border, we count 29 natural gas pipelines and 17 oil pipelines, for a total of 46. We rate this claim Mostly False. | null | Jeb Bush | null | null | null | 2014-03-26T09:26:58 | 2014-03-21 | ['United_States', 'Canada'] |
snes-01763 | A video shows Hurricane Irma destroying buildings in Antigua and Barbuda in September 2017. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/irma-barbuda-video/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Video Shows Hurricane Irma Hitting Antigua and Barbuda? | 8 September 2017 | null | ['Antigua', 'Barbuda'] |
pose-00579 | Veto what the legislators call 'turkeys' — costly and unnecessary pork-barrel projects. | compromise | https://www.politifact.com/florida/promises/scott-o-meter/promise/603/veto-pork-barrel-spending/ | null | scott-o-meter | Rick Scott | null | null | Veto pork-barrel spending | 2011-07-05T16:35:50 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00501 | Megyn Kelly “Dumped” For Savannah Guthrie On “Today” Show? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/megyn-kelly-savannah-guthrie-dumped-today-show/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Megyn Kelly “Dumped” For Savannah Guthrie On “Today” Show? | 1:09 pm, August 8, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02521 | Right now, we only keep 50 percent of Georgia Tech's graduates. | mostly true | /georgia/statements/2014/feb/11/kasim-reed/mayor-working-keep-more-tech-grads/ | Before Snowjam turned into a verbal snowball fight between Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed and some news outlets, Reed planned to spend most of his time Jan. 31 with the Atlanta Press Club talking about his initiatives for 2014. Reed did address some goals for the year, such as keeping more young, smart people in the city. One statistic the mayor cited about the percentage of Georgia Tech students who stay after graduation piqued our curiosity. "Right now, we only keep 50 percent of Georgia Tech’s graduates," Reed said. Is this correct? Carlos Campos, a spokesman for the mayor, said Reed based his comments on information from the 128-year-old college located in Midtown Atlanta. Campos specified that the mayor was referring to the percentage of Tech graduates who remain not just in Atlanta, but the entire state of Georgia. College graduates, statistics show, typically earn higher salaries, so elected officials want to keep them around. Reed told the audience he’s planning an effort to raise upward of $150 million to fund high-tech startup firms in the city. The mayor said those companies are needed to keep more college grads in Atlanta and away from Silicon Valley. Reed said he’s working with local business leaders on the retainment effort and set a long-term goal of keeping at least 75 percent of Tech graduates here. Reed is not the first person to raise concerns about a brain drain. Some Michigan educators and elected officials talked about the need to keep more college graduates in that state. A first-of-its-kind survey of all 2007 Michigan public university graduates, conducted by Michigan Future Inc., revealed that half of grads left the state within a year, The Detroit News reported. The percentage of Michigan State University graduates who left the state doubled between 2001 and 2009, from 24 percent to 49 percent, the newspaper reported, citing statistics from the school. Nationally, there’s little research on the topic. A 2007-08 federal survey found 69 percent of college graduates were living in the state where they earned their degree one year after graduation. Georgia Tech spokeswoman Laura Diamond gave us some data from surveys done in 2012 and 2013 about its graduates. Over those two years, 52 percent of Tech undergraduates remained in the state. The total increases to 55 percent once you include those who attended graduate school. The 2012 survey polled 2,619 students who were scheduled to graduate with bachelor’s or master’s degrees that year with questions about employment prospects and future plans. About 55 percent of the students completed the entire survey. Georgia Tech has about 21,500 undergraduate and graduate students. The report contains job placement rates and salary offers in 34 majors for bachelor’s students. Seventy percent of those graduates found jobs, and the median salary was just above $63,000 and a median bonus of $5,000. For graduate students, the job placement rate was nearly 72 percent, and the median salary was $78,000 with a median bonus of $10,000. Reed said in his remarks to the Atlanta Press Club that one-half of Georgia Tech graduates stay in Georgia. He based his statement on data from Georgia Tech. The school’s surveys are pretty close to the mayor’s statement. There’s not much data out there on this subject. Georgia Tech’s surveys showed the percentage of graduates who stayed in the state were slightly higher than what the mayor said at the luncheon. Still, Reed appears to be on the right track with his comments, based on the limited information available. Our rating: Mostly True. | null | Kasim Reed | null | null | null | 2014-02-11T00:00:00 | 2014-01-31 | ['None'] |
pomt-08294 | Says "Scott Walker wants to ban common forms of birth control, including the pill." | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2010/nov/01/tom-barrett/tom-barrett-says-scott-walker-wants-ban-pill-and-o/ | Democrat Tom Barrett is using the last days of the Wisconsin governor’s race to paint Republican rival Scott Walker as a radical conservative, with abortion and women’s reproductive rights the centerpiece of his argument. Barrett first criticized Walker’s no-exceptions stance against legal abortions, a statement we rated True. In a new TV ad, Barrett repeats that claim and then adds this one: "It turns out there's a lot we didn't know about Scott Walker," a narrator says as an image of a birth-control pill case dominates the screen. "Scott Walker wants to ban common forms of birth control, including the pill." We rated as Barely True a claim by Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin that Walker "tried to pass a law to allow pharmacists to block women's access to birth control." That claim centered on a bill that would let pharmacists refuse to dispense contraceptives on moral grounds. Barrett’s new claim goes much further. An outright ban on birth control? As evidence, the Barrett campaign points to an endorsement Walker received by the group Pro-Life Wisconsin (running mate Rebecca Kleefisch was endorsed, too) and a questionnaire he filled out before receiving it. There was little surprise when Walker won the endorsement of Wisconsin Right to Life, the state’s largest anti-abortion group. But the smaller, more staunchly conservative Pro-Life Wisconsin says it has not endorsed a gubernatorial candidate for years. It insists that candidates, to get the