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 ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
snes-04944 | After losing the Wisconsin Republican primary, Donald Trump threatened to sue everyone in that state. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-sue-wisconsin/ | null | Politics | null | David Mikkelson | null | Trump Says He Will Sue Everyone in Wisconsin | 8 April 2016 | null | ['Wisconsin', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Donald_Trump'] |
pomt-07447 | Seniors will have to find $12,500 for health care because Republicans voted to end Medicare. | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/20/democratic-congressional-campaign-committee/democrats-say-republicans-voted-end-medicare-and-c/ | A new political ad from Democrats shows seniors running a lemonade stand, cutting the grass, and even stripping at a bachelorette party -- all to raise money to pay for Medicare. The stripper, dressed as a firefighter, bellows, "Did someone call the fire department? Because it's about to get HOT in here!" The young women throw money at him while he dances around with a pink feather boa. (See the ad here.) "Seniors will have to find $12,500 for health care," the ad says, "because Republicans voted to end Medicare." So do grandparents have to go back to work because of a Republican vote? Not really. The Republican proposal explained The ad critiques a budget proposal from Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., chairman of the House Budget Committee. Ryan’s plan would dramatically cut federal spending in the name of fiscal discipline, and it has widespread support in the Republican caucus. One of the its major features is dramatically restructuring Medicare, the government-run health insurance program for those 65 and older. Right now, Medicare pays doctors and hospitals set fees for the care beneficiaries receive. Medicare beneficiaries contribute premiums for some types of coverage, and younger workers contribute payroll taxes. Ryan’s plan leaves Medicare as is for people 55 and older. In 2022, though, new beneficiaries would receive "premium support," which means they would buy plans from private insurance companies with financial assistance from the government. People who need more health care would get a little more money. Some call this a voucher program, but the proposal says it’s not a voucher plan, because the government would pay the insurance companies directly. The proposal requires private insurers to accept all applicants and to charge the same rate for people who are the same age. The plans would comply with standards to be set by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, which administers the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The plan gradually raises the Medicare eligibility age to 67, and it provides smaller premium support to high earners. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyzed Ryan’s proposal and found that it will save the government money. But it does so by asking future Medicare beneficiaries to pay more for insurance. "A private health insurance plan covering the standardized benefit would, CBO estimates, be more expensive currently than traditional Medicare. Both administrative costs (including profits) and payment rates to providers are higher for private plans than for Medicare," the CBO concluded. Ryan says the plan would offer more choice for Medicare participants and increase competition among private insurers to drive down cost. What the ad gets wrong Yes, the Republican plan would be a huge change to the current program, and seniors would have to pay more for their health plans if it becomes law. Democrats, including President Barack Obama, have said they are strongly opposed to the plan. But to say the Republicans voted to end Medicare, as the ad does, is a major exaggeration. All seniors would continue to be offered coverage under the proposal, and the program’s budget would increase every year. Republicans say that future spending projections for Medicare are not sustainable, and the program requires changes. Their proposal "protects and preserves Medicare -- with no disruptions -- for those in and near retirement and provides those now under the age of 55 with a strengthened, personalized Medicare program they can count on when they retire," said Conor Sweeney, a spokesperson for House Budget Committee. Democrats, though, contend that the proposal would change the essential nature of Medicare as a guarantee of health coverage for seniors. The Congressional Budget Office released a detailed analysis of the proposal, and concluded that future beneficiaries would pay more for current levels of coverage, and that some will decide to go without any insurance. The Republican proposal will end the aspect of Medicare that directly covers specific services, such as hospital coverage. "It's as if you took the Office of Faith-Based Partnerships and ended the faith-based portion of it, but continued to call it faith-based," said Jesse Ferguson of the DCCC. "There is no doubt that Medicare -- a health insurance program for seniors -- would end under the House Republican plan and, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office, health insurance costs would rise for seniors." Democrats, including Obama, have said the plan would end Medicare "as we know it," a critical qualifier. But the 30-second ad from the DCCC makes a sweeping claim without that important qualifier . Another problem with the ad is that it claims that participants would have to find $12,500 to pay for Medicare. That number is based on statistics compiled by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The ad doesn’t mention, though, that the number includes money that would go to Medicare in any case. The CBO estimates beneficiaries would contribute about $6,150 in premiums in 2022 if the program isn’t changed at all. So the extra money seniors need to pay under the Republican proposal is more like $6,350. Still another problem with the ad involves who’s immediately affected by the Republican proposal. In one scene, the ad shows a senior citizen pushing a walker behind a lawn mower. A teenager looking on eats an apple and says, "You missed a spot." In reality, people 55 and older won’t see changes under the Ryan plan. It’s actually that teenager -- or anyone else 54 or younger -- who would pay extra money when they are older. And finally, the ad neglects another critical fact: The Republicans voted on a budget resolution that states policy preferences, but the vote did not actually change Medicare, much less end it. As we’ve noted before in previous fact-checks, budget resolutions are non-binding documents that cannot be viewed as the equivalent of legislation that establishes law. Deeply desiring something and accomplishing it are different. We ran this by Richard Kaplan, an elder law expert at the University of Illinois, who agreed the Republicans have not voted to end Medicare. "Nobody voted to end it," he said. "They voted to hopefully change it one day, when they get a chance, but they would need a Republican-dominated Senate and a Republican president, neither of which they have." "It’s not as if this is of no consequence. But it doesn’t change Medicare," he said. Our ruling Both Republicans and Democrats would no doubt agree that Ryan’s plan for Medicare is a dramatic change of course. But we don’t agree with the ad’s contention that the proposal ends Medicare. Additionally, images in the ad imply that current seniors will have to go back to work to pay for changes to the program. That’s not true either. It’s actually those 54 and younger who will need extra money. With its scenes of seniors going back to work, it seems intended to frighten those who are currently enrolled in Medicare. Finally, the Republicans' vote was symbolic and didn’t actually change the program. When you add up all those distortions, we find the ad highly misleading. The ad’s aged firefighter says, "Did someone call the fire department? Because it's about to get HOT in here!" We agree. Pants on Fire! | null | Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee | null | null | null | 2011-04-20T16:09:15 | 2011-04-18 | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Medicare_(United_States)'] |
farg-00488 | The FBI arrested a “Muslim man” for causing the passenger train crash in Washington. | false | https://www.factcheck.org/2017/12/train-crash-claims-off-rails/ | null | fake-news | Various websites | Saranac Hale Spencer | null | Train Crash Claims Are Off The Rails | December 21, 2017 | [' Tuesday, December 19, 2017 '] | ['Washington,_D.C.', 'Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation'] |
snes-02979 | A woman named Cassidy Boon is suing the man who saved her from drowning, claiming he raped her. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cassidy-boon-drowning/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Did Cassidy Boon Sue Her Rescuer for Rape? | 29 September 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02493 | Did Mike Pence Say Americans Need More 'Jesus Care,' Not Health Care? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mike-pence-jesus-care/ | null | Questionable Quotes | null | David Emery | null | Did Mike Pence Say Americans Need More ‘Jesus Care,’ Not Health Care? | 4 May 2017 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02565 | Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner Fighting Over Money In Divorce, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ben-affleck-fight-money-jennifer-garner-divorce/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner NOT Fighting Over Money In Divorce, Despite Report | 11:28 am, August 18, 2017 | null | ['Ben_Affleck'] |
snes-01343 | Billionaire philanthropist George Soros is "grooming" Abdul El-Sayed, who is "sympathetic" to the Muslim Brotherhood, to be president of the United States. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/soros-michigan-el-sayed-brotherhood/ | null | Politics | null | Bethania Palma | null | Is George Soros ‘Grooming’ a Pro-Muslim Brotherhood Gubernatorial Candidate in Michigan? | 11 December 2017 | null | ['United_States', 'George_Soros', 'Muslim_Brotherhood'] |
pomt-00859 | The delay in school testing "was not that of a vendor, the problem was not that of the test materials itself, it was the product of a cyber attack." | mostly false | /florida/statements/2015/mar/16/h-marlene-otoole/house-education-chair-blames-florida-testing-delay/ | On day 1 of the new computerized standardized tests in Florida, students and administrators across the state couldn’t log on to the tests, forcing some districts to postpone the assessments. The problems that started March 2 spanned the state and hit Florida's largest counties including Miami-Dade, Broward and Hillsborough. Initial reports were that it was a technical glitch in the hands of the testing vendor, American Institutes for Research. But by the end of the week, state law enforcement were also investigating a cyber security attack. Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho would later call it a "catastrophic meltdown," and the testing problems added more fuel to the fire about Florida’s focus on tests. During a House Education Appropriations Committee meeting March 12, chairwoman and state Rep. H. Marlene O'Toole, R-Lady Lake, put the blame solely on the cyber attack. "On the testing problems, many of you may have read in the media, that the problem was not that of a vendor, the problem was not that of the test materials itself, it was the product of a cyber attack," she said. O’Toole’s claim suggested that the sole problem was the cyber attack, but that conflicted with news reports and information provided by the state Department of Education. The testing woes Whether K-12 students are taking too many tests is a hot topic during this legislative session, with many teachers and parents pushing for fewer tests. Gov. Rick Scott promised during his 2014 campaign to investigate every statewide test and in February ordered the state to stop giving an 11th-grade Florida Standards Assessment for language arts. This year, students started taking the Florida Standards Assessments aligned to Florida's new education benchmarks, based on the Common Core State Standards. The new tests replaced the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Tests. Testing started on Monday, March 2 -- and was an instant mess. The problems occurred on the computer-based tests given in grades 8-10 when they couldn’t log on to the testing platform. The Tampa Bay Times reported that testing problems occurred in more than half of the districts. The state sent districts an email Tuesday morning saying that the testing vendor, AIR, had fixed software problems the day before. But the problems persisted in some places. "What happened was AIR did an update to their system the day before testing began," Stewart explained to a House education committee March 5. "Admittedly that was the wrong timing, and it caused them some issues with data retrieval." AIR issued a statement to the media, including PolitiFact Florida, accepting "full responsibility" for the technical difficulties. "Ultimately, we concluded that an update we performed had inadvertently degraded system performance, resulting in the delays districts experienced. Once we were able to identify the problem, we promptly resolved it," a spokesman wrote. But on March 9 -- one week after the testing troubles began -- Stewart sent a press release stating that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was investigating testing delays caused by cyber-attacks on a server used to administer the test. Stewart wrote that "some of the delays in testing" were due to cyber-attacks and repeated that AIR’s system update had resulted in the initial delays Monday and Tuesday. "By Tuesday afternoon, the issue with the log on server was resolved," Stewart wrote. "While there were some sporadic reports of denial of service on Monday and Tuesday, significant concerns of an attack did not occur until Thursday morning when DOE received widespread reports from a number of districts of ‘white screens’ after logging in. By approximately 8:30 a.m. Thursday, the problem had subsided and the districts that continued were able to test successfully for the rest of the day. AIR confirmed the cause of this issue was a cyber-attack on the log on server." AIR told PolitiFact Florida that the cyber-attack was launched against a firewall that protects the servers. "There was no attempt to infiltrate the firewall, but rather to make the website unavailable by flooding the firewall with nonsense connections," an AIR spokesman said. School districts have a two-week window to deliver the tests, and as of the middle of the second week, about 87 percent of the students had taken the tests. We sent portions of Stewart’s press release to O’Toole spokesman Joshua Blake, who said she misspoke during the committee. "I intended to convey that a cyber-attack was reported to have played a role in those initial difficulties, but the numbers show that 87 percent have completed the test as of yesterday, and I am encouraged by that number," O'Toole said in a statement provided by Blake. Our ruling O’Toole said that the testing "problem was not that of a vendor, the problem was not that of the test materials itself, it was the product of a cyber attack." Actually, a vendor update was responsible for the initial problems that kept students from logging onto the new testing system. The cyber attack was another problem that happened later in the week. O’Toole admitted she misspoke. There is an element of truth here because the cyber attack did create problems, but it wasn’t the only culprit. We rate this claim Mostly False. | null | H. Marlene O'Toole | null | null | null | 2015-03-16T16:08:07 | 2015-03-12 | ['None'] |
vogo-00136 | A $1 Billion Gambling Problem: Fact Check TV | none | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/a-1-billion-gambling-problem-fact-check-tv/ | null | null | null | null | null | A $1 Billion Gambling Problem: Fact Check TV | February 25, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00546 | Kylie, Kendall Jenner In ‘Rivalry’ Over Boyfriends, Fortune & Fame, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kylie-kendall-jenner-rivalry-fight-feud-untrue/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Kylie, Kendall Jenner NOT In ‘Rivalry’ Over Boyfriends, Fortune & Fame, Despite Report | 11:16 am, July 31, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00613 | Motrin Infant Drops Recall | true messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/motrin-infant-drops-recall.