endorsement, perfectly line up with its views as expressed on a survey. Walker campaign spokeswoman Jill Bader said the survey, which Walker scored 100 percent on, does not include any birth control questions. That’s not quite true. It includes one that asks the pharmacist question and one that asks if candidates would block minors from receiving taxpayer-funded contraceptives. Walker answered yes to both. Barrett’s campaign, though, points to the first question on the survey: "Would you sign legislation that declares that a preborn child has an inalienable right to life from the moment of fertilization forward?" Some background: The question refers to "personhood" rights, a growing national movement in some pro-life circles to use state laws or state constitutions to bestow full citizenship rights and protections to the unborn. Pro-Life Wisconsin and related groups in other states oppose all forms of artificial birth control, They hope that "personhood" rights will bring a ban on all abortions -- and a ban on the pill, the group’s legislative director Matt Sande told PolitiFact Wisconsin. Other anti-abortion groups have focused on a more direct route: The U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1973 held that a woman's decision to have an abortion is a private choice that is protected by the U.S. Constitution. That Roe vs. Wade decision still defines the issue. Pro-Life Wisconsin’s definition of pregnancy as starting at fertilization differs from the worldwide mainstream view that it begins when a fertilized egg implants in the uterus, said Raj Narayan, Medical College of Wisconsin physician and associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology. Birth control pills work, when used properly, by preventing ovulation, not by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg, he said. In theory, birth control pills could prevent implantation, but it is unprovable scientifically, Narayan said. In the view of Pro-Life Wisconsin, there are cases -- even if a very small percentage -- where a fertilized egg (already a full citizen, under the theoretical legislation) is prevented by the pill from attaching to the womb. That, they say, constitutes an abortion. In contrast, Wisconsin Right to Life views the idea that the pill causes abortions as "speculation," according to executive director Barbara Lyons. The view is disputed, too, by the mainstream medical community, as Narayan noted. What’s important for our evaluation, though, is the political realm. Did Walker know about -- and agree with -- the group’s views on birth control as causing abortion? For the 2010 election, candidates were given survey instructions and a memo entitled "Hormonal Birth Control and its Abortion Causing Effect," according to Sande. That memo clearly lays out the group’s view that "any artificial action that works to destroy a human embryo is abortifacient in nature." It lumps "most if not all birth control drugs and devices" into that category. Sande downplays the chances Pro-Life Wisconsin will succeed in its anti birth-control agenda because it believes society is not ready for it. But a birth control ban is the group’s aim. Its mechanism to get there is "personhood" legislation -- Question 1 on the candidate survey. Since 2006, the group has been laying the groundwork for its proposed constitutional amendment. Elsewhere, such efforts are further along. Colorado voters will consider a "personhood" amendment in the Nov. 2, 2010 election. We wanted to ask Walker to clarify his view on the topic. The campaign did not make him available. In an e-mail, Bader said: "Scott is pro-life. He believes that government has no role in whether adults choose to use birth control or not. This was Scott’s view of that question on the survey." She noted -- as do we -- no direct question on a birth control ban was asked. Barrett’s side countered that the implications of the question were made clear. Said spokesman Phil Walzak: "They want to currry favor and get that 100% rating, but when they are called on it they hedge." Where does the group asking the survey question come down? Sande, of Pro-Life Wisconsin, agreed Walker signed onto the concept based on his answer, but said he thought it would be unfair to draw the conclusion Walker supports a particular "personhood" initiative. After all, no proposed language was given. And the birth-control ban is not part of the group’s immediate legislative agenda. Now it’s our turn. The Barrett campaign makes a strong claim against Walker, saying he supports a ban on commonly used contraceptives. It bases its statement on a survey by Pro-Life Wisconsin that did not ask that question directly. Rather, Barrett -- and the group -- say it is embedded in a question about a potential legislation on "personhood," that is giving full human rights at the moment of fertilization. In viewing the pill as abortion, not just birth control, there is no question the group is out of step with medicine -- and the larger group, Wisconsin Right to Life. Barrett argues by supporting the question in the survey, a candidate signs on to this view as well. Walker’s campaign disputes this. Walker did, however, did get the group’s memo which clearly outlined its views and goals. Did he read it? He should have if he is answering the group’s questions. Ultimately, we don’t know -- and neither does the Barrett campaign, which leaves out important details in its hard-line statement. We rate the claim Half True. | null | Tom Barrett | null | null | null | 2010-11-01T09:01:00 | 2010-10-28 | ['None'] |
pomt-05254 | Says Amanda Fritz "manages less than 5 percent of city operations." | true | /oregon/statements/2012/may/31/mary-nolan/how-much-city-government-does-amanda-fritz-manage-/ | Amanda Fritz and Mary Nolan have another five months of campaigning to look forward to after neither was able to get 50 percent of the vote in the first round of elections earlier this month. That means we can probably expect more debates like the one that happened at the City Club of Portland in late March. Back then, Mary Nolan closed up the debate by going after Fritz one last time with a pretty damning summation of her four years as a council member: "By her own count, Amanda has initiated only 3 percent of City Council action items while she's been there. She manages less than 5 percent of city operations -- whether you measure it by number of employees or by operating budget." Both are interesting points. For now, we’re looking at how much of the city Fritz really manages. Five percent seemed low to us -- even with five council members divvying up the work. Under Portland’s form of government, the mayor assigns commissioners to manage certain offices and bureaus. There are about 20 larger offices and other smaller ones. Sometimes the assignments are a reflection of skill -- sometimes