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Motrin Infant Drops Recall | October 7, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05958 | Says Wisconsin Democrats during the previous administration adopted "double-digit tax increases." | mostly true | /wisconsin/statements/2012/jan/25/scott-walker/fighting-recall-wisconsin-gov-scott-walker-says-do/ | In his latest TV ad, released on the first anniversary of his inauguration, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker makes a case for why he should not be only the third U.S. governor ever recalled from office. The Republican takes credit for erasing Wisconsin’s $3.6 billion budget deficit and for saving taxpayers "hundreds of millions of dollars" by making government employees pay more for pension and health benefits. Walker closes the ad, released Jan. 3, 2012, by drawing a contrast with his Democratic predecessor. "In the three years before I took office," he says, without naming Jim Doyle, "Wisconsin lost 150,000 jobs. But now, well, employer confidence is up, and since the start of the year, Wisconsin has added thousands of new jobs. Instead of going back to the days of billion-dollar budget deficits, double-digit tax increases and record job loss, let’s keep moving Wisconsin forward." That’s some broad language. So broad, some would think the double-digit increases were a fact of life for most residents. While widespread jobs losses in the recession and the deficit Walker inherited are well known, we wondered what Walker meant by "double-digit tax increases." Walker repeated the "double-digit tax increases" claim on Rush Limbaugh’s national radio talk show on Jan. 17, 2012, the day before petitions seeking the recall election were submitted. And he did it again the next day, claiming Democratic recall candidate Kathleen Falk intends to "take Wisconsin back to the days" of double-digit tax increases. Let’s see if that’s what state Democrats did. Democrats did boost taxes with the 2009-2011 state budget and a 2009 budget adjustment bill. We found, when rating a $5 billion claim by Walker running mate Rebecca Kleefisch as False, that the two measures raised taxes and fees by just over $3 billion over the two-year period. Ben Sparks, a spokesman for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said Walker’s double-digit claim refers to the same two budget measures. In a document Sparks provided, Walker cites three sets of tax changes to back his claim. School property taxes Walker said that, because of the Democrats’ 2009-2011 budget, school property tax levies would have increased an estimated 17.3 percent in 2011 had he not taken the steps he did with his 2011-2013 budget. Hmmm. In the ad, Walker flatly claimed that Democrats raised taxes by double-digits. Now he’s talking about a hypothetical -- indeed, one that didn’t occur. Like any governor, Walker had the opportunity to fashion his own budget. And with a Republican-controlled Legislature, he cut state aid to schools and school districts’ ability to raise property tax revenues. The result: 2011 school levies dropped 1 percent. What about the other two tax changes Walker cites? Business taxes Walker contends Democrats raised business taxes by $456 million, or 28 percent, over two years. Among other things, he cited the Democratic adoption of "combined reporting," which taxes a relatively small number of Wisconsin-based businesses on income from subsidiaries outside the state, rather than only those within Wisconsin. That tax is estimated to raise $187 million over two years. He also cited elimination of a tax deduction for domestic production, which is estimated to increase corporate income tax payments by nearly $72 million. Dale Knapp, research director of the nonprofit Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, said there isn’t a good base on which to calculate the $450 million increase. But roughly $350 million of that increase is to be paid in corporate income taxes, which is roughly an increase of 21 percent, he said. So, that material is generally on point. What’s left? Miscellaneous taxes Walker cites a number of double-digit tax increases the Democrats made, including a 42 percent hike in the tax on cigarettes to $2.52 per pack; more than doubling the $75 per-bed per-month assessment paid by nursing homes; and more than doubling the "tipping fee" charged to landfills, which is ultimately passed on to garbage generators such as families. Our own research turned up one Walker didn’t cite. The Democrats raised the top income tax rate from 6.75 percent to 7.75 percent. That 1-percentage-point increase amounts to a 15 percent boost in the rate itself. The change caused a 13.5 percent increase in the actual tax paid by people with an adjusted gross income of $1 million or more, according to the taxpayers alliance. Our rating In a TV ad, Walker said the Democratic administration and Legislature that preceded him approved "double-digit tax increases." There certainly were not widespread double-digit increases in the taxes most people directly pay -- income taxes and the sales tax. But there are a variety of other tax increases that rose by double digits. We rate Walker’s statement Mostly True. | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2012-01-25T09:00:00 | 2012-01-03 | ['None'] |
tron-00699 | Radio Personality and Author Garrison Keillor Wants To Take Voting Privileges Away from Born Again Christians | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/keillor/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Radio Personality and Author Garrison Keillor Wants To Take Voting Privileges Away from Born Again Christians | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08545 | The Republican candidate [John Loughlin] has talked about privatizing Social Security ... so we know where he stands on the issue. | half-true | /rhode-island/statements/2010/oct/02/david-cicilline/cicilline-says-loughlin-has-talked-about-privatizi/ | It may be the most frequently used weapon in the Democratic arsenal this midterm election season: accusing the GOP of wanting to "privatize" Social Security. So many Democrats have made such claims about their Republican opponents that our national PolitiFact team and those in other states have reviewed the issue on more than a half-dozen occasions. Most found that the Democrats have distorted the Republican position to some degree, with the claims receiving Half True or Barely True ratings. Here in Rhode Island, the topic takes on particular significance because we have one of the highest percentages in the country of people 65 and older, more than 14 percent. Nearly 140,000 Rhode Island seniors receive Social Security benefits. Democratic congressional candidate David Cicilline has joined the chorus of critics in his new "Fighting For Social Security" campaign tour, suggesting to seniors that his GOP opponent, state Rep. John Loughlin, would gamble with their money. At his first stop, on Sept. 23, he told a group of elderly voters at Pawtucket's St. Germain Manor Senior Center: "The Republican candidate has talked about privatizing Social Security, and when there was a resolution [in the Rhode Island General Assembly] urging Congress not to privatize Social Security, he was one of seven people to vote no on that. So we know where he stands on that issue." Speaking quite literally, it's true that Loughlin has talked about the concept of privatization. It would be hard to be a Republican -- or a Democrat -- running for federal office and not address whether that's a good or bad idea. And Loughlin acknowledges his 2005 vote against a Rhode Island House resolution pressing Congress not to privatize the program. Why did he vote that way? He says he didn't think it made sense to completely block the concept. Moving on to the next part of his claim, we asked Cicilline for examples of where Loughlin "stands on the issue" of privatization. His campaign provided us with several. The first was in a quote from Loughlin in The Providence Journal in February. "I think that citizens should be able to choose to put a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into private investment accounts, but it should be completely voluntary. Recent stock market volatility is going to cause some people to want to stay within the current system and that's fine," Loughlin told a reporter. A second, similar reference came two days after the September primary when Loughlin told The Pawtucket Times that "younger workers should be allowed to privatize some of their Social Security" to give them greater flexibility. Like our PolitiFact counterparts in other states, we question whether Loughlin's suggestion that workers be allowed to voluntarily divert a portion of their payroll to a personal investment account constitutes a desire to privatize. What we found was that this issue is very much a war of words. Loughlin believes the option to investment in a personal account is simply that, an option. Cicilline counters that voluntary changes are no different than full privatization because they would eat away at the Social Security funding stream, destabilizing the program and taking it one step closer to elimination. "I don't think we're claiming he wants to abolish Social Security, but this isn't us putting words in his mouth," Cicilline campaign manager Eric Hyers told us. "He used the 'P' word." Loughlin dismissed the idea that voluntary accounts and full privatization are comparable -- or that Cicilline knows where he stands on the issue -- calling his opponent's comments "completely and totally false." Though Loughlin does support the concept of allowing people to make choices about parts of their contribution money "That is not the same by any stretch of the imagination as privatizing Social Security," he argues. "Not even close." Privatization, Loughlin believes, implies a mandated change, something he says he opposes. "This is a very common line of attack on the Democratic attack wheel ... " Loughlin continued. "The playbook tells them, go to all senior centers and the nursing homes and say the Republican candidate wants to take away your Social Security and kick you off and they want to put it in that risky thing down on Wall Street called the stock market." At the same time, the Republican is sharply critical of the current Social Security system, on several occasions even comparing it to a Ponzi scheme. PolitiFact Rhode Island will examine that comment in a separate item Sunday. But let's get back to the privatization question. Taking it point by point, Cicilline is correct when he says Loughlin has talked about privatization. It's important to note however that words matter. Had Cicilline made a more stringent accusation, we might have judged it differently. He's also right that Loughlin voted against the resolution urging Washington to oppose it. On the third point, however, Cicilline misses the mark. He does not appear to know where his opponent stands on the issue. Loughlin himself says Cicilline is flat out misinterpreting his position. Yet that hasn't stopped Cicilline from criss-crossing the state using the accusation to scare elderly voters and win votes. Yes, Loughlin has expressed dissatisfaction with the current program and has publicly supported tinkering with the system to offer a private option. But to our knowledge, the GOP candidate has never advocated for making the program fully private. And he says he has no plans to do so. We rate Cicilline's claim Half True. | null | David Cicilline | null | null | null | 2010-10-02T00:01:00 | 2010-09-23 | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
tron-03184 | Open Letter to President Obama by Matt Walsh | confirmed authorship! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/walsh-letter-obama-101313/ | null | politics | null | null | null | Open Letter to President Obama by Matt Walsh | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-08141 | The senior senator from Arizona (John McCain) said he couldn't support repealing 'don't ask, don't tell' because of the economy. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/dec/06/harry-reid/sen-harry-reid-says-sen-john-mccain-opposes-dont-a/ | In an address from the floor of the Senate on Dec. 4, 2010, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid used the analogy of Lucy from the Peanuts cartoon -- who repeatedly pulled the football away every time Charlie Brown went to kick it -- to describe Sen. John McCain's reasoning for his opposition to abolishing the military's controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy. "First, Sen. McCain said he would seriously consider repealing it if the military leadership thought we should, and (when) the military leadership said it should be repealed, he pulled away the football. Then Sen. McCain said he would need to see a study from the Pentagon. When the Pentagon produced the study saying repeal would have no negative effect at all, he pulled away the football again," Reid said. "And his latest trick, he said yesterday that he opposed repealing 'don't ask, don't tell,' a proposal that would be a great stride forward for both equality and military readiness ... because of the economy," said Reid, whose quote was picked up in Politico. "I repeat, the senior senator from Arizona said he couldn't support repealing 'don't ask, don't tell' because of the economy." "I have no idea what he's talking about, and no one else does either," Reid said. Reid's statement -- based on comments McCain made the day before during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the Defense Department's report about the "don't ask, don't tell" policy -- seemed to suggest that McCain believed "don't ask, don't tell" had some sort of negative economic consequences. But that's not the context for McCain's comments. Rather, it was an issue of legislative priority. McCain's point was that the issue of how to address a flailing economy ought to be addressed before the Senate considered something like "don't ask, don't tell." "I will not agree to have this bill go forward ... because our economy is in the tank," McCain said. "Our economy is in the tank, and the American people want that issue addressed. And the military is functioning in the most efficient, most professional, most courageous fashion than at any time in our history. "So to somehow believe that this is some kind of compelling issue at a time we're in two wars ... is obviously not something that we should be exercising a rush to judgment." Two days earlier the entire Republican caucus in the Senate signed a letter, sent to Reid, promising to filibuster any bills proposed by Democrats until the Senate had acted to prevent the expiration of the Bush tax cuts for all taxpayers. Republicans have argued that letting the tax cuts expire even for the wealthy, as Democrats proposed, would deal a devastating blow to the economy. McCain's comments about not taking up "don't ask don't tell" in light of the economy are consistent with that Republican pledge. McCain added that he would be willing to consider the "don't ask, don't tell" issue in depth during the next legislative session. "I would be more than eager in the coming year to have additional hearings, as they had some 13 hearings when 'don't, ask, don't tell' was enacted," McCain said. "And I would pledge to work with you on that effort, but certainly not during a lame-duck session when parts of my state are suffering in ways that they never have in the history of my state." It's true that McCain listed the poor economy as a reason he would not support "don't ask, don't tell," but only in the context of the economy needing to be a higher priority for the Senate. When Reid claimed, "the senior senator from Arizona said he couldn't support repealing 'don't ask, don't tell' because of the economy," the implication seems to be that McCain was making an argument that "don't ask, don't tell" would harm the economy. Especially when Reid added, "I have no idea what he's talking about, and no one else does either." The policy's impact on the economy would be a confusing argument. But in context, McCain's reference to the economy was quite clearly ranking other priorities against it. We rule Reid's statement Half True. | null | Harry Reid | null | null | null | 2010-12-06T18:17:04 | 2010-12-04 | ['John_McCain', 'Arizona'] |
pomt-12362 | Property taxes are lower right now than they were in December 2010 on a median-valued home in Wisconsin. | mostly true | /wisconsin/statements/2017/jun/07/scott-walker/property-taxes-lower-typical-wisconsin-home-under-/ | For a while there, Gov. Scott Walker was coy about whether he would run for a third four-year term in 2018. But now his intentions are all but official, and he is repeatedly sounding themes that could show up as part of his campaign platform. On May 18, 2017, Walker was interviewed by Jeff Wagner, a conservative talk show host on WTMJ-AM in Milwaukee. Wagner opened by asking about one of the governor’s favorite topics: property tax reform. Walker responded by declaring that property taxes on a median-value home "are lower right now than they were" in December 2010, the month before he took office. He’s correct, though there’s a caveat. Prior fact checks There’s no question property taxes, though they might increase for some individual property owners and decrease for others, have generally been on the decline since Walker took office and his fellow Republicans took control of the Legislature in 2011. In 2015, we rated Mostly True a Walker claim that because of his actions, property taxes were lower than they were four years earlier. Walker’s actions to limit the ability of local governments and school districts to raise levies played a major role. But the lower property taxes to that point were also due in part to declines in housing values. In January 2017, when Walker said that property taxes -- as a percentage of personal income -- were "the lowest that they've been since the end of World War II," our rating was True. An analysis by the nonpartisan Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance showed that on the measure Walker cited, they were lowest since 1946. And on our Walk-O-Meter, which tracks Walker’s campaign promises, we’ve rated In the Works his pledge to cut property taxes so that the levy on a typical home in 2018 is lower than it was in 2010. Current claim Walker’s new claim refers to a specific measure -- an estimate of the hypothetical property tax on a median-valued, or typical, Wisconsin home. The estimates are done by the nonpartisan state Legislative Fiscal Bureau. That tax was $2,963 for 2010-’11, just before Walker took office; and it’s $2,832 for 2017-’18. 2010-’11 2011-’12 2012-’13 2013’-14 2014-’15 2015-’16 2016-’17 2017-’18 2018-’19 $2,963 $2,953 $2,943 $2,926 $2,831 $2,849 $2,852 $2,832 $2,831 A caveat Todd Berry, president of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, told us it’s important to note that levies -- the total property taxes collected -- have risen in each year but one during Walker’s tenure, even though the the tax on a median-valued home is lower than before he took office. The reason is that compared to commercial and manufacturing properties, residential values have lagged. As a result, more of the property tax burden has shifted to commercial and manufacturing and away from residential, Berry said. Our rating Walker says "property taxes are lower right now than they were" in December 2010 on a median-valued home in Wisconsin. Estimates done regularly by the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau show that the hypothetical property tax bill on a typical Wisconsin home is $2,832 for 2017-’18 -- $131 lower than the year before Walker took office. But it’s worth noting that the total amount of property taxes collected have risen in each year but one during Walker’s tenure. And that the drop in residential property taxes is due to commercial and manufacturing properties rising at a faster rate -- not due to collecting less taxes. For a statement that is accurate but needs additional information, our rating is Mostly True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2017-06-07T04:00:00 | 2017-05-18 | ['Wisconsin'] |