they’re a reflection of politics. Currently, Fritz oversees the Bureau of Emergency Communications, the Office of Healthy Working Rivers, the Office of Equity and Human Rights and the Office of Neighborhood Involvement. She also has a budget and employee count specific to her own office. When we checked the number of employees budgeted for those offices, we got a total of 208 full-time equivalent positions. The bulk of that comes from Emergency Communications, which has 145 spots. All told, the city of Portland has a little under 5,800 FTE positions. If you divide 208 by that, you get about 3.6 percent. Just to offer a little bit of perspective here, Mayor Sam Adams oversees about half the city’s employees. Randy Leonard, the mayor’s closest political ally, comes in second with about 23 percent, then there’s Nick Fish with about 9 percent and Dan Saltzman with 13 percent. When we looked at the budgets, we found much the same. For the current budget cycle, Fritz’s bureaus have a combined budget of just over $28 million. That’s 1 percent of all the cash that flows in and out of the city, which has a net budget of $2.8 billion. And it’s just over 1.6 percent of the $1.7 billion bureau expenditures. After we had all the numbers straightened out, we called Nolan’s campaign to make sure we were on the same page. We were. Our next call was to Amanda Fritz. "That's probably true -- I haven’t run the numbers myself," she said. But "the amount of work is not related to the number of employees or the budget of the bureau." She also pointed out that she previously oversaw the city’s Cable Communications and Franchise Office, which was the second highest revenue generator for the city during the recession. What’s more, Fritz has been in charge of creating two new offices (Equity and Health Working Rivers) -- something that she said is particularly time intensive. "Establishing a new bureau is a lot more difficult than taking over a bureau," she said. Finally, she noted that the office of Neighborhood Involvement may have just 39 budgeted positions, but it works with a network of thousands of volunteers. The context -- and the fact that assignments are ultimately up to the mayor -- may take some of the bite out of Nolan’s remark but it doesn’t make it wrong. The numbers back Nolan up; if you look at budgets or staffing, Fritz manages less than 5 percent of city operations. We rate this claim True. | null | Mary Nolan | null | null | null | 2012-05-31T15:11:31 | 2012-03-30 | ['None'] |
vees-00084 | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Report claiming Congress to be 'abolished' | false | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-report-claiming-congress-be-abolished | null | null | null | null | false | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Report claiming Congress to be 'abolished' FALSE | August 30, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03762 | A man sued his bride after seeing her without make-up for the first time. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kiss-no-makeup/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | Groom ‘Sues New Wife for Fraud’ After Seeing Her Without Make Up for First Time | 5 August 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01016 | It used to be that the only children at school who weren't vaccinated were those who had true medical conditions. "Now there are 19 states that allow personal belief exemptions." | half-true | /punditfact/statements/2015/feb/01/richard-besser/abc-expert-19-states-now-allow-personal-exemption-/ | The measles outbreak linked to Disneyland provided an uneasy backdrop Sunday for talk about another southwestern venue hosting thousands of people from around the country with varying immunization histories: Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Ariz. On the news shows, medical experts stressed that the right of parents to choose whether their children vaccinate should not trump the risk that unvaccinated people pose to public health. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden said on ABC’s This Week that "study after study" has shown there are no long-term hazards with vaccines even though pockets of the population are unwilling to get them. ABC News’ chief health and medical editor Dr. Richard Besser lamented how there was once a time where the only children who wouldn’t get vaccinated had immunity issues. "It used to be that the only children at school who weren't vaccinated were those who had true medical contraindications. They may have an immune problem and couldn't get vaccinated," Besser said. "Now there are 19 states that allow personal belief exemptions. And I think that that is wrong." There are two parts to Besser’s statement worth considering. One is that 19 states permit parents to exempt their children from vaccinations because of their personal beliefs. The other is that there was a time when the only children who weren’t vaccinated had true medical conditions. The 19 states Documenting the state-by-state situation is a simple task, so we’ll handle that first. Information compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures, among other sources, backs up Besser’s point. While there are laws in every state that spell out vaccination requirements for children entering public school, it is easier to avoid them in some states over others. Every state except for Mississippi and West Virginia provides an exemption for religious reasons. Mississippi’s tough vaccination laws result in high immunization rates in its school children. And as Besser said, 19 states also have exemptions for philosophical, personal reasons. They are Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. Missouri also has an exemption that applies only to daycare, preschool and nursery school. Experts attribute the growth of personal belief exemption laws to pressure from anti-vaccine organizations on policymakers. They use as one benchmark the year 1998, when a study since condemned by peers and retracted by The Lancet, connected the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine with "leaky gut" and maybe autism. Another popular year is 1982, when NBC ran the story "Vaccine Roulette," which raised concern about the pertussis vaccine. Historian Elena Conis, author of Vaccine Nation, traces the origins of the movement back to the 1960s and '70s, at a time when people were arguing for tighter environmental regulations, additional women's rights and broader consumer protections. In California, a state well-known for its vaccine resistance, more than 17,200 children enrolled in kindergarten with exemptions from vaccinations based on either religious or personal reasons in the 2013-14 school year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (There is no difference in the CDC reporting for personal or religious reasons.) That was the most of any state by far. California lawmakers tried to tighten up the exemption for personal reasons in 2014 so that instead of just signing a piece of paper, they had to first show they met with a physician who described the risks of going without vaccinations. A Los Angeles Times analysis found an overall decline in the state’s rate of vaccine waivers, dropping from 3.1 percent in 2013 to 2.5 percent in 2014 -- the first drop in a dozen years. Data-crunching by the Washington Post found that the rate of parents applying for personal belief exemptions was strikingly high in Disneyland’s Orange County, the southern coast up to San Luis Obispo, and parts of the northern edge of the state. Vaccine opposition was lower in less-affluent parts of the state, Los Angeles, San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. "It used to be that the kids that were not vaccinated were from poor families," said Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center. "Now we’re seeing the opposite. These are educated parents who are choosing not to vaccinate their kids." Looking back on vaccine exemptions So Besser’s correct on the number of states now offering personal exemptions. But his claim that that there was a time when the only children who weren’t vaccinated had true medical conditions doesn’t ring as true. The debate about the effectiveness and dangers of vaccination has been raging for at least 50 years. As part of that debate, there have always been exemptions beyond those for medical reasons. A 1969 report entitled "State laws on compulsory immunization in the United States," which is available through the U.S. National Library of Medicine, does an excellent job of laying out the issue. In 1969, author Charles L. Jackson reported that only 17 states required measles shots, for instance. And that in most every state, religious exemptions were written into the vaccination laws. Five states, Jackson said, went even further. Missouri, Rhode Island, Michigan, Ohio and Illinois had what Jackson called "voluntary compulsory vaccination." "Each state has provisions in the statute for exempting children if a parent objects in writing to such requirements for any reason," Jackson wrote. So 45 years ago, less than half the states required a measles vaccine, and only 26 states required any type of vaccine, according to Jackson. That changed, of course, over time, and more states began requiring measles vaccines. But they also included exemptions for religious reasons. What’s the net effect? Vaccinations increased dramatically in the 1970s as new laws came on the books. Joseph A. Califano, the United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare from 1977-79, helped lead a push that saw vaccination rates rise from 60 percent to over 90 percent. By the early 1980s, more than 95 percent of children were completely immunized by the time they entered school. That number has dipped slightly in recent years. According to the CDC, 92 percent of children 19-35 months old received the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine in 2013, the most recent year available and the highest percentage since 2008. Federal health officials were content with the national immunization levels but voiced concerns about late first doses, a rise in measles cases not seen since 2000, and slacking coverage in some states. We were not able to connect with Besser to explain his claim by our deadline. Our ruling Besser said, "It used to be that the only children at school who weren't vaccinated were those who had true medical" conditions, but "now there are 19 states that allow personal belief exemptions." Besser, a pediatrician, is right about the number of states that allow exemptions to state vaccination laws for personal beliefs. But his history lesson about vaccination laws of yesteryear is not as accurate. States have consistently provided religious exemptions alongside medical exemptions, and five predominantly Midwestern states allowed parents to seek exemptions for any reason even in the 1960s. His claim is partially accurate, so we rate the claim Half True. Clarification: This post has been updated to better reflect how Elena Conis said the modern anti-vaccine movement began. | null | Richard Besser | null | null | null | 2015-02-01T18:19:18 | 2015-02-01 | ['None'] |
hoer-00022 | 'Dangerous 'New Known Spider' Spreading In Australia' | bogus warning | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/new-known-spider-hoax.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Hoax - 'Dangerous 'New Known Spider' Spreading In Australia' | July 10, 2014 | null | ['Australia'] |
hoer-00902 | Soho Bag Stealing Warning | unsubstantiated messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/soho-bag.html | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Soho Bag Stealing Warning | February 2006 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00296 | Baby With Many Cuts on Face | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/baby-with-cuts-on-face-money-for-likes-hoax.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Facebook Money For Likes Hoax - Baby With Many Cuts on Face | October 10, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00209 | Were an American Couple Killed by Isis While Trying to 'Prove Humans Are Kind'? | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/millenial-couple-isis-tajikistan/ | null | Politics | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Were an American Couple Killed by Isis While Trying to ‘Prove Humans Are Kind’? | 16 August 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05176 | Residents of Trump Tower Chicago demonstrated their disdain for Donald Trump via a clever display of lights. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-tower-chicago-no/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Trump Tower Chicago ‘No’ Pic | 22 February 2016 | null | ['Donald_Trump', 'Trump_International_Hotel_and_Tower_(Chicago)'] |