pomt-03098 | In fiscal year 2011-2012, 4,191 abortions were paid for by taxpayers via the Oregon Health Plan. | true | /oregon/statements/2013/sep/24/oregon-2014/does-oregon-health-plan-pay-about-4000-abortions-y/ | A group called Oregon 2014 is trying to collect enough signatures to put a measure on the ballot that would prohibit taxpayer spending on abortions. The group tried to do the same in 2012 but failed to collect enough signatures. In any case, on its website is this statistic: "In 2012 there were 9,015 abortions in Oregon. In fiscal year 2011-2012, 4,191 abortions were paid for by taxpayers via the Oregon Health Plan." The suggestion came to us via a reader, who had heard a signature gatherer cite the statistic. Was it true? We contacted Oregon 2014 right away, where a co-chief petitioner said the statistic was solid and that he welcomed a fact check. "I’ve been called a liar to my face," said Jeff Jimerson, "and I try to direct them to the information." The information comes from the Oregon Health Authority. The number of abortions paid by the state has fluctuated from 4,105 in 2002-03 to 3,424 in 2008-09 to 4,191 in 2011-12. This is the most up-to-date information available, said Karynn Fish, an OHA spokeswoman. But isn’t there a restriction on using public money to finance abortions? There is. The Hyde Amendment, first approved by Congress in 1976, prohibits the use of public money to pay for abortions, except in case of rape or incest or to save the mother’s life, for the most part. This affects low-income women who receive health care through federal Medicaid. In response to the Hyde Amendment, Oregon’s Department of Human Resources then issued a rule limiting reimbursement for abortions. People sued. The appellate court voted the rule unconstitutional, in that it violated the equal privileges and immunities clause of the Constitution. In 1984, the Oregon Supreme Court took a different approach, ruling that Human Resources had overstepped its rule-making authority, which was to pay for medical services for needy people. In Oregon, the Health Plan uses a mix of federal and state monies to provide health care for low-income residents. Oregon is among a minority of states that allow using state taxpayer money for elective abortions. Petitioners hope to change that by adding these words to the Constitution: "No public funds shall be used to pay for any abortion, except when medically necessary or as may be required by federal law." We may see this measure on the 2014 ballot; we may not. But it is accurate to say that state taxpayer money paid for about 4,000 abortions in the most recent year available. We rate this statement True. | null | Oregon 2014 | null | null | null | 2013-09-24T06:00:00 | 2013-09-17 | ['None'] |
pomt-01585 | Miller Brewing is not a U.S. company any more. Neither is Anheuser-Busch. | true | /wisconsin/statements/2014/sep/08/paul-ryan/paul-ryan-says-miller-brewing-and-anheuser-busch-a/ | During an appearance in Milwaukee, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan delved into the growing controversy surrounding inversions, the practice of U.S.-based companies buying foreign firms and then relocating their own headquarters to another country to enjoy lower taxes. Bloomberg News reported that nine U.S. companies are planning tax inversions this year. The most recent and highest profile case came in August 2014 when Burger King said it planned to buy Canada-based doughnut chain Tim Hortons and relocate its own headquarters from the United States to Canada. In an appearance before the Rotary Club of Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Press Club, Ryan was asked if inversions should be banned. He said that the U.S. tax code needed reform and that American-based companies pay far more in taxes than their counterparts in other countries. "The trend we have seen lately are foreign companies buying U.S. companies for many reasons, like tax reasons," said Ryan, R-Janesville. "Simply putting up a fortress around America with these anti-inversion rules, all that we'll end up doing is accelerate the takeover of U.S. corporations by foreign corporations." Ryan then popped open a claim involving one of Brewtown’s icons. "Miller is not a U.S. company any more. Neither is Anheuser-Busch," he said. "Think of what this does to our communities. The royalties, the headquarters and all that." Yes, beer and politics get mixed up again. A few weeks back, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke told an ABC News interviewer that she favored New Glarus Brewing Co.’s Spotted Cow to Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy, because Spotted Cow was available only in Wisconsin. After asking around to see if that was widely known, we checked it out and rated it True. When we asked our beer drinking cohorts about where Miller and Bud were based, we got some of the same stumped looks. After all, Milwaukee is where Frederick J. Miller bought the Plank Road Brewery and founded Miller Brewing Company in 1855. "He brewed his delicious beer using yeast that he carried in his pocket from Europe," the company’s history says. Although Miller is still brewed in Milwaukee (and elsewhere), the company is no longer based here. In 2002, South African Breweries, already one of the largest breweries in the world, bought Miller. That created SABMiller. In 2008, SABMiller added the the U.S. business of Molson Coors, creating MillerCoors. The new company moved its headquarters from Milwaukee to Chicago, while the corporate parent is based in London. Brewery employment has remained about the same in Milwaukee at about 750 workers, the company said in June of 2013. The number of corporate office jobs in Milwaukee, including sales and marketing and executives, declined by about 370 to 607. What about Bud? Meanwhile, TV ads for Anheuser-Busch’s flagship brew, Budweiser often feature a heavy Americana feel, with red, white and blue and tributes to returning soldiers and small towns. But today the corporate parent is a long way from St. Louis, where its roots date to 1852. In a hostile takeover, the international conglomerate InBev bought Anheuser-Busch for $52 billion in 2008. Anheuser-Busch is now one of many subsidiaries and the deal resulted in hundreds of jobs being cut, including many in St. Louis. The full name of the company is now Anheuser-Busch InBev. The headquarters is in Belgium. The company leaped over SABMiller to become the largest brewer in the world. Before the company bought Anheuser-Busch, InBev grew from a combination of Belgian breweries, the addition of Labatts in Canada and breweries in Russia, China, Germany and Brazil. Since then, the company has added Mexico’s Grupo Modelo, according to a history on the company’s website. "I don't think the tax code was a driving factor for any of the mergers," said Eric Shepard, executive editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights, a trade publication. "AB InBev was more about other synergies," he said. "They probably don't mind a lower tax rate, however." In addition, moves into new markets are necessary because beer sales are flat in the United States and Europe, according to a Sept. 3, 2014 profile of AB InBev in Forbes. "Amid stagnating beer sales in developed markets, comprising North America and Western Europe, the brewer has looked to tap into the growth potential of emerging beer markets such as Brazil, Mexico, China and South Korea, mainly by acquiring small regional brands and leveraging its strong marketing and advertising muscle," the article said Our rating Ryan cited two well-known beer makers -- including one founded in Milwaukee -- when asked about inversions. He said the parent companies of Miller and Anheuser-Busch are located overseas. They were part of a long-standing and rapid world-wide consolidation of the major breweries. We rate his statement True. | null | Paul Ryan | null | null | null | 2014-09-08T05:00:00 | 2014-09-02 | ['United_States', 'Anheuser-Busch', 'Miller_Brewing_Company'] |
pose-00403 | I will create a Presidential Early Learning Council to coordinate this effort (early childhood education) across all levels of government and ensure that we're providing these children and families with the highest-quality programs. | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/423/create-a-presidential-early-learning-council/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Create a Presidential Early Learning Council | 2010-01-07T13:26:58 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14235 | We have tougher standards holding toy gun manufacturers and sellers to account than we do for real guns. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/apr/14/hillary-clinton/new-york-debate-clinton-says-us-has-higher-account/ | Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders voted for a law that gave higher standards to toy guns than real guns, opponent Hillary Clinton charged at the New York Democratic debate. A 2005 law put restrictions on people’s ability to sue the gun industry for crimes committed using their products. As Clinton often points out, she voted against this law, while Sanders voted for it. "We have tougher standards holding toy gun manufacturers and sellers to account than we do for real guns," Clinton said April 14. The claim that this law gives higher standards to toy guns is something Clinton has said in recent weeks. It’s not a settled question. Here’s why. A liability gap? The law at issue is the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which was signed into law by President George W. Bush and seen as a victory for gun rights advocates. The purpose of the law is to protect gun dealers and manufacturers from lawsuits when their products are misused, meaning if a gun dealer legally sells a person a gun, and then the buyer uses the gun to commit a crime, the gun dealer and manufacturer cannot be held liable for the crime. The law arose after victims, cities and states started to bring lawsuits against gunmakers that pursued new legal paths, such as one that argued manufacturers Glock Inc. and China North Industries had oversaturated the market, producing so many guns that it was inevitable some would fall into criminal hands. Most judges dismissed these kinds of lawsuits, but a minority allowed them to proceed. There are several situations that are not protected from lawsuits under the law. It does not protect gun dealers who transfer a gun knowing it would be used for criminal purposes, nor those who knowingly break state or federal law if the violation results in harm. Gun manufacturers can also be sued if the gun, when used properly, causes injury because the product is defective. Opponents argue that the law stops some victims from having their day in court because the liability immunity is so broad and ambiguous, while the exceptions are narrow. Supporters, though, say the law protects gun dealers and manufacturers from frivolous and expensive legal proceedings. We’ve written before that Congress has passed laws giving some other industries varying levels of immunity. A couple experts told us Clinton’s statement is unsound because the law sought to impose equivalent, rather than fewer, standards for gun makers that are already established for manufacturers of other products. As it stands, the victim of a crime committed with a toy — say, if a person seriously injured another person by shooting them with bb gun pellets — generally cannot sue the toy manufacturer, just as they can’t sue Toyota or Budweiser if they’re struck by a drunk person driving a Prius. The 2005 law "basically put gun manufacturers in the same position that other product manufacturers are in," said Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California Los Angeles. "They’re responsible for defectively manufactured and designed products but not for failing to prevent criminal misuse of their products." Additionally, toy guns and real guns pose fundamentally different risks because real guns are much more likely to be used in a crime than a toy gun, said Timothy Lytton, a Georgia State University law professor who edited a book on suing the gun industry. So before the law, the gun industry was subject to a wider range of liability that just doesn’t apply to a toy. As such, it’s hard to imagine a realistic incident with a toy gun that would cause someone to bring a suit against the toy company, yet they would not be able to sue a gun manufacturer for an equivalent situation involving a real gun. A hypothetical situation might be if a city experienced an epidemic of deaths or injuries that resulted from a prevalence of realistic-looking toy guns; think of the recent story of Tamir Rice, a Cleveland child carrying a toy gun who a police officer shot and killed, said Alexandra Lahav, a professor of civil procedure at the University of Connecticut School of Law. In that case, a city might want to bring a suit against the toy gun manufacturer or seller for creating a public nuisance. But under the 2005 law, a city cannot sue a gun company if there is an epidemic of people being injured or killed by their guns. Lahav added, though, that she thinks the idea someone would bring a suit like this against a toy company is highly unlikely. In theory, there might be a liability gap between toy guns and real guns, but that wouldn't necessarily play out in reality, she said. Toy and real gun manufacturers can be sued for product defects that cause injury when the product is used as intended. But if an injury is caused by a product defect coupled with a criminal misuse of the product, a toy gun manufacturer could be held liable, but a real gun manufacturer could not under the 2005 law, said Adam Winkler, also a UCLA law professor and an expert in the Second Amendment. That limits the gun industry’s incentives to make their products as safe as possible. The fact that a party cannot even attempt to bring these kinds of lawsuits against real gun manufacturers sets them apart from other industries, including toys, said Mark Geistfeld, a law professor at New York University and an expert in products liability. Such lawsuits against the gun industry might be destined to fail, but the 2005 law doesn’t even allow for the arguments to be tested. "You’ve granted an immunity to the gun industry that you haven’t granted to any other industry," Geistfeld said of Sanders, noting that this supports the gist of Clinton’s point: that Sanders holds guns to a lower standard. Lytton noted, though, that he would not presume to know whether Sanders or anyone else who voted for the law would grant similar immunity to the toy industry if the opportunity arose. "It’s not fair to basically enter into hyperbole that somehow he treated firearms differently (so) he would come down harder on toy guns," Lytton said. Our ruling Clinton said, "We have tougher standards holding toy gun manufacturers and sellers to account than we do for real guns." She’s parroting a line she has stated previously. Clinton points to a 2005 law granting the gun industry certain immunity from lawsuits. In her camp are scholars who believe the law made the gun industry less susceptible to liability than other industries, including the toy gun industry. But other scholars think the law made the gun industry’s liability about the same as that of a toy gun manufacturer. And because real guns carry so much more risk for injury than toy guns, it’s hard to compare them effectively. This is a complex legal question, on which reasonable minds can disagree, so we rate Clinton’s claim Half True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/4319fa9b-87b6-473d-a29c-487b2e070a6c | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2016-04-14T21:53:08 | 2016-04-14 | ['None'] |
tron-00240 | Samsung Smart TVs Listen to Private Conversations | truth! & misleading! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/samsung-smart-tvs-listen-to-private-conversations/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | Samsung Smart TVs Listen to Private Conversations – Truth! & Misleading! | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-03560 | Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer Michael Avenatti Worked for Rahm Emanuel, Democratic Campaigns | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/michael-avenatti-rahm-emanuel-democratic-campaigns/ | null | trump | null | null | ['chicago', 'donald trump', 'media', 'stormy daniels', 'white house'] | Stormy Daniels’ Lawyer Michael Avenatti Worked for Rahm Emanuel, Democratic Campaigns | May 7, 2018 | null | ['Rahm_Emanuel'] |
snes-03193 | A "YXX" notation on Donald Trump's Selective Service record indicates he suffers from the genetic condition Klinefelter syndrome. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-klinefelter-syndrome/ | null | Politicians | null | David Emery | null | Does Donald Trump Have Klinefelter Syndrome? | 6 January 2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00226 | “Think Before You Donate” Email’s Claims about Charities | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/think-before-you-donate-claims-about-charities/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | “Think Before You Donate” Email’s Claims about Charities | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00522 | Two weeks ago, a man entered the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta, Georgia, carrying a loaded AR-15 automatic weapon with an extended-capacity, 100-round magazine. | half-true | /georgia/statements/2015/jun/23/hank-johnson/johnson-errs-description-airport-gun-right-about-c/ | When Jim Cooley carried his AR-15 rifle fully loaded with a 100-round drum into Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport last month, it revived a Georgia congressman’s efforts to restrict weapons in airports nationwide. U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Lithonia, cited the incident in again proposing the Airport Security Act, which would ban loaded weapons outside airports’ security areas. Federal law already bans carrying weapons through airport security checkpoints. "Two weeks ago, a man entered the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta, Georgia, carrying a loaded AR-15 automatic weapon with an extended capacity, 100-round magazine," Johnson said in a House floor speech June 15. "Mr. Speaker, actions like this, which follow shootings at airports in Los Angeles and Houston, undermine public security in the same way as yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded theater." Johnson’s proposal has been assigned to the House Homeland Security Committee, where the political battle over gun control will continue. But something in the rhetoric caught our eye for a closer look. Was the rifle in question at our airport an automatic weapon? THE HISTORY The AR-15 that Cooley carried is most likely the most popular such rifle on the market today. That is in part because several variants have been made since Colt started selling its version of the rifle as a semi-automatic weapon to civilians in the early 1960s. One modified version of the firearm was adopted as the M-16 rifle, deployed by the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War era. Several different manufacturers have since made versions of the rifle for private use. But the term "AR-15" has consistently been used to refer to the semi-automatic version Colt made popular. A fully automatic version is not sold directly to civilians. The federal assault weapons ban prohibited some versions of the AR-15 – such as those with collapsible stocks and bayonet lug – sold to civilians between 1994 and 2004. However, AR-15s built before the ban were legal – as were versions designed to comply with the federal law. Those loopholes effectively kept various forms of the AR-15 in production. For instance, admitted movie