bove-00186 | Rohingya Crisis: Fake Images Are Sowing Distrust And Fueling Bigotry On Both Sides | none | https://www.boomlive.in/rohingya-crisis-fake-images-are-sowing-distrust-and-fueling-bigotry-on-both-sides/ | null | null | null | null | null | Rohingya Crisis: Fake Images Are Sowing Distrust And Fueling Bigotry On Both Sides | Sep 17 2017 10:01 am, Last Updated: Sep 17 2017 3:53 pm | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12192 | Republicans have " won a thousand seats since Obamacare." | mostly true | /wisconsin/statements/2017/jul/27/sean-duffy/duffy-track-claim-1000-seat-pickup-gop-obamacare/ | In discussing Republican efforts to implement President Donald Trump’s agenda, U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) blamed the U.S. Senate’s filibuster rule for preventing Trump’s agenda from being passed into law. "Get rid of the filibuster rule’’ Duffy said July 17, 2017 on Fox News Channel’s "Fox & Friends" show. "(Then) you only need 51 votes." Then, the congressman went further: "We’ve won a thousand seats since Obamacare," he said. "The American people want us to accomplish this agenda, and we’re not getting it done because of stupid Senate rules." Duffy also made the 1,000-seat assertion during an appearance on "Varney & Co." the same day on the Fox Business Network. "We’ve won a historical election," Duffy said. "We have a thousand seats we’ve won since Obamacare." Has the GOP really picked up 1,000 seats since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010? Digging into the numbers Let’s start at the state level, where most of the positions in question lie. According to Ballotpedia: The Encyclopedia of American Politics, the Republican Party held more seats in 82 of 99 state legislative chambers (82.3 percent) in January 2017 than it did in January 2009. The website says: "During President Barack Obama's two terms in office, Democrats experienced a net loss of 968 state legislative seats, the largest net loss of state legislative seats in this category since World War II. The second-largest loss occurred following Dwight D. Eisenhower’s two terms in office, when Republicans were handed a net loss of 843 state legislative seats." An accompanying chart lists the five largest losses in state legislative seats for Democrats during Obama’s two terms: Arkansas state Senate (18 seats), West Virginia state Senate (16 seats lost), Arkansas House of Representatives (46 seats), West Virginia House of Representatives (43 seats) and Oklahoma state Senate (16 seats.) There were other losses. According to an article on FoxNews.com, "Democratic U.S. Senate seats fell from 55 to 46. Their share of the House plummeted from 256 seats to 194. … Democratic governerships also became a rarity during this eight-year period, slipping from 28 to 16." After the election of Obama, there was much talk of a new era -- that a coalition of young, minority and female voters would usher in gains for the Democrats for decades. That did not happen. "The defeats have all but wiped out a generation of young Democrats, leaving the party with limited power in statehouses and a thin bench to challenge an ascendant GOP majority eager to undo many of the president’s policies," according to a Dec. 24, 2016 Associated Press article. "After this year’s elections, Democrats hold the governor’s office and both legislative chambers in just five coastal states: Oregon, California, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Delaware," the article said. "Republicans have the trifecta in 25, giving them control of a broad swath of the middle of the country." Duffy’s communications director, Mark Bednar, pointed us to an article in the January/February 2017 edition of Politico magazine titled "Democrats in the Wilderness," which maintains Democrats are facing a crisis in coming years. The article, written by Edward-Isaac Dovere, says the party’s situation is "the result of years of complacency, ignoring the withering of the grass roots and the state parties, sitting by as Republicans racked up local win after local win." Matt Bennett, a co-founder and vice president of public affairs of the Third Way, an organization that describes itself as "a strategy center for progressives," confirmed the figure. "Yes, it’s true at the state legislative level," he said. "Dems have lost about 1,000 seats." While Duffy did not directly blame Obamacare for the loss of every seat, he presented it as the primary reason for the Republican gains and Democrat declines. But every race is different, and many other factors come into play -- from newly drawn districts to the performance by individual candidates and a host of issues. So, he oversteps a bit in framing it entirely around Obamacare. Our rating Duffy said "We’ve won a thousand seats since Obamacare." There are many reasons for the decline of Democrats beyond dissatisfaction with Obamacare, including frustration over Washington gridlock, voters’ fears over budget deficits, national security, immigration, tax reform, the global economy, wages and jobs. Therefore, Obamacare is not the sole reason for the GOP seat gains, but one of many. But the "thousand seats" figure Duffy cites is accurate. We rate Duffy’s claim Mostly True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Sean Duffy | null | null | null | 2017-07-27T05:00:00 | 2017-07-17 | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act'] |
goop-00315 | Tom Cruise Recruiting Barbra Streisand For Scientology? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/tom-cruise-barbra-streisand-scientology/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Tom Cruise Recruiting Barbra Streisand For Scientology? | 10:36 am, September 6, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00675 | Ariana Grande Did Cheat On Pete Davidson With Big Sean, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ariana-grande-pete-davidson-cheat-big-sean-twitter-hacked/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Ariana Grande Did NOT Cheat On Pete Davidson With Big Sean, Despite Claim | 2:34 pm, July 7, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03994 | Says Austin trains are "full" at rush hour and "packed" for special events. | mostly true | /texas/statements/2013/feb/08/lee-leffingwell/lee-leffingwell-says-austin-trains-are-full-rush-h/ | Mayor Lee Leffingwell said he’s newly determined to place urban rail before Austin voters by the time his term ends in fall 2014. "We all know that people will ride rail," Leffingwell said in his State of the City speech Feb. 5, 2013. "Capital Metro’s Red Line trains are full not only during morning and evening rush hours but packed for big events like F1 and South By" (Southwest). The mayor and other Austin leaders support a transportation plan that includes an electric-powered urban rail project with an estimated price tag of $1.3 billion for the first 16 miles or so. Leffingwell campaigned in 2009 calling for a rail election in 2010 but pushed the vote to 2011, then 2012, before pulling his support for a November 2012 vote. Diesel-powered commuter trains operated by Capital Metro, the city’s transit agency, have run since 2010 on the Red Line that Leffingwell cited, which covers a 32-mile route between Leander and downtown Austin, with several stops along the way. And how full or packed are the trains these days? Overall, ridership has tripled since 2010, according to Austin American-Statesman coverage, particularly after the March 2012 addition of Friday night and Saturday trains. A Feb. 3, 2013, Statesman transportation column said that in its early months, the service had 800 to 900 boardings per day, which rose to 2,500 per day in October and