theater shooter James Holmes used a version of the AR-15 in the Aurora, Colo., massacre in 2012 that would have been illegal under the federal ban. But similar versions, including the Colt Match Target rifle, would have been legal, according to a 2004 University of Pennsylvania study funded by the National Institute of Justice. AUTOMATIC VERSUS SEMI-AUTOMATIC So, it’s clear the rifles can be deadly. In fact, semi-automatic weapons are often more deadly than the scarier sounding automatic versions, said Jay Corzine, a sociology professor at the University of Central Florida. That boils down to the difference between the two: Automatic weapons fire continuously when the shooter pulls the trigger once. The firing stops only when you release the trigger. Semi-automatic weapons will automatically reload, but the shooter must pull the trigger for each shot fired. Many law enforcement agencies that use small arms rifles, such as for SWAT teams, prefer semi-automatic weapons because there is less recoil in firing them. That allows for better aim, Corzine said. Nearly all AR-15 rifles are manufactured as semi-automatic weapons, in part because of that accuracy. However, gun shops do sell converter kits and manuals, which allow the rifles to be turned into automatic weapons that wouldn’t differ at a glance from the semi-automatic version, Corzine said. "An automatic firing mechanism is not more lethal in number of people killed, but you will end up with more people hit," Corzine said. "If you are shooting into a crowd, you’re going to hit a lot of people." IN GEORGIA The 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 26 children and school staff prompted Connecticut, Maryland and New York to join three other states with heavy restrictions or outright bans on the AR-15. But Georgia is not one of the states with restrictions. Likewise, Cooley was legally able to sling his AR-15 over his chest because of a 2010 state law that allows weapons in areas not covered by airport security. Cooley, who lives in Winder, said he brought his gun and the high-capacity magazine for safety when dropping off his daughter for a flight. His weapon, he said, is a semi-automatic rifle. "If you look at the video, the officer called my rifle an automatic weapon, and I had to correct her," said Cooley, who posted a video of his visit to the airport while carrying the weapon. "It is a semi-automatic rifle. To say it’s not is untrue. You can’t just say anything you want on the House floor." In his floor statements, Johnson cited the economic role that airports, especially Hartsfield-Jackson, play in communities as a reason to regulate guns for safety concerns. Johnson was at meetings in the United Nations when we reached out to him. Ben Waldon, his director of intergovernmental affairs, told us the congressman concedes he misspoke in calling Cooley’s weapon an automatic rather than a semi-automatic weapon. Waldon added that the 100-round drum also was a concern, regardless of the status of the weapon. Studies indicate limiting high-capacity magazines can affect gun violence since they are involved in more crimes (about 25 percent) than automatic and semi-automatic weapons (2 percent to 8 percent). Small-capacity magazines require the shooter to reload, which gives bystanders a chance to intervene as they did in the 2011 shooting of U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords that killed six. "Mr. Cooley’s weapon was a semi-automatic. But it is an assault rifle, with a high-capacity magazine," Waldon said. "The congressman feels these kinds of weapons stoke fear, not civility, and the incident in Atlanta demonstrates the extremes of allowing these kinds of guns in airports." OUR RULING U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson cited a recent incident of a man carrying his AR-15 rifle in Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in reviving his efforts to ban weapons from all areas of airports. Johnson called the gun an "automatic weapon," something he and his staff concede was incorrect. The gun owner has confirmed he owns the semi-automatic version of the rifle. That is the more common make of this weapon, although all sides and experts acknowledge the weapon can be converted to an automatic weapon. The bigger concern was the 100-magazine drum. Even in a semi-automatic weapon, that would allow a shooter to fire 100 rounds before reloading, the scary prospect that Johnson appeared to want to reference in his statement. Johnson got the gun wrong, the magazine for the weapon right. For that reason, we rate Johnson’s statement Half True. | null | Hank Johnson | null | null | null | 2015-06-23T00:00:00 | 2015-06-15 | ['Atlanta', 'Georgia_(U.S._state)'] |
pomt-04635 | With the auto rescue, President Barack Obama "saved more than 1 million middle-class jobs all across America," including more than 28,000 in Wisconsin. | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2012/sep/14/jennifer-granholm/obama-auto-rescue-saved-28000-middle-class-jobs-wi/ | In a high-volume, arm-pumping speech at the Democratic National Convention on Sept. 6, 2012, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm proclaimed that President Barack Obama saved the American automobile industry. It’s a claim, made repeatedly at the convention, that PolitiFact National has said is on pretty solid ground. But Granholm got more specific. "With the auto rescue," Obama "saved more than 1 million middle-class jobs all across America," said Granholm. She continued by claiming jobs saved in a number of states, such as the election battlegrounds of Florida (35,000), Michigan (211,000) and Ohio (150,000). She said more than 28,000 jobs were saved in Wisconsin alone. For us, Granholm’s claim really has three parts: the U.S. and Wisconsin jobs-saved figures; whether those jobs were "middle-class"; and whether Obama deserves full credit for saving the jobs. Let’s turn the ignition. Auto industry crisis Granholm, now a law professor and host of a talk show on Current TV, is a Democrat who served eight years as Michigan’s governor after being elected in 2002. She alluded in her speech to late 2008, when the auto industry was near collapse. As PolitiFact National has reported, layoffs at auto plants and among auto parts suppliers were on track that year to reach 250,000 workers. General Motors was virtually out of cash to pay its bills and Chrysler was not far behind. (Granholm stated in her speech that Republican Mitt Romney’s response at the time was to "Let Detroit go bankrupt." But as our colleagues noted in rating that claim Half True, it was a New York Times staff writer who put that headline on an opinion piece penned by Romney in which he advocated a "managed bankruptcy" with new management, new labor agreements and federal guarantees for post-bankruptcy financing.) The auto rescue began under President George W. Bush, who just before leaving office gave Chrysler and GM more than $17 billion in loans. (Ford never asked for assistance.) Then in 2009, Obama provided $80 billion in relief. Some was offered as loans to the automakers, but much more was given in exchange for stock. The Italian car company Fiat became the majority stockholder of Chrysler; the second-largest owner is the autoworker union’s retiree health care trust fund. For GM, the U.S. government now owns about one-third of the company, private shareholders about one-third and the retiree trust fund 10 percent. Number of jobs saved Obama’s campaign said the evidence for Granholm’s claim comes from a May 2009 study produced by the Center for Automotive Research. The center is an independent research group based in Ann Arbor, Mich., that gets some funding from automakers. The study, released as the auto bailout was still playing out, made projections based on whether Chrysler and GM went through quick bankruptcies ("best-case" scenario) or lengthy bankruptcies ("worst-case" scenario). Under the best-case scenario -- bankruptcy filings and settlement with debtors completed within 90 days -- an estimated 63,200 U.S. jobs would have been lost by the end of 2009, the study said. That included 9,700 direct jobs, with the rest coming from automaker suppliers and "spin-off" jobs -- jobs lost as a result of reduced spending by auto and auto-supplier employees. Under the "worst-case" scenario -- bankruptcy proceedings that were "disruptive and disorderly" and would "drag on" -- the U.S. would have lost 1.34 million jobs by the end of 2009, including nearly 204,000 direct auto jobs, the study estimated. For Wisconsin, the 2009 jobs loss was pegged at 1,766 under the best-case scenario and 30,513 under the worst-case scenario. Granholm then did some math, subtracting the best-case jobs number from the worst-case number. For example, for Wisconsin, she claimed the bailout saved more than 28,000 middle-class jobs (30,513 minus 1,765 equals 28,748). The math Granholm did isn’t done in the study. And it’s not clear if she was trying to be conservative by citing figures slightly smaller than the maximums. But Obama’s campaign did respond to our question on this point by noting that the Center for Automotive Research did a later study, in November 2010, estimating that the auto rescue -- by avoiding the worst-case scenario with drawn-out bankruptcy proceedings -- saved an estimated 1.14 million U.S. jobs, slightly fewer than the earlier estimate of 1.3 million jobs. Kim Hill, associate research director of the Center for Automotive Research, noted that other studies also produced estimates of more than 1 million U.S. jobs being at stake. They included one study from the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C. think tank, and another from the University of Maryland. But the Center for Automotive Research study Granholm relies on provided a range of job loss predictions, and Granholm chooses numbers that best serve her rhetorical purpose. Moreover, the study's figures were estimates, not actual counts of jobs saved. There’s no way to know whether close to the worst-case scenario would have emerged had Obama not provided the auto rescue. And the alternate scenario outlined in the same report showed a much smaller potential job loss. Types of jobs saved The study Granholm cited did not use middle-class or any similar term in describing the jobs saved -- and it’s a term that many people interpret differently. Hill, of the Center for Automotive Research, told us that more than half of the projected jobs saved could easily be classified as middle-class, given that average annual salary and fringe benefits exceed $60,000 for auto workers and $40,000 for auto supplier workers. But to claim that all of the more 1 million jobs saved were middle class "gets to be a stretch," he said. Obama’s role As for credit for saving jobs, Granholm gave it all to Obama. But Obama doesn’t get full credit because Bush’s aid to Chrysler and GM kept them afloat and bought time for Obama to decide how to respond to the crisis, PolitiFact National concluded in its article about whether Obama saved the auto industry. Moreover, our colleagues observed, no one can say what would have happened without massive government intervention. Our rating Granholm said that "with the auto rescue," Obama "saved more than 1 million middle-class jobs all across America," including more than 28,000 in Wisconsin. The two figures are drawn from estimates from an independent study -- but: it’s not certain that job losses would have reached those levels without the rescue; not all of the jobs projected as saved were middle-class jobs; and Obama deserves a major share of the credit for saving jobs, not all of it. Granholm’s claim was partially accurate but left out important details. On balance, we rate it Half True. | null | Jennifer Granholm | null | null | null | 2012-09-14T09:00:00 | 2012-09-06 | ['United_States', 'Wisconsin', 'Barack_Obama'] |
tron-03056 | Thomas Jefferson: “Those Who Hammer Their Guns into Plows” Quote | incorrect attribution! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/thomas-jefferson-hammer-guns-plows-quote/ | null | politics | null | null | null | Thomas Jefferson: “Those Who Hammer Their Guns into Plows” Quote | Jun 20, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03336 | The president has had 1,540 of his nominations confirmed, only four defeated. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/22/mitch-mcconnell/obama-only-four-nominations-defeated-mcconnell-say/ | The long-running Senate battle between Democrats and Republicans over the filibuster and delays in processing President Barack Obama’s nominations came to the brink this past week. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., threatened to use the so-called nuclear option and set aside the 60-vote majority needed to close debate and bring a nomination to the floor. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said if Reid did that, he was "going to be remembered as the worst leader of the Senate ever." The two sides healed the breach after many urgent phone calls and a meeting of every senator in the Old Senate Chamber, a room one lawmaker called "hallowed ground." But before the return to relative civility, McConnell had been on NBC’s Meet the Press where he argued that the president had done pretty well for himself. "What is the problem here?" McConnell asked. "The president has had 1,540 of his nominations confirmed, only four defeated." McConnell’s office said he meant to say 1,560. We checked, and he did use the correct number just three days earlier. We also looked at the Library of Congress nominations database for Obama’s first and second terms and confirmed McConnell’s numbers. But what drew our attention was McConnell’s claim that only four had been defeated. That number refers to people who failed on a measure to end debate (called "cloture) and send their names to the floor for a simple majority vote. It takes 60 votes to end debate. McConnell’s list includes Craig Becker (National Labor Relations Board), Caitlin Joan Halligan (U.S. Circuit judge), Goodwin Liu (U.S. Circuit judge), and Richard Cordray (director, Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection). However, that doesn’t account for many of the people Obama put forward who have withdrawn due to opposition from Senate Republicans. "McConnell is using misleading numbers," said Ian Ostrander, a political scientist at Texas Tech University. "He’s taking advantage of the fact that very few nominations actually fail through a direct vote." There are many ways to stymie a nomination. There is the threat of filibuster which requires clearing the 60-vote majority to end debate. Alternatively, opponents can run out the clock and return the nomination to the White House with no vote at all, generally right before the summer recess or at the end of the year. Or an individual senator, anonymously or publicly, can place a hold and block a nomination from moving forward. Ostrander said that the White House might withdraw a nomination, or never put someone’s name forward if minority opposition seems too strong. He cited the examples of Susan Rice, Obama’s first choice for Secretary of State, and Elizabeth Warren, his first pick to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Neither was ever formally nominated. Republicans didn’t like key aspects of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in the first place. In May 2011, 44 GOP senators sent a letter to the administration saying they "will not support the consideration of any nominee, regardless of party affiliation" until changes were made. When Obama replaced Warren with Richard Cordray, it made no difference in the Republican position. Cordray was the first stalled nominee to win confirmation immediately after the deal that averted the crisis in the Senate. Occasionally, Ostrander said, the nominee on their own steps back due to long delays. He put Federal Reserve Board nominee Peter Diamond in this category. Diamond, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, was nominated three times. Twice in 2010, the Senate did not reject him; it simply made no decision and returned the nomination to the White House. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., worked hard against the nomination and never backed down. The White House nominated Diamond a third time in June 2011, but he withdrew saying he saw that his name would never make it to the Senate floor. Ostrander has studied more than two decades of non-judicial nominations. His doctoral thesis: Winning the Waiting Game: Senatorial Delay in Executive Nominations. Ostrander has detailed at what point nominations failed in the nomination process: 84 percent stalled or were withdrawn before going before a committee. Another 0.03 percent were rejected by a committee vote, while 0.01 percent were rejected in a floor vote. "McConnell is choosing to count as failures cases that only account for a small fraction of overall failures," Ostrander said. Overall, 69 of Obama’s nominees withdrew for any reason since 2009. During the first term, Ostrander said he counts 38 who likely pulled out under pressure from Republican opposition. We reviewed in detail 12 instances (beyond McConnell’s four) where nominees withdrew after encountering opposition, either to their specific background or to Obama’s policies. Those include Donald Berwick to head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Erroll Southers to lead for the Transportation Security Administration, Michael Mundaca for the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Policy, and Dawn Johnsen to be assistant attorney general, among others. There is an additional issue with McConnell’s measure of Obama’s success rate. We contacted five other political scientists, and they agreed that McConnell’s statement overlooked the impact of delayed nominations even if they ultimately win confirmation. In the book Defending the Filibuster: The Soul of the Senate, Richard A. Arenberg and Robert B. Dove said the filibuster is a moderating force and a check on executive power. We asked Arenberg if McConnell’s point about the president’s track record on confirmations was valid. "Clearly, it's not only the final outcome that matters," Arenberg said. "Delay in confirmation can certainly hamper an executive agency." Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law, has studied the nomination process. "The problem is not just the delays; it is the limited authority of an acting or temporary head," Gerhardt said. "Here, the statistics might not accurately capture the harm done to the executive branch." Our ruling McConnell said Obama faced no real problems getting his nominees confirmed by the Senate, saying that only four of 1,540 nominations had been defeated. His office later said he misspoke and the number should have been 1,560. We find he's partially accurate but is leaving out some important details. Yes, it's true that when nominations reach a final vote, the vast majority have been approved by the Senate. But this accounting ignores those who withdrew before a vote, including the estimated 38 who withdrew after Republican opposition. It also does not account for high-profile figures such as Susan Rice who were never nominated because of opposition. We rate the claim Half True. | null | Mitch McConnell | null | null | null | 2013-07-22T15:45:05 | 2013-07-14 | ['None'] |