November 2012. Usage spiked, the story said, during the music portion of the South by Southwest music, film and interactive conferences in March 2011 and 2012 and Austin’s first Formula 1 auto race, Nov. 17, 2012. Capital Metro spokeswoman Erica Macioge told us the mayor’s statement was correct and emailed us ridership data and charts for weekdays, SXSW and F1, plus a month-by-month overview illustrating ridership growth that showed sharp spikes for SXSW 2011 and 2012: Each train, Macioge said, has 108 seats; standing room brings capacity to 200. Capital Metro considers a train full if all seats are taken, she said. On March 17, 2012 -- the Saturday that fell during the music portion of SXSW -- Capital Metro provided 48 train runs, for a total seated capacity of 5,184. There were 7,316 boardings that day, Macioge said, giving an average of 152 people on each train trip. For Nov. 17, 2012 -- the day of the F1 race -- Capital Metro made 47 train runs, providing a total 5,076 seats. Boardings that day added up to 6,210, meaning each train carried on average 132 passengers. How about rush hour? And what is rush hour, anyway? The Texas Department of Transportation doesn’t have an official definition, spokeswoman Kelli Reyna told us by phone, but when planning and timing roadwork, it uses 7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m. as average guidelines for Austin. Monday through Friday, Macioge said, Capital Metro runs six trips south to downtown Austin in the morning and six trips north to Leander in the evening. The agency’s statistician, she said, suggested looking at October 2012 for a "typical" month, and supplied that data. Five of the six morning trips averaged more than 108 passengers; the last run averaged only 91. All but the first trip also either arrived or departed during rush hour; the earliest began and ended before 7 a.m. The five morning rush-hour trips averaged 155 passengers in October 2012 -- above the seating capacity of 108, edging toward the standing-room capacity of 200. Weekday evenings, five of Capital Metro’s six northbound train trips depart or arrive between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. The first averaged 88 riders in October 2012, but the rest were all above the seating capacity. Average number of passengers: 155, just like the morning rush. (In a world filled with mismatched statistics, we were relieved to see Capital Metro evidently takes the same number of commuters home as the number that shipped out in the morning.) Our ruling Leffingwell said Capital Metro’s trains are "full" during rush hour and "packed" for events such as SXSW and the F1 race. Capital Metro considers a train full if all 108 seats are occupied, but would a typical commuter agree? After the seats are full, 92 additional passengers can ride standing up (and pay the same fares to do so). If you’re a rider who needs to get to work, there’s a big difference between a train you can board and a train that’s so packed you have to wait for the next one. At the peak of the special events Leffingwell named in 2012, about 48 more people could have ridden the average SXSW Saturday train and another 68 could have boarded an average F1 train. It’s a tighter squeeze at rush hour: With average ridership at 155, the trains tend to have all seats full and so many standing riders that only about 45 more can squish aboard. Seats might all be occupied, but there’s almost always still room on the trains for more passengers. We rate the mayor’s claim as Mostly True. | null | Lee Leffingwell | null | null | null | 2013-02-08T19:58:08 | 2013-02-05 | ['None'] |
tron-01950 | Mohammed Bakr Al-Baghdadi Converted to Christianity | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/isis-mohammed-bakr_albaghdadi-converts/ | null | humorous | null | null | null | Mohammed Bakr Al-Baghdadi Converted to Christianity | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00467 | Jennifer Aniston “Ecstatic” Over Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt Divorce Drama, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-angelina-jolie-brad-pitt-divorce-drama-reaction-made-up/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Jennifer Aniston NOT “Ecstatic” Over Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt Divorce Drama, Despite Claim | 12:43 pm, August 13, 2018 | null | ['Angelina_Jolie', 'Jennifer_Aniston'] |
pomt-09045 | We’re No. 1 in child hunger. | true | /texas/statements/2010/jul/03/carol-morgan/morgan-says-were-no-1-child-hunger/ | Carol Morgan, the Democrat facing Republican John Frullo for a Texas House seat representing Lubbock, says Texas often beats out other states, not always for the better. "We’re a state of contrasts right now," she said June 25 to the Non-Urban Caucus at the Texas Democratic Paty’s state convention. "We are (rated) No. 1 in business by every business magazine, and I (am) steadfastly committed to maintaining that. But you know, we’re No. 1 in child hunger." How Texas ranks, in categories great and not-so-great, is often campaign fuel. We’ve noted previously that Texas is No. 1 in wind power, and among the lowest-ranking states for high school graduation rates and mental health care. Texas has the nation’s top share of minimum-wage workers and is also home to the most Fortune 500 companies. Scoping Morgan’s statement, we came across a Republican rendition of the same concern. Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples, urging mayors to participate in a summer program providing meals to needy children, said in June 2009: "Texas ranks first in the nation in children who are food insecure." According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "food insecurity" means that at some point in a year, someone in a household went hungry because the household couldn’t afford food. JC Dwyer, state policy director for the Texas Food Bank Network, told us: "It doesn’t mean everyone’s going hungry every night. It doesn’t mean ‘starving.’" Morgan sent us a write-up on the website of KXAS, the NBC TV affiliate in Dallas-Fort Worth, which says "Texas leads the nation in child hunger." She also pointed us to the Texas Hunger Initiative website, which says "Texas has the highest food insecurity rate among children in the nation." The initiative, based at Baylor University, develops strategies to end hunger across the state. Neither of Morgan’s cited websites explains what it means to be No. 1 in child hunger. Dwyer pointed us to data on food insecurity collected by the federal government. Every year since 1995, the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey has collected data on food insecurity which the USDA uses to produce a report on its prevalence. The bureau estimates the rate of food insecurity in households by weighing responses to 18 questions including yes-no queries such as "In