tron-01232 | Obama’s Poverty Tax | truth! & fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/obama-poverty-tax/ | null | crime-police | null | null | null | Obama’s Poverty Tax | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00466 | ISIS Attacks in Glasgow, Cheshire, and South Yorkshire | statirical reports | http://www.hoax-slayer.net/hoax-news-story-falsely-reports-isis-attacks-in-glasgow-cheshire-and-yorkshire/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Hoax News Story Falsely Reports ISIS Attacks in Glasgow, Cheshire, and South Yorkshire | December 3, 2015 | null | ['Glasgow', 'Cheshire'] |
vees-00353 | In an Oct. 16 forum in Quezon City, Dela Rosa said: | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-pnp-chief-dela-rosa-repeats-faulty-def | Dela Rosa must be referring to AO No. 35, signed by former president Aquino in 2012, which created an inter-agency committee on extralegal killings and other human rights violations like enforced disappearances and torture. | null | null | null | EJK,Bato Dela Rosa | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: PNP Chief Dela Rosa repeats faulty definition of EJKs | October 16, 2017 | null | ['Quezon_City'] |
pomt-12730 | Trump’s Android device believed to be source of recent White House leaks. | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2017/mar/03/theseattletribunecom/reports-donald-trumps-unsecured-android-phone-root/ | A fake news report claiming that President Donald Trump’s unsecured Android cell phone is probably the source of several news leaks from the White House is actually the fabrication of a well-known source of contrived stories. A Feb. 26, 2017, article on TheSeattleTribune.com says in a headline, "Trump’s Android device believed to be source of recent White House leaks." The post was flagged by Facebook users as being potentially false, as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat fake news. The readers got this one right. The story is fake. The story says two "private intelligence agencies" have determined that several news leaks that have been damaging to the Trump administration — from plans for executive orders to internal fights with staff — likely came from the president’s own phone. But TheSeattleTribune.com is a website that makes up their stories, and is associated with another faux news site called AssociatedMediaCoverage.com. Their disclaimer says the website "is a news and entertainment satire web publication" and that all articles "are fictional and presumably satirical news." If the counter on the story is to be believed, this one has been viewed more than 171,000 times in less than a week. It’s been used in online forums and also is popular on Facebook. It’s even appropriated a Twitter hashtag. The article claims #DitchTheDevice is an online effort by social media users to get Trump to quit using the phone. But really, that hashtag was formerly used to try to get people to stop staring at their phones all day long and enjoy life a little bit more. In any event, that’s what the hashtag means now, as thousands of people have used it while tweeting out TheSeattleTribune.com link. The story keys off a maelstrom of news about leaks from the White House, combined with Trump’s penchant for tweeting and his reported actual use of an unsecured Android phone. But this story? It’s fake. We rate it Pants On Fire! See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | TheSeattleTribune.com | null | null | null | 2017-03-03T16:28:56 | 2017-02-26 | ['White_House'] |
snes-02827 | Under certain conditions, lionesses can grow manes and develop "masculine behavior". | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lionesses-grow-manes/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Can Lionesses Grow Manes? | 6 March 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01805 | Obama’s 2012 policy on younger immigrants "created these children coming across" the border. | mostly false | /punditfact/statements/2014/jul/23/lou-dobbs/dobbs-obama-policy-young-immigrants-created-crisis/ | One of the consistent talking points among conservatives discussing the thousands of kids arriving at the U.S. border is that President Barack Obama’s 2012 immigration policy is responsible. The policy allowed certain young people without legal status to apply for a two-year deferral of any removal proceedings. Though it does not apply to people just now crossing the border, conservatives say it gave children and their families the idea that they could try. And so they have. We’ve heard that thinking from former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican strategist Karl Rove and now, Fox Business News host Lou Dobbs. "This president and his administration knew what was happening with the issuance of the executive order in 2012, which created these children coming across," Dobbs said on July 21, 2014. There is a problem with the claim, however. The dates don’t line up as neatly as people are letting on. The deferred action policy In June 2012, about four months before the presidential election, the Obama administration issued a memo saying it would allow certain young people without legal immigration status to apply for a two-year deferral of any removal proceedings. That deferral could be extended and anyone who was accepted would also gain the ability to work in this country. Generally speaking, it targeted people who had come across the border with their parents when they were little and had lived in the United States for many years. The move came after Republicans rejected a bill, the DREAM Act, that would have put these immigrants on a path to citizenship. To qualify, people had to show that they came to the country before they were 16, had lived here continuously since 2007, had never been convicted of a crime, were age 30 or under, and were either in school or had at least a high school education or had served in the armed forces. The government began accepting applications in mid August. Tracking the rise of children coming to the border The Congressional Research Service is a nonpartisan body that delivers policy research for Congress. In a June 2014 report, analysts included a chart showing how many new children had been handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Under a 2008 law aimed at protecting young victims of human trafficking, this is the agency responsible for taking care of unaccompanied minors apprehended by U.S. border or immigration agents. The chart measured the number of children processed by month, so we can get a better picture of how things played out along the border. The numbers don’t include children stopped at the border and immediately sent back, but they do mirror the overall trends. As you can see, monthly referrals largely were steady between October 2008 and January 2012. They then started to rise between January and April 2012, months before Obama announced his executive action. After that, they plateaued until January 2013, when they grew exponentially. Based on this chart, the rate of arrivals nearly doubled before Obama announced his new policy. Overall, there is not a simple cause and effect relationship that Obama issued his policy and arrivals went up. But this isn’t to say that Obama’s policy played no role in the current flood of children arriving at the border. The administration tacitly acknowledges some relationship. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson published an open letter in key Central American countries in which he made the point that the new policy would not apply to children who show up today. "A child must have been in the United States prior to June 15, 2007 – seven years ago," Johnson wrote. In a report on the causes behind the current crisis, congressional researchers said many factors are driving the flood of children at the border. Those fleeing El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras account for most of the influx. Those countries suffer from high rates of crime and poor economies. Surveys found that about half of the children had been harmed or threatened by gangs or agents of the state. Children did not tend to come from Central American countries with less crime and better economies. The same surveys found that many of the children sought to join family members already living in the United States. The 2008 revised trafficking law is another potential factor. It opened a new legal option for unaccompanied children from countries other than Mexico and Canada. They can apply for asylum on the grounds that if they were sent home, they have good reason to fear that they would face persecution. It is unclear if fear of gang-violence meets that condition. Nevertheless, the children are getting a hearing and while they wait for the process to play itself out, they remain in this country. Our ruling Dobbs said the Obama policy directed at younger immigrants created the the problem at the border. The initial rise in arrivals began before Obama announced the policy and if anything, plateaued or declined a bit immediately afterward. However, the administration went out of its way recently to send the message that the policy did not apply to newcomers, suggesting the policy played some role. The influx of children comes mainly from the most troubled nations in Central America. The claim that Obama’s policy created the influx does not match the timeline and ignores other important factors. We rate the claim Mostly False. | null | Lou Dobbs | null | null | null | 2014-07-23T14:02:01 | 2014-07-21 | ['None'] |
snes-03473 | Cuban leader Fidel Castro once said he wouldn't die until the United States was destroyed. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fidel-castro-said-he-wont-die-until-america-is-destroyed/ | null | Questionable Quotes | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Fidel Castro Said He ‘Won’t Die Until America is Destroyed’? | 27 November 2016 | null | ['United_States', 'Fidel_Castro', 'Cuba'] |
pomt-01839 | Former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney are "unable to visit Europe due to outstanding warrants." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jul/17/facebook-posts/are-george-w-bush-dick-cheney-unable-visit-europe-/ | Former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney have been out of office for more than five years, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the world has forgotten about them. In many countries, policies that Bush and Cheney spearheaded to fight terrorism continue to color views of the former United States leaders -- most notably the opening of the detainee center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and the use of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation" methods that many consider torture. A reader recently sent us a social media meme that captured this sentiment. It shows a photograph of the two men, with the caption, "When I was growing up, I would never have believed that a former president and vice president of the United States would be unable to visit Europe due to outstanding warrants." The idea that Bush and Cheney could be arrested overseas isn’t entirely far-fetched. In 1998, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in London after Spain requested extradition for charges related to the murders of Spanish citizens in Chile during his time in office. In addition, Israeli politicians Tzipi Livni and Dan Meridor canceled trips to the United Kingdom in 2009 and 2010 amid threats of legal action, in Livni’s case for an Israeli strike on Gaza and in Meridor’s case an Israeli raid on a Turkish ship headed to Gaza. (The British government later changed the law, allowing Livni and others to make subsequent visits.) In 2005 Donald Rumsfeld nearly pulled out of a conference in Germany until receiving prosecutors’ assurances that he wouldn’t be arrested, according to the Guardian. Bush attracted significant media attention in 2011 when he canceled a trip to Geneva, Switzerland, to address the United Israel Appeal. A lawyer for the group told a Swiss newspaper that the cancellation stemmed from concerns about protests, not fear of arrest. Given all this, we wondered: Are there really outstanding warrants against Bush and Cheney from a legitimate authority, as the meme suggests? And are the two men in any danger of being arrested if they leave the United States? So we took a closer look. Arrest warrants and the International Criminal Court Interpol, the international police organization, does not list any outstanding arrest warrants for Bush or Cheney in their searchable database. Meanwhile, experts in international law said they were not aware of pending warrants, particularly from the most obvious entity that might issue one -- the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The ICC is a permanent, independent court that investigates and brings to justice individuals who commit war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, according to the Congressional Research Service. Cases may be referred to the ICC either by a member state, the court’s own prosecutor, or the U.N. Security Council. The court only investigates and prosecutes serious crimes by individuals (not by organizations or governments), and then, only when national judicial systems are unwilling or unable to handle them. However, the ICC "has not issued warrants for any American citizen, let alone for Bush, Cheney, or anyone else," said Anthony Clark Arend, Georgetown University professor of government and foreign service. Brett Schaefer, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, said that the ICC has undertaken two preliminary examinations involving Iraq and Afghanistan -- an early step in the process. But in neither case does action seem imminent. In the case of Iraq, the prosecutor has said that the ICC lacks jurisdiction for several reasons, including that Iraq is not a party to the statute that established the court, and that the U.N. Security Council has not referred the situation to the ICC. Action on Afghanistan, which is an ICC party, is more plausible, and the preliminary examination first made public in 2007 is ongoing. However, Schaefer said, "it is uncertain whether the court will actually proceed to a formal case." But even if the ICC did advance its investigation to a later stage, the most important takeaway is that neither Bush nor Cheney would be personally at risk. While 122 nations have become members, the United States has not -- and that makes a big difference in cases such as this. While the court may prosecute individuals from ICC-state parties, such as the United Kingdom, for alleged crimes even in places like Iraq where it does not have jurisdiction, Schaefer said, the fact that the United States is not a party -- at least for now -- means "this is not an issue for President Bush or Vice President Cheney." Obstacles to prosecution It’s conceivable that national courts could take action instead, experts say. But while some non-governmental human-rights groups have pushed for criminal prosecutions, the experts we checked with were not aware of any pending, and public, warrants for Bush or Cheney. An obstacle to a national-court prosecution of Bush or Cheney is that "most states don't have laws allowing for prosecution based on universal jurisdiction -- the international law principle that allows any state to try certain serious crimes, no matter where committed," said Steven R. Ratner, a University of Michigan law professor. "And some that do have cut them back in recent years due to fears of a flood of litigation or foreign-policy concerns." A state that did seek to prosecute Bush or Cheney would face both the practical difficulty of carrying it out as well as an expected diplomatic backlash from the United States. "No state has any interest in arresting a former U.S. president or vice president," Ratner said. "Say goodbye to good relations with the U.S.!" This reality, he said, makes the likelihood of a prosecution of Bush or Cheney "highly doubtful." Where Bush and Cheney have traveled outside the United States We couldn’t find any examples of Bush or Cheney visiting Europe, but they have traveled to other countries since they left office. Bush visited Haiti as part of an effort by the charitable foundation he co-founded with former President Bill Clinton after a devastating earthquake in the Caribbean nation. And Bush also joined Clinton at a regional economic summit held in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Cheney, meanwhile, has gone to British Columbia to promote his book, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir. But these trips weren’t without turbulence. Typically, protesters have followed both Bush and Cheney at such events. At his book event, Cheney faced a crowd of 200 people chanting and holding signs that said, "Cheney War Criminal" and "Torturer," according to the Canadian television network CBC. The incident was serious enough for police to don riot gear, and it led to one arrest. As for Bush’s trip to the regional summit in Canada, it attracted a similar-sized crowd but was somewhat more peaceful, according to the CBC. Meanwhile, both Bush and Cheney have canceled speaking engagements in Toronto, though their camps did not cite concerns about arrest warrants as the reason. Cheney cited "personal safety" concerns, while Bush chalked it up to a "scheduling change." Our ruling The meme on social media said that Bush and Cheney are "unable to visit Europe due to outstanding warrants." The claim that there are "outstanding warrants" is flat wrong. And while it’s theoretically possible for a national court to issue an arrest warrant against either man, as was done with Pinochet, there is no sign of that happening. We rate the claim False. | null | Facebook posts | null | null | null | 2014-07-17T11:56:17 | 2014-07-16 | ['George_W._Bush', 'Europe', 'Dick_Cheney'] |
pomt-00134 | Says Beto O’Rourke "voted to shield MS-13 gang members from deportation." | mostly false | /texas/statements/2018/oct/25/donald-trump/mostly-false-donald-trump-claim-beto-orourke-voted/ | President Donald Trump, stirring Texas supporters, charged Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke with voting to shield violent gang members from deportation. Trump, urging voters at an Oct. 22, 2018, Houston rally to re-elect his onetime nemesis, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, said that O’Rourke, the third-term congressman from El Paso who opposes Trump’s avowed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, "even voted to shield MS-13 gang members from deportation." Trump went on: "He doesn’t want to deport them. He says they’re people, they’re people. They carve you up with a knife but they’re people." So, did O’Rourke vote to shield MS-13 gang members from deportation? We didn’t get a White House reply to our request for Trump’s factual backup. But we identified a 2017 House vote on a proposal related to deporting or not admitting criminal gang members to the United States. O’Rourke and an outside expert subsequently told us the Texan’s vote didn’t shield MS-13 members from deportation, which happens regularly under current law. What’s MS-13? It’s a misconception that MS-13 members hail entirely from abroad in that the violent group started in Los Angeles where many refugees from civil strife in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua fled in the 1980s. In 2017, the Justice Department said there are an estimated 10,000 MS-13 gang members operating in at least 40 states. Members are concentrated in Los Angeles, Long Island in New York and the region outside Washington, D.C., the New York Times reported in March 2018. The Times, citing federal authorities, said the gang’s 30,000 other members live in Central America or Mexico. MS-13 stands for Mara Salvatrucha, which comes from the words "mara," a Spanish term for gang, "salva," for El Salvador, and "trucha," slang for cunning. The "13" refers to the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, or "M," which denotes the gang’s allegiance to the Mexican Mafia, a prison gang, DOJ said. In 2012, MS-13 became the first street gang to be designated by the government as a transnational criminal organization when President Barack Obama did so. Our October 2018 search of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement website yielded more than 270 web pages detailing actions against MS-13 members----including arrests, criminal convictions and removals. A 2017 House vote Another web search led us to see that the House in September 2017 voted mostly along party lines to send the Senate the Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act. As of October 2018, it still hadn’t received Senate consideration. In a news story at the time, The Washington Post said that the proposal "would allow officials to take action against suspected gang members, regardless of whether they've been convicted of a crime." Advocates said the move would enhance public safety. Before the vote, the White House issued a statement saying advisers would urge Trump to sign the measure into law should the House version reach his desk. That statement credited the proposal with giving "law enforcement needed tools to help ensure that criminal alien gang members are deported quickly and never again allowed to enter the United States." Separately, the American Civil Liberties Union said the measure "would promote racial profiling, erode due process and unintentionally affect others, such as clergy who try to help gang members," the Post story said. Immigrant advocates maintained "it would give law enforcement wide latitude in designating groups of people as gangs and seeking to deport, detain or block their asylum before a crime has been committed," the story said. By our read, the legislation would enable federal officials to designate criminal gangs, defined as five members or more bent on criminal activity, and permit a consular or law enforcement official not to admit a person to the U.S. if the official knows or has reason to believe the individual is or has been in a criminal gang--with no requirement that the individual have criminal convictions. Also, the legislation permits immigration authorities to start deportation proceedings against anyone in the U.S. believed to be or have been in a criminal gang. O’Rourke’s nay Next, we confirmed from a roll call vote that O’Rourke was among 174 Democrats to vote against the measure, which won House approval by 233-175. Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan was the sole Republican to vote "no." In floor debate, a co-sponsor of the proposal, Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, said that without the legislation, MS-13 members could legally stay in the U.S. unless they were convicted of deportable offenses, according to a transcript in the Congressional Record. If the legislation became law, Labrador told members, ICE would newly "be permitted to place alien gang members into removal proceedings on the grounds of being criminal gang members" as determined by specifications in the measure of crimes considered to be gang related, Labrador said. Labrador also said: "I have heard some uneasiness that ICE will use these provisions to charge any alien they encounter with gang activity. Our bill does not allow that." Under the measure, he said, ICE would have the burden of proof when charging an immigrant with a deportable offense. "The government must convince an immigration judge of its case," Labrador said. Democratic members countered that the proposal would enable the Department of Homeland Security to deny admission to or deport any immigrant, including one who has no criminal history or gang affiliation, so long as DHS believes the person is associated with such a group. Under the proposal, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., said, there "is no need for conviction or even an arrest. All DHS needs is a belief that the individual has assisted any group of five or more people that DHS believes has committed one of these long list of offenses," Lofgren said. Zofgren also suggested the legislation could lead to a religious group that aids immigrants facing charges. "This isn't just theoretical," Lofgren said, going on: "During the 1980s, members of the faith community were repeatedly criminally prosecuted for providing transportation to undocumented immigrants." There was a related vote. By 220-184, members rejected a Democrat’s motion to have the proposal amended to bar the deportation of any person "for action taken on behalf of a religious organization whose primary purpose is the provision of humanitarian assistance or aid." O’Rourke voted in favor of the motion. O’Rourke campaign disputes characterization By email, Chris Evans of O’Rourke’s campaign responded to our inquiry about Trump’s claim by disputing the president’s characterization of O’Rourke. Existing law, Evans said, "makes immigrants who commit crimes related to gang activity deportable." O’Rourke, Evans wrote, "believes in ensuring MS-13 members are held responsible for their crimes under our justice system and he believes in enforcing our current immigration law." We also heard back from David Bier, an immigration policy analyst for the libertarian-rooted Cato Institute. Bier, a former staff adviser to Labrador, called Trump’s claim about O’Rourke incorrect. Calling the legislation a "political effort," Bier told us by phone that significantly, neither the White House nor other supporters of the measure had identified examples of MS-13 members the government couldn’t deport without the House-approved changes in law. "If there were any examples," Bier said, "they’d be displaying them." Does existing law shield gang members? Stepping away from the legislation, we wondered whether existing law shields MS-13 gang members from deportation. Early this year, PolitiFact looked into whether MS-13 members detained in the U.S. were being let go by authorities. To the contrary, Steve Yale-Loehr, who teaches at Cornell Law School, responded that the government by law must detain individuals who have committed certain crimes while going through deportation proceedings. He pointed out provisions in federal code requiring the government to take into custody any individual convicted of a range of offenses including those involving firearms, illegal drugs or aggravated assault. Yet individuals can seek asylum if they have suffered persecution or fear they will suffer persecution due to race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. Yale-Loehr said: "If an individual caught along the border claims asylum, he or she will have their claim reviewed by an asylum officer with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. If they can show they have a credible fear, the individual goes through the immigration court process. If they don’t have a credible fear, or if an immigration judge denies their asylum claim," they will be deported, Yale-Loehr said. But immigration experts said that it’s difficult for gang members to receive asylum. Fatma E. Marouf, a professor of law and director of the Immigrant Rights Clinic at Texas A&M University School of Law, said: "If the gang member persecuted others or committed a serious crime in the United States or his country of origin, he would likely be barred from asylum." If a gang member or criminal can somehow make a substantive case that their asylum argument should be heard, the immigrant would be allowed to stay in the United States until their hearing. They would typically post a bond to do so. Critics call this wrinkle "catch and release." Yale-Loehr said Border Patrol agents and ICE officials can release people in this way, under what is known as prosecutorial discretion. In addition, immigration judges can allow immigrants in deportation proceedings to be released after they pay a bond, if they meet certain conditions. "But that is happening less and less often under the current administration, and the government is certainly not required to release people who may be deportable, Yale-Loehr said in February 2018. He cited a Department of Homeland Security memo that drastically cut back on the practice in February 2017, shortly after Trump was inaugurated. Our ruling Trump said O’Rourke "voted to shield MS-13 gang members from deportation." We see an element of truth to this claim because O’Rourke did not vote for a Trump-backed measure pitched as easing deportations of suspected criminal gang members. But we spotted no evidence that O’Rourke’s "no" was a vote to shield violent gang members from deportation. We rate this claim Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2018-10-25T16:10:37 | 2018-10-22 | ['None'] |
snes-00693 | In April 2018, Barack Obama and George W. Bush criticized rapper Kanye West on Twitter. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-kanye-chicago-bush/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Did Barack Obama and George W. Bush Tweet Criticisms of Kanye West? | 30 April 2018 | null | ['George_W._Bush', 'Barack_Obama', 'Kanye_West'] |
hoer-00869 | Facebook Message Warns Cutest Baby Comp Images Being Misused | unsubstantiated messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/cutest-baby-comp-sex-slave-warning.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Bogus Facebook Message Warns Cutest Baby Comp Images Being Misused | August 7, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01502 | Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, is "ripping out" a plaque dedicated to George Washington because it might offend people. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/george-washington-historic-church-plaque/ | null | Religion | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Is a Virginia Church Ripping Out an ‘Offensive’ George Washington Plaque? | 30 October 2017 | null | ['Virginia', 'Alexandria', 'George_Washington'] |
clck-00021 | Forward projections of solar cyclicity imply the next few decades may be marked by global cooling rather than warming, despite continuing CO2 emissions. | incorrect | https://climatefeedback.org/claimreview/lull-solar-activity-little-effect-global-temperatures-claims-global-cooling-not-based-science/ | null | null | null | null | null | A lull in solar activity would have little effect on global temperatures; claims of “global cooling” are not based on science | [' Fred Singer, Robert Carter, Heartland Institute, 2016 \xa0 '] | null | ['None'] |
tron-01823 | FDA Approves Tranquilizing Darts for Children | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/fda-approves-tranquilizing-darts-for-children/ | null | health-medical | null | null | null | FDA Approves Tranquilizing Darts for Children | May 23, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
chct-00095 | Trump Says NATO Spending Has Increased Under His Watch - Here Are The Numbers | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/07/15/fact-check-nato-defense-spending-34-billion/ | null | null | null | David Sivak | Fact Check Editor | null | null | 7:48 PM 07/15/2018 | null | ['None'] |
farg-00490 | “Sharia law now legal in all 50 states.” | false | https://www.factcheck.org/2017/12/sham-sharia-stories/ | null | fake-news | FactCheck.org | Saranac Hale Spencer | ['courts'] | Sham Sharia Stories | December 6, 2017 | 2017-12-06 21:24:12 UTC | ['None'] |
pomt-15065 | Tens of thousands of Atlanta households pay more than 30 percent of their income towards rent. | true | /georgia/statements/2015/sep/25/matthew-charles-cardinale/claim-about-atlantas-affordable-housing-hits-mark/ | For somewhere between $1,400 and $4,000 a month, you can rent in the luxury apartment complex Inman Quarter in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward. But you’ll also need to earn at least $48,000 – and up to $160,000 – a year to afford skyline views without spending more than 30 percent of your income on a (fancy) roof over your head. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Census Bureau both consider those who pay more than that to be "cost burdened," since they may have difficulty paying for other necessities such as food and medical care. Housing advocates, including Atlanta Progressive News CEO Matthew Charles Cardinale, worry that those people are getting lost in the newly energized Atlanta housing market. "Tens of thousands of Atlanta households are cost-burdened, meaning they pay more than 30 percent of their income towards rent," Cardinale recently wrote in the Saporta Report. "This includes more than 25,000 cost-burdened renter households subsisting on $20,000 or less per year," he continued. In a market of gleaming new developments targeting high-end renters, do that many people needed less pricey options? PolitiFact Georgia decided to check. Housing in Atlanta We reached out to Cardinale to ask his source, and he pointed us to a 2015 update of last year’s Atlanta’s housing strategy report. A chart on page 10 of the report, shows about 27,000 households that make $20,000 or less and another 13,000 households with incomes between $20,000 and $35,000 spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing in 2012. Cardinale said that shows the city’s own data back up his proposal, to require new developments list how much of their complexes will be at or below 30 percent of the city’s median income, as well as how many will fall between 30 and 50 percent, between 50 and 80 percent and more than 80 percent. "It would basically be an affordable housing scorecard, not requiring projects to include affordable housing but to provide information on what’s being done," Cardinale said. The recommendation has been pending in a City Council committee since November. Yet Mayor Kasim Reed has, under the housing strategy, pledged to cut by 10 percent the number of residents who are cost burdened on rent by 2020, according to an opinion piece this summer by his deputy planning commissioner. The Census estimates The city may have its work cut out for it on that front. To verify the strategy report, we looked at the Census data cited in the chart. The 2012 American Community Survey estimates that of 103,219 households in Atlanta in 2012, 50,509 of them spent 30 percent or more of their income on housing. That’s 49 percent of city households – and 10,000 more than plotted in the city’s chart. The survey for 2014, released just last week, isn’t even that rosy. Of 105,999 households now estimated in the city, 52,787 of them paid more than 30 percent of their income on rent in the past 12 months. That’s just a hair under half of households. The only improvement? Those scrambling the most to keep up with rent – households spending more than 50 percent of their income on housing – dipped by 574 households, to 27,100 in 2014. That’s a full percentage drop – but still 26 percent out of city households. How does Atlanta stack up? For context, PolitiFact Georgia tried to find out if one out of every four households spending half of their income for a place to sleep was unusual. Sadly, not really. Renters are on the rise in the 11 most populous American metro areas, Atlanta included. A May report by New York University's Furman Center, which studies real estate and urban policy, and Capital One bank, found each of those cities saw the amount of rental housing grow faster than any increase in owner-occupied homes in 2013. Yet despite that growth, renters everywhere struggled to keep up with increasing rents and shrinking vacancies. Atlanta, for instance, saw the vacancy rate drop from 16 percent to 9.9 percent between 2006 and 2013. Median monthly rents, meanwhile, jumped 8 percent in that period, from $888 to $963. And in Atlanta and the other 10 cities, more than three out of every five low-income renters were severely rent burdened – paying more than half of their income on rent. Our ruling A left-leaning housing advocate championed a scorecard of new housing development in Atlanta by claiming that "tens of thousands" of households in the city paid more than 30 percent of their income on rent. They do, whether looking at the city’s housing strategy plan or the 2012 U.S. Census estimates that shaped the report. By 2014, those estimates had grown even worse. And, Matthew Charles Cardinale would have been on target with an even more dramatic claim: More than a quarter of Atlanta households spent more than half of their incomes on housing. Atlanta faces the same challenges as other large cities in serving a growing rental population. To do so will require the right data. And Cardinale hits the mark with his claim about affordable housing in Atlanta. We rate his claim True. | null | Matthew Charles Cardinale | null | null | null | 2015-09-25T00:00:00 | 2015-09-13 | ['None'] |
pomt-03425 | If you are born poor in America, we rank ninth or tenth in our citizens’ ability to climb up through that ladder and get themselves into the middle class. | mostly true | /ohio/statements/2013/jun/26/tim-ryan/rep-tim-ryan-says-united-states-ranks-behind-other/ | After votes conclude for the day, members of Congress can book time at the U.S. House of Representatives’ podium to deliver floor speeches on their favorite topics. That’s what Youngstown-area Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan did earlier this month when he and California Democratic Rep. John Garamendi held forth on the "The American Dream," and obstacles the poor face in their efforts to improve their situation. "If you are born poor in America, we rank about ninth or tenth in our citizens’ ability to climb up through that ladder and get themselves into the middle class," Ryan told Garamendi, arguing that the United States had moved away from a philosophy it had until the mid 1980s when it made educational investments that facilitated people’s economic rise. Because the ability to rise from rags to riches is a key facet of the American Dream, we asked Ryan’s office where he got his sobering statistic about America’s lack of social mobility. Ryan spokesman Pat Lowry said it came from a March 2010 article in the British newspaper, The Guardian, which was reporting on a study produced by a Paris-based coalition of 34 countries, including the United States. The study performed by the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development found it is easier to climb the social ladder in other developed countries than it is in the United States, Italy and Britain. In that study, Denmark, Australia, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Spain and France all scored ahead of the United States in children’s ability to exceed their parents’ income. The study found that in the United States, Italy and the United Kingdom, at least 40 percent of the economic advantage that high-earning fathers have over low-earning fathers is transmitted to their sons. In countries with more social mobility, just 20 percent of that advantage carries into the next generation. "Policies that facilitate access to education of individuals from disadvantaged family backgrounds promote intergenerational wage mobility, and are also likely to be good for economic growth," the study said. Its findings echo similar research conducted in the United States. A 2008 report on economic mobility produced by the Pew Charitable Trusts and Brookings Institution found that while "Americans have an optimistic faith in the ability of individuals to get ahead within a lifetime or from one generation to the next, there is growing evidence of less intergenerational economic mobility in the United States than in many other rich, industrialized countries." It noted yet another study that showed U.S. social mobility lags behind Canada and several other northern European countries, but observed that other research has found U.S. social mobility exceeds that of developing countries such as Ecuador, Peru and Brazil. The research on developing countries equated America’s level of social mobility with that of Pakistan and Nepal, though it cautioned that statistics for developing countries are harder to come by because they lack income surveys that span three or more decades, so researchers must estimate how much money participants’ parents made. During the 2012 election cycle, Republicans including presidential candidate Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan of Wisconsin observed that mobility in the U.S. lags behind other countries. A 2012 New York Times article on the subject cited some of the factors that hinder social mobility in the U.S., like pay tilted toward educated workers and the magnitude of the gaps between the rich and middle class. It notes the U.S. "maintains a thinner safety net than other rich countries," and that "poor Americans are more likely than foreign peers to grow up with single mothers. "That places them at an elevated risk of experiencing poverty and related problems, a point frequently made by Mr. Santorum," the article says. "The United States also has uniquely high incarceration rates, and a longer history of racial stratification than its peers.". While it flies in the face of the notion that anyone can rise from the bottom to the top in the United States, a number of studies uphold Ryan’s contention that America’s social mobility lags behind that of many other countries. America’s exact ranking in those studies depends on which countries are surveyed, but the research Ryan alluded to did find the U.S. to be 10th among the 12 examined countries. However, it is important to clarify that those 12 were all developed countries, and other research has found that U.S. social mobility exceeds that of developing countries. Ryan did not qualify his statement to reflect that. We rate it Mostly True. | null | Tim Ryan | null | null | null | 2013-06-26T06:00:00 | 2013-06-11 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-14707 | The 90 percent statistic of supporting background checks, that's been debunked. | false | /punditfact/statements/2016/jan/05/laura-ingraham/laura-ingraham-say-claim-90-support-gun-background/ | Gun control advocates often cite the statistic that 90 percent of Americans support expanding background checks for gun purchases. President Barack Obama just did it in his Jan. 1, 2016, weekly address. But conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham says that statistic is not accurate. "The 90 percent statistic of supporting background checks, that's been debunked," Ingraham said on Fox News Sunday on Jan. 3. "Lots of the myths about gun ownership are perpetrated by people who never much liked the Second Amendment in the first place and who have a vested interest in amassing more power in Washington, D.C." PolitiFact has rated this 90 percent statistic True as recently as October. So we decided to try and figure out what Ingraham was talking about when she said this is a myth that has been debunked. Go to the polls Under current law, background checks are required in sales by federally licensed gun dealers, but the checks are not required for gun sales by private sellers. National polls conducted in 2015 consistently show that around 90 percent of Americans support some sort of expanded background checks for gun purchases. Here are a few examples: Quinnipiac University poll, conducted Dec. 16-20: "Would you support or oppose a law requiring background checks on people buying guns at gun shows or online?" Support: 89 percent. Oppose: 9 percent. Unsure/No answer: 1 percent. CBS/New York Times poll, conducted Oct. 21-25: "Do you favor or oppose a federal law requiring background checks on all potential gun buyers?" Favor: 92 percent. Oppose: 7 percent. Unsure/No answer: 1 percent. Gallup poll, conducted Oct. 7-11: "Would you favor or oppose a law which would require universal background checks for all gun purchases in the U.S. using a centralized database across all 50 states?" Favor: 86 percent. Oppose: 12 percent. Unsure: 2 percent. Quinnipiac University poll, conducted Sept. 17-21: "Do you support or oppose requiring background checks for all gun buyers?" Support: 93 percent. Oppose: 6 percent. Unsure/No answer: 1 percent. Pew Research Center poll, conducted July 14-20: Do you favor or oppose "making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks"? Favor: 85 percent. Oppose: 13 percent. Unsure/Refused: 2 percent. Pew found that support for background checks spans all partisan and demographic groups, and it is also favored by a majority of households that own guns and those that do not. So are all of these polls wrong? We reached out to Ingraham’s producers and didn’t hear back. We couldn’t find any sort of definitive debunking of this stat, but we did find that some gun rights advocates have taken issue with this statistic for reasons such as the survey questions referring to the general idea of background checks rather than specific legislation. For example, in 2013, polls found that 90 percent of Americans supported expanded background checks. However, when Congress failed to pass a popular bill that would have increased background checks, 47 percent were disappointed or angry that it failed, while some 39 percent were relieved or very happy, according to a Washington Post/Pew Research Center poll. Some gun rights activists took this as proof that the 90 percent figure was phooey. This highlights an odd discrepancy: While people overwhelmingly support specific gun policy ideas, like universal background checks and banning suspected terrorists from buying guns, the support is not as robust when it comes to actually expanding gun control. The same October CBS/New York Times poll that found 92 percent support for expanded background checks also shows 46 percent of Americans think laws covering gun sales should be either made less strict or stay the same. Just 51 percent said the laws should be made more strict. "People don't seem to like the idea of ‘gun control,’ but they still want the government to do more to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill," said Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California Los Angeles and author of Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America. Our ruling Ingraham said, "The 90 percent statistic of supporting background checks, that's been debunked." Numerous respected polls from 2015 show around 90 percent support for some sort of expanded background checks for gun purchases. While there are some questions as to what inferences can be made from these findings — such as whether that 90-percent support translates into support for specific legislation — there hasn’t been a definitive debunking of the statistic. We rate Ingraham’s claim False. | null | Laura Ingraham | null | null | null | 2016-01-05T11:23:43 | 2016-01-03 | ['None'] |
pomt-11945 | Jason Aldean gig canceled after he sells out to liberals on ‘SNL’. | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2017/oct/10/asamericanasapplepieorg/fake-news-site-says-jason-aldean-gave-anti-gun-scr/ | A fake news story that said country singer Jason Aldean had a concert canceled after making an anti-gun statement following his Saturday Night Live performance is the work of a website that appears to be part of a troll network. "Jason Aldean gig canceled after he sells out to liberals on SNL," read the Oct. 8, 2017, headline on AsAmericanAsApplePie.org. Facebook users flagged the content as possibly being fabricated, as part of the social network’s efforts to combat fake news stories. At least part of the story showed up in a couple of other posts also questioned by Facebook users. Aldean was performing onstage at a Las Vegas country music festival on Oct. 1 when a gunman opened fire on the crowd from a hotel room, killing 58 and injuring 489 more. He appeared for a musical performance on Saturday Night Live on Oct. 7, singing I Won’t Back Down, which also served as a tribute to Tom Petty, who died Oct. 2. The AsAmericanAsApplePie.org post, however, mixed some real details with some entirely fictional ones. It said Aldean addressed the audience before the song to say "people should not own more than one gun," and blamed the National Rifle Association for the massacre. Aldean did not do that. It then gives a real quote from Aldean, who said about shooting victims, "So I want to say to them, ‘We hurt for you, and we hurt with you.’ But you can be sure that we’re going to walk through these tough times together, every step of the way. Because when America is at its best, our bond, and our spirit, it’s unbreakable." You can watch the real statement and performance here: See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com The post snaps back into fake events by saying Aldean "took a knee" as the band played part of the national anthem, and told people "not to cave to the NRA’s terroristic agenda" and "always stand up to gun violence and the policies that enable it." None of those things happened, but the article said it spurred a #BoycottJasonAldean hashtag and led to the cancellation of Aldean’s concert in Birmingham, Ala. Aldean’s Birmingham show was Aug. 10. There is a #BoycottJasonAldean hashtag, but it’s difficult to tell if it stems from this fake story, which has fooled many people on Twitter, of Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White’s condemnation of Aldean for choosing to perform on SNL over UFC 216 in Las Vegas the same night. Aldean did cancel three California shows after the shooting "out of respect for the victims, their families and our fans," but returned to Las Vegas on Oct. 8 to visit with shooting survivors. AsAmericanAsApplePie.org has all the hallmarks of a series of fake websites associated with Christopher Blair, a self-described liberal troll who creates fictional stories to try to fool conservative readers. We’ve fact-checked plenty of stories that originated from websites run by or affiliated with Blair, including TheLastLineOfDefense.org, FreedomCrossroad.us, OurLandOfTheFree.com and FreedomJunkshun.com. AsAmericanAsApplePie.org uses the same website architecture as these other sites, and carries a disclaimer that reads, "As American as Apple Pie is here to be your beacon of something you can kinda rely on sometimes but not really." We reached out to the site but did not hear back. This fake story capitalizes on real events but inserts false details into the narrative to confuse readers. We rate it Pants On Fire! See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | AsAmericanAsApplePie.org | null | null | null | 2017-10-10T15:58:20 | 2017-10-08 | ['None'] |
pose-00302 | Will fully funding the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program "to combat crime and help address police brutality and accountability issues in local communities." | promise broken | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/319/fully-fund-the-cops-program/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Fully fund the COPS program | 2010-01-07T13:26:55 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08998 | Republicans extended unemployment insurance under President Bush "when he asked to extend unemployment insurance." | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jul/13/david-axelrod/republicans-supported-unemployment-under-bush/ | Congress has been unable to agree how to boost the economy, creating headaches for President Obama and his Democratic Party. Obama adviser David Axelrod took questions on the issue from Jake Tapper on ABC News' This Week. "How can the president create jobs without there being any willingness on Capitol Hill to spend money to do so?" Tapper asked. Axelrod agreed there is "not a great appetite" for additional spending in Congress. "But I do think there are some things we still can accomplish. I do think that we can get additional tax relief for small businesses. That's what we want to do, additional lending for small businesses. They're an engine of economic growth. We're hoping we can persuade enough people on the other side of the aisle to put politics aside and join us on that. (And) unemployment insurance, we ought to extend unemployment insurance. People are suffering," Axelrod said. "You can't get the votes, though," Tapper interjected. "Well, we'll see. We'll see," Axelrod said. "But at a time when there's one job vacancy for five unemployed workers looking for jobs, clearly we have a responsibility to do it. The Republicans met that responsibility each time under President Bush, when he asked to extend unemployment insurance. They ought to do it now. Let's not play politics with this issue." We were intrigued by Axelrod's statement that Republicans helped President George W. Bush pass extensions for unemployment insurance. So we decided to fact-check it. A little background on unemployment insurance: When workers lose full-time work through no fault of their own, they are usually eligible for unemployment benefits, small weekly payments intended to partially make up for lost wages. Employers pay taxes to fund the program, and states administer it based on federal guidelines. How much a person gets and how long benefits are paid varies by state. Usually, the benefits last about six months. In tough times, though, Congress often extends benefits, because of the difficulty of finding new jobs when unemployment is very high, as it has been since 2008, when the economy floundered. As a result, Congress has been arguing this summer about extending benefits again after extending them five times since Obama took office in 2009. Recent extensions have been structured so that workers in states where unemployment is higher receive additional weeks of benefits. In the states where unemployment is highest, some unemployed workers have been paid benefits for close to two years. But the extensions have run out for some workers, and Congress has been unable to agree on whether to extend them again. That's the context in which Axelrod commented that Republicans extended unemployment for Bush "when he asked." We found several instances of President Bush signing into law unemployment insurance extensions. Some extensions were highly targeted, such as aid to airline workers after 9/11 and to victims of Hurricane Katrina. But Bush signed two general extensions in 2003 for 13 weeks each, with significant Republican support. He also signed extensions in 2008 with Republican support. We were unable to find any instances when Bush asked for an extension of unemployment benefits and Congress refused him. None of the experts we consulted could recall such a case. So Axelrod was technically right that Bush appears to have gotten Congress to extend unemployment insurance "when he asked." But in reviewing news articles on unemployment during the Bush administration, we noticed that, even when they supported extending benefits, Bush and Congressional Republicans were generally more skeptical than Democrats were. We noted that Republicans said then the same thing that some conservatives say now, which is that unemployment payments are a disincentive in some cases to taking a new job. Economists have noted this effect in studies, but they say that it is more significant during normal economic times. Axelrod's comment implies that Republicans were willing to extend unemployment insurance under Bush but are balking now that Obama is president. But we find the employment landscapes under Bush and Obama so different as to defy comparison. Extensions under Bush usually were for fairly short periods of time, such as two 13-week extensions in 2003. Also, some Republicans want the current extension combined with other spending cuts, to prevent the deficit from getting bigger. Projected deficits now are much larger than they were under Bush. Finally, it's worth noting that some reports indicate the unemployment legislation has failed to gain Republican support because Democrats have combined it with other measures. While Axelrod is right that Republicans supported Bush's proposals to extend unemployment benefits, it's important to note that there are differences between then and now. So, we rate his statement Mostly True. | null | David Axelrod | null | null | null | 2010-07-13T18:13:57 | 2010-07-11 | ['George_W._Bush', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
goop-01188 | Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt “Bonding” Over Meditation? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-brad-pitt-meditation/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt “Bonding” Over Meditation? | 3:00 am, April 14, 2018 | null | ['Jennifer_Aniston', 'Brad_Pitt'] |