the last 12 months did you or other adults in your household ever not eat for a whole day because there wasn’t enough money for food?" Other questions require participants to say how true a statement is, such as "The children were not eating enough because we just couldn’t afford enough food." About 44,000 households answered the 2008 survey. The USDA Economic Research Service, which analyzes the responses and weights them appropriately to reach conclusions for each state and the nation, concluding that at some time that year 17.1 million — 14.6 percent — of U.S. households were food insecure. About 49 million people lived in food-insecure households, including 16.7 million children. Looking at combined census data from 2006 through 2008, USDA reported in November that the estimated rate of food insecurity ranged from 6.9 percent in North Dakota to 17.4 percent in Mississippi. Texas had the second-highest rate of food insecurity at 16.3 percent. But what about focusing on hungry children, as Morgan does? An earlier USDA report focused on food-insecure households where children were living. Looking at data from 2001 through 2007, the report found 21.5 percent of Texas households with children sustained food insecurity — placing the state first nationally. Neighboring New Mexico had the next most food-insecure households with children, at 21 percent, while New Hampshire had the lowest rate, with 10.1 percent of households with children facing hunger. In May 2009, Feeding America, a nonprofit national network of more than 200 food banks, had explored a related angle. The network, tapping data from the census bureau and USDA for 2005 through 2007, estimated the share of children facing hunger in each state. Its conclusion: 22.1 percent of Texas children lived in food-insecure households. The Texas rate was followed by that of Tennessee (20.5 percent), South Carolina and Arizona (20.2), and Missouri and Louisiana (20). The lowest rate? North Dakota at 10.9 percent. Texas did not have the greatest number of children facing hunger. California, the most populous state, had about 1.6 million food-insecure children. Texas had the second most with about 1.47 million. Since Morgan made her child-hunger claim, Feeding America has released a new study using census bureau and USDA data from 2006 through 2008. It found that Arkansas had the nation’s highest rate of children facing hunger, at 24.4 percent. Texas was a close second, with 24.3 percent of its children in food-insecure households. Our sense: It’s most reasonable to stack up the states based on their rates of children in hunger, rather than raw numbers. Based on its rate, Texas was No. 1 in child hunger from 2005 through 2007. It placed a close second to Arkansas in the latest study, but that wasn’t public when Morgan spoke. We rate her convention statement True. | null | Carol Morgan | null | null | null | 2010-07-03T06:00:00 | 2010-06-25 | ['None'] |
pomt-05778 | Florida ranks 45th in the nation for tuition. | true | /florida/statements/2012/feb/27/denise-grimsley/florida-ranks-45th-nation-tuition-costs-denise-gri/ | After the budget committee in the Florida House recommended an 8 percent tuition increase last month, parents, students and politicians alike cried foul because the state university system has raised tuition for the past six years. Even Gov. Rick Scott, who signed a budget last year with a tuition increase with nary a peep, said, "I don't believe in tuition hikes." The problem with getting upset about those higher tuition bills, said House budget panel chair Rep. Denise Grimsley, R-Sebring, is that Floridians aren't really paying all that much for college as it is because Florida’s tuition rates are already among the lowest in the nation. "The cost of postsecondary education in Florida is almost the lowest in the nation at an average of $5,531 (Florida ranks 45th), which is 32 percent lower than the national average of $8,200," Grimsley told the Tampa Bay Times. "The increase is equal to $8.27 per credit hour, which equates to $248.10 for a full 30 credit hours per year. Allowing tuition increases helps keeps Florida nationally competitive." This oft-cited ranking of 45th is a very popular argument among proponents of the increase, in Tallahassee and across the state's 11 public universities. PolitiFact wondered, since this ranking is quoted so often, is it accurate? The source of the national rankings is the College Board’s 2011 Trends in College Pricing report. The annual report is produced by the nonprofit organization, which also owns the SAT, and is comprised of data from surveys of almost 4,000 postsecondary institutions nationwide and historical data from the National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Department of Education. In this case, we're talking about the average price paid by a full-time student for one year of undergraduate enrollment. (It does not include room and board.) For the 2011-12 academic year, this amounted to an average of $5,626, the survey says. This is an 11.8 percent increase from the previous year, when the average was $5,034. The discrepancy between Grimsley's numbers and the final reported $5,626 is a difference between weighted and unweighted data, said College Board analyst Jennifer Ma. The simple average across tuitions is $5,531, but the board uses a formula to create totals that better reflect full-time enrollment, she said. Last year, the Legislature increased tuition 8 percent, and the state university system followed up with another 7 percent hike under a program known as tuition differential. Universities are allowed to raise tuition beyond any legislative base tuition hike as long as the total increase does not exceed 15 percent each year. They’re allowed to keep going up until reaching the national average, which currently stands at $8,244. (Last year’s 15 percent increase differs from the 11.8 percent listed in the Trends in College Pricing report because the report includes fees as well as tuition.) As any parent with a checkbook can see, Florida's average tuition is cheaper than $8,244. It's also cheaper than the state with the highest average tuition in the country, an honor that belongs to New Hampshire, which stands at $13,507. The last school on the list is Wyoming, which charges an average of $4,125. In addition to Wyoming, the other states costing less than Florida are West Virginia, New Mexico, Alaska, Utah and Louisiana. If your eyes haven't glazed over from so many numbers, the important part is that of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, Florida does indeed rank 45th, although if we want to get technical, which PolitiFact always does, Florida is ranked 44th among the 50 states when you exclude D.C. (which comes in at No. 31 on the list with an even $7,000). In case you were wondering, the wide variance