pomt-08239 | If the state turns down money for high-speed rail, it will "kill nearly 10,000 permanent Wisconsin jobs." | mostly false | /wisconsin/statements/2010/nov/15/sierra-club/sierra-club-says-killing-high-speed-rail-project-w/ | The debate over the proposed high-speed rail line from Milwaukee to Madison percolated during the campaign for governor. It flared up on the eve of the election, and has raged since Republican Scott Walker was elected Nov. 2, 2010. Walker wants the project stopped, even if it means rejecting $810 million in already-approved federal money. After state officials signed contracts in a pre-election push to ensure the project moves forward, outgoing Gov. Jim Doyle has backed off -- but argues ending the project will cost taxpayers $100 million. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who lost to Walker, has said the city will consider legal options if the train is killed. Virtually everyone has entered the fight, often wielding statistics to argue their point. That includes the Sierra Club’s Wisconsin chapter. Weapon of choice: Jobs. In a news release and a petition, the Sierra Club argues if the state turns down money for high speed rail, it will "kill nearly 10,000 permanent Wisconsin jobs." If PolitiFact had sound effects, we’d add a loud whistle here. As in, that’s a lot of jobs. And as in, let’s have a timeout and get to the bottom of this. Many different job-related statistics have been bandied about in the debate. The state Department of Transportation estimates there are the 13,719 jobs involved in construction, engineering, design and train manufacturing tied to the project. On the campaign trail, Walker argued the project would create only 55 permanent jobs, declaring in an open letter to President Barack Obama on his notrain.com web site: "That’s $14.5 million per job, not including any hidden costs!" There, Walker is talking about jobs on the train line itself -- conductors, engineers, ticket-takers and the like. In making the claim, he is purposely choosing the smallest possible number to make his point. But what of the nearly 10,000 permanent jobs claimed by the Sierra Club and others, some of whom are now citing the Sierra Club as the source of the number? These are jobs not tied directly to the project and as such are hardest to measure hardest to quantify. Yet the group offers a very specific number: 9,572. The number comes from a 2006 economicanalysis prepared for Amtrak and nine states, including Wisconsin, a group called the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative. The study, prepared by Transportation & Economics Management Systems, became part of the state’s application for the train funding. The study says: "The development of the system integrates so many communities, and provides such a wide reaching impact that it will generate on its own a 0.1 percent growth to the region’s economy." The sweeping conclusion: "It will support existing manufacturing and service industries and will foster the growth of new small businesses across the Midwest because of the improved access between communities. It will encourage large businesses to distribute their operations more widely across the Midwest and reap the benefit of providing more efficient ‘back shop’ operations in the highly accessible smaller communities." OK, but how do you quantify all that? If you dig into the study, you find it is based on numerous assumptions and applies multipliers and other formulas to come up with a bottom line: Expanded train service would create 58,000 jobs in the nine states, boost property values by $5 billion and increase urban household income by $1 billion. Let’s look at some of the factors and underlying assumptions, with an eye toward how the Sierra Club and others are using them when they claim 10,000 permanent jobs are at stake with the Milwaukee to Madison line. Size of the system The numbers are based on the prospect of a fully-built system throughout the Midwest. That is, it’s not just high-speed rail from Milwaukee to Madison, but Chicago all the way to Minneapolis. And Chicago to St. Louis. And ultimately connections to Omaha, Kansas City, Indianapolis, Detroit, Cleveland and more. It even includes a spur to Green Bay, with proposed stations in Menomonee Falls, Fond du Lac, Neenah and Appleton. That piece alone accounts for 3,200 jobs in the study, some of which overlap with the Milwaukee jobs. But the federal funds allocated so far only cover some pieces of the plan. And there is no certainty the full system will ever be built -- in Ohio, Governor-elect John Kasich has vowed to block the Cleveland to Cincinnati to Columbus piece. So, even if Walker were to have a change of heart, the system may be smaller and have fewer connections, which could mean its jobs impact is smaller as well. Jobs gained, jobs lost The study suggests that new jobs and opportunities will develop around the new route, as more people take advantage of the high-speed connections. However, as people board the train they are taken off the highways and don’t as often take to the skies. But the study counts only the new jobs, not any lost ones. "How many airline pilots or contractors renovating terminals will not be needed?" said Steven E. Polzin, of the Center for Urban Transportation Research at the University of South Florida, an expert on rail proposals, whose group has been criticized for favoring cars and roads. "How many auto workers, gas station attendants, road contractors, etc." So, part of the equation is missing. Stations as economic hubs The study assumes that stations will become economic hubs, prompting other businesses to create jobs nearby. But the stations envisioned are no sure thing. For instance, the initial Madison station was to be near the airport -- not ideal for someone headed to the Capitol. Now it’ll be in the city center, but going into the city slows down a traveler from Milwaukee to Minneapolis. Leaders of some cities, including Brookfield and Wauwatosa, have said they don’t even want a proposed station. So, more uncertainty. Other travel options If the price of gas remains relatively low, there will be less incentive for travelers to get out of their cars and board the train. Indeed, cars may be able to make the trip faster -- assuming there’s no traffic congestion. Initial train speeds are planned to be 79 miles an hour, not including stops; the train would run at higher speeds later. Whats more, Mitchell International Airport is enjoying an air carrier -- and airfare -- war, which has helped it attract more passengers than ever. There is no telling how long that will last, but low air fares could have an impact on who grabs the train. Polzin, who reviewed the study at the request of PolitiFact Wisconsin, said it appeared to be professionally done, using methods that are generally accepted. He noted that such studies are usually done to build support for a project "and look exclusively at the benefits of the specific option, not the comparative benefits of other options or directing those resources to others purposes." Indeed, the state Department of Transportation has not highlighted the 10,000 permanent jobs figure, focusing instead on construction-related jobs for the Milwaukee-to-Madison line. "That’s work that we did ourselves," said Cari Anne Renlund, executive assistant for the state DOT. "We need to talk about what we know is real." We’ll leave Projection Land and return to reality as well. The Sierra Club’s Wisconsin chapter and others say killing the high-speed train will kill jobs, specifically 9,572 permanent ones. Their number is taken from a professional analysis, but that analysis is based on a host of assumptions -- including that an entire Midwest network is built -- many of which could change. And while the Sierra Club suggests the jobs are an immediate loss, the report itself puts them years into the future. The Truth-O-Meter isn’t a crystal ball. But it’s got a present-day rating that fits this claim: Barely True. (Note: Paragraph three of this item was changed on Nov. 16, 2010 to more closely reflect what Mayor Barrett has said in regard to the train and the city's options.) Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. | null | Sierra Club | null | null | null | 2010-11-15T09:00:00 | 2010-11-04 | ['Wisconsin'] |
pomt-00838 | Creflo Dollar needed a $65 million Gulfstream G650 to carry thousands of pounds of food and other supplies -- as well as the Word of God -- worldwide. | pants on fire! | /georgia/statements/2015/mar/23/juda-engelmayer/creflo-dollars-need-65-million-jet-never-gets-grou/ | Pastor Creflo Dollar’s plan to travel the world in the fastest and most luxurious business jet ever built never got off the ground. He and other leaders at World Changers Church International in College Park launched Project G650 with the goal of raising nearly $65 million for the airplane, largely from $300-plus donations from 200,000 of the faithful. But negative public reaction to Dollar’s fundraising plea was so swift that it was halted within days of its launch. A promotional video featuring Dollar was quickly pulled down, but lives via YouTube. Some of the harshest words came from the faith community, including contemporary gospel’s Kirk Franklin who said: "When I camouflage my ‘greeds’ to look like ‘needs,’ that’s a shortage of character." Others asked: Why couldn’t pastor and evangelist Dollar conduct his mission travels as most do, via commercial airline, rather than a Gulfstream G650? We tried to reach Dollar directly but were referred to Juda Engelmayer, senior vice president at 5W Public Relations in New York. He is representing Creflo Dollar Ministries and has been fielding questions about the now-defunct fundraising campaign. In an article that appeared March 13, Engelmayer told The Christian Post that Dollar is now taking commercial flights when he visits churches in New York. But, "it’s not that simple," Engelmayer said, when a ministry team of 10 to 15 people "take thousands of pounds," even 100,000 pounds, "of food and provisions with them when they go around the world." That’s why the Gulfstream G650 is needed, he suggested. "The plane is not so Creflo Dollar can get on by himself and fly." Engelmayer made similar comments to the Associated Press. He said members of the ministry travel much of the year bringing their message, food and supplies to people around the world, and this jet has the fuel efficiency, speed, cargo space and seating the church needed. So is that a reason the ministry wanted donations of $65 million -- to have an airplane with cargo space capable of carrying thousands, possibly 100,00 pounds of food and other supplies? PolitiFact Georgia decided to check the facts. First a little background about the 53-year-old megachurch pastor and evangelist and how he came to say he was praying for a Gulfstream G650. Dollar preaches what is known as the prosperity gospel, a religious doctrine that financial blessing is the will of God for Christians. A native of College Park, he founded the non-denominational World Changers Church International, which boasts 30,000 members, 350 employees, an 81-acre campus and mission work on six continents. Dollar has long been criticized for being a preacher who lives a lavish lifestyle with Rolls Royces, million-dollar homes and jets. The tax exempt status of his ministry -- as well as five others -- was the focus of a U.S. Senate committee’s three-plus year investigation that started in 2007 and was based on public complaints and media reports about large salaries, lavish expenditures. Dollar protested the investigation, which closed with no findings of wrongdoing. Committee investigators said Dollar and the ministry at that time had four airplanes, including the one he wanted to replace with the $65 million Gulfstream. The plane World Changers and Dollar made the case for the new jet -- the Gulfstream G650, which is manufactured in Savannah -- after the church’s longtime Gulfstream G1159A, more commonly known as a G-III, was damaged and taken out of service last last year. They said the jet -- built in 1984 and purchased in 1999 -- traveled four million miles and had two recent mishaps: one where the right engine failed near Hawaii enroute to Australia; and a second in which the airplane’s nose hit a London runway while Dollar’s wife, Taffi, and three of his daughters were aboard. It was after these incidents, Dollar told potential donors on the video, "I knew it was time to begin to believe God for a new airplane." PolitiFact found a National Transportation Safety Board report confirming that older jet received "substantial airframe damage" in the accident that occurred on takeoff from London to Canada. Eight people were on the airplane, including one woman who was taken to the hospital with minor injuries. Aviation expert Richard Aboulafia confirmed that the jet likely would need to be replaced if it had substantial airframe damage. But Aboulafia, vice president of analysis at the Teal Group in Washington, said Dollar -- in proposing that the disabled jet be replaced with a $65 million G650 -- was suggesting going from "the old Honda to the new Rolls Royce." This 18-seat jet, which won aviation’s most prestigious honor, the Collier Trophy in 2014, is considered the best and fastest high-end corporate jet ever built. It’s the mode of travel for world governments, the very top echelon of business executives and likely the richest of the rich, he said. Does it have cargo space for thousands of pounds of food and other supplies? Experts told us the answer is no. Carrying cargo is not this jet’s mission, Aboulafia said. "If they make that claim [that they were buying the Gulfstream G650 to carry cargo], they're expecting the public to be a lot dumber than it is," he said. Cargo space on a business jet is measured in terms of golf bags, Aboulafia said. Steve Cass, vice president for technical marketing and communications with the jet’s manufacturer, Gulfstream Aerospace Corp., confirmed the jet’s space limitations. The G650 has room for 18 passengers and 2,500 pounds of baggage, Cass said. We sent an email to Engelmayer asking him to clarify his "cargo’ comments. He did not respond specifically to that request, but said there is "no campaign for a plane, and the ministry’s work helping people in need and spreading the gospel continues as it always has. "There is nothing more about this to discuss," he said. Rusty Leonard, founder and CEO of MinistryWatch.com said he was ‘disturbed, but not surprised" to learn Dollar was trying to raise money for a $65 million jet. "This is normal behavior for a prosperity gospel preacher who turns the gospel upside down by making it all about your/their own blessings/success rather than about sacrificially blessing others who are in need as Jesus actually taught," he said. His organization does not recommend donating to Dollar’s organizations, Leonard said. Our ruling: Dollar and other leaders in World Changers Church International launched and then dropped a campaign that asked followers to pony up $65 million for a top-of-the-line luxury jet. It’s an airplane generally reserved for world leaders, the top crop of business executives and billionaires. One rationale given for buying the aircraft was that the church needed to be able to carry thousands of pounds of food and other goods -- as well as ministers bringing the Word of God -- to other parts of the world. That argument never got off the runway. It is inaccurate and bordering on ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire. | null | Juda Engelmayer | null | null | null | 2015-03-23T16:53:55 | 2015-03-13 | ['Bible'] |
tron-02330 | The amazing WW II “piggyback” B-17 mid-air collision | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/piggyback/ | null | military | null | null | null | The amazing WW II “piggyback” B-17 mid-air collision | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01977 | Courage at the Tomb of the Unknowns during Hurricane Isabel | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/tombofunknowns/ | null | natural-disasters/hurricane | null | null | null | Courage at the Tomb of the Unknowns during Hurricane Isabel | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02783 | Selena Gomez Song “Bad Liar” About Missing Justin Bieber, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/selena-gomez-bad-liar-justin-bieber-the-weeknd/ | null | null | null | Michael Lewittes | null | Selena Gomez Song “Bad Liar” NOT About Missing Justin Bieber, Despite Report | 2:49 pm, May 19, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07843 | Says 25 percent of Austin's public school buildings are "underutilized." | half-true | /texas/statements/2011/feb/13/janet-mitchell/austin-school-district-task-force-co-chair-says-25/ | Speaking to an Austin school task force’s exploration of possible Austin school closures, the volunteer group’s co-chair recently applauded alternative ideas yet warned that campus shutdowns aren’t off the table. Janet Mitchell told the Austin American-Statesman for a Jan. 20 news article: "The reality is that the (Austin school) district has a long-term inefficiency in utilization of school buildings. We have 25 percent of our school buildings that are underutilized. At some point... the community is going to need to decide whether we continue to invest in under-enrolled schools or whether we need to save those dollars to invest in teachers and programs." One in four schools--underused? We left a message for Mitchell, then asked the school district for elaboration. Joe Silva, assistant director for planning services, provided a spreadsheet listing each of the district’s 100-plus schools and whether each one is operating at, under or over the student capacity for which it was designed. Silva said the district has historically considered a campus under-enrolled if its school buildings, not counting portables, are at 75 percent capacity or less. He said the citizens task force set an under-capacity threshold of 85 percent. By the 85-percent threshold, 34 schools -- 31 percent -- are under-enrolled. By the usual district threshold, 22 schools -- 20 percent -- are under-filled. The calculations count both students who live in a school’s attendance zone and those attending via transfers. According to the spreadsheet, the district’s least-crowded school is Pearce Middle School, at 31 percent of capacity. The school normally serves more students; sixth grade wasn’t offered this year. Also least-crowded, according to the spreadsheet, are Becker Elementary, at 40 percent, and Blackshear Elementary, at 41 percent. Silva said that four of Becker’s permanent classrooms serve students shifted temporarily from their home schools to the disciplinary Alternative Center for