among state tuition costs comes down to taxpayer-funded support for postsecondary education. In states with very high average tuition, tax coffers contribute very little to public colleges and universities. Florida's tax contribution to tuition costs has dropped significantly in recent years; tuition used to pay about 25 percent of the cost of college, with state support picking up 75 percent of the bill. That ratio has moved closer to a 50-50 model. Ralph Wilcox, provost at the University of South Florida and chairman of the Council of Academic Vice Presidents for the state university system, prefers to compare Florida to other states with high-ranked public research universities recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, using data from the U.S Department of Education. In that scenario, Florida ranks dead last for tuition costs. The average among those 40 states now tops $9,200. Grimsley's office defends continued increases in order to bring Florida schools in line with other research universities and to fund new initiatives. The rise in prices would also help schools recruit highly qualified faculty and researchers, she reasons. Our ruling For this fact-check, we're not looking at the case for or against college tuition increases. Instead, we wanted to see if Florida actually came in 45th in the nation for tuition costs, because we've heard that number cited so often. Using the most comprehensive survey of postsecondary education available, Florida does indeed rank 45th if you count the District of Columbia; otherwise, the state ranks 44th. The only states that have lower tuition than we do are West Virginia, New Mexico, Alaska, Utah, Louisiana and Wyoming. We rate this claim True. | null | Denise Grimsley | null | null | null | 2012-02-27T12:18:17 | 2012-01-31 | ['None'] |
goop-01264 | Jennifer Aniston Bonding With Brad Pitt’s Daughter Shiloh? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-brad-pitt-daughter-shiloh-bonding/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Jennifer Aniston Bonding With Brad Pitt’s Daughter Shiloh? | 10:16 am, April 2, 2018 | null | ['Brad_Pitt', 'Jennifer_Aniston'] |
snes-05344 | A photograph shows 'The Texas Giants,' four brothers who were all nearly 8 feet tall. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-texas-giants-photo/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Height of the Texas Giants | 19 January 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01533 | PETA is releasing Lone Star Ticks into the northeastern United States in order to give people meat allergies. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-peta-releasing-ticks-meat-allergies/ | null | Medical | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Is PETA Releasing Lone Star Ticks into the Northeastern United States to Create Meat Allergies? | 24 October 2017 | null | ['United_States'] |
pomt-06595 | Says Texas’ unemployment rate has doubled on Rick Perry’s watch. | half-true | /texas/statements/2011/sep/23/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-spokesperson-says-texas-unemployment-d/ | The Sept. 22, 2011, New York Times has Republican hopefuls Rick Perry and Mitt Romney trading jabs on their states’ unemployment histories with a Romney spokeswoman, Andrea Saul, saying Perry's "own state’s unemployment rate has doubled on his watch." By three measures, this Romney charge is on the mark. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Texas’ unemployment rate was 4.2 percent in December 2000, the month Perry became governor. It was 8.4 percent in July 2011 and 8.5 percent a month later. That August rate was the highest Texas rate since November 1986, when Texas hit its worst unemployment rate: 9.3 percent. Texas’ workforce also has increased steadily in recent decades; the state had 1.8 million more workers as of 2011 than it did in 2000. From another vantage point, some 434,000 workers were unemployed in 2000, 1.04 million in August 2011. That is, there was a 17.5 percent increase in the workforce in the decade-plus, but a 138.6 percent increase in the raw number of people without jobs. But Texas unemployment didn’t steadily increase in Perry’s first 10 years as governor. Based on the bureau’s figures, the state’s jobless rate from late 2000 through August 2011 hit lows in 2000-01 and again in 2007, before rapidly climbing through 2009. (Click here to view a chart of Texas’ jobless rate using bureau numbers from 2000 to 2011.) There was a big increase in national unemployment rates after 2007, too, as the economy worsened. A fall 2010 Dallas Federal Reserve Bank analysis said that Texas’ unemployment tracked the U.S. rate closely beginning in January 2007, though the state’s rate was lower by an average of 1 percentage point. Does that mean Perry drove, or substantially influenced, the Texas changes? We checked a similar statement last year. Examining a political action committee's claim that Perry "had overseen the highest Texas unemployment in 22 years," we said the 22-year claim was accurate, but Perry wasn’t personally to blame: Half True. Generally, experts agreed, governors have little to do with statewide job losses or gains that take place during their terms. Paul Brace, a political science professor at Rice University, said: "Overall unemployment wasn't (Perry's) fault, but our relatively good performance also has little to do with what he did." That made sense then — and it does now. Texas unemployment, lately at its highest level in more than two decades, doubled while Perry was governor, as Romney says. But it’s wrong to conclude this was Perry’s fault, as the Romney camp does in saying "on his watch." We rate the statement as Half True. | null | Mitt Romney | null | null | null | 2011-09-23T17:57:41 | 2011-09-22 | ['None'] |
chct-00236 | FACT CHECK: Did LBJ Conduct White House Meetings On The Toilet? | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/01/09/fact-check-did-lbj-conduct-white-house-meetings-on-the-toilet/ | null | null | null | Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 12:38 PM 01/09/2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02803 | Kendall Jenner Playing Caitlyn Jenner In Movie? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kendall-jenner-playing-caitlyn-movie-film/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Kendall Jenner Playing Caitlyn Jenner In Movie? | 3:46 pm, May 11, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-03011 | Hillary Clinton Received Debate Questions in Advance | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/hillary-clinton-received-debate-questions-advance/ | null | politics | null | null | ['2016 election', 'hillary clinton', 'media', 'satire'] | Hillary Clinton Received Debate Questions in Advance | Sep 27, 2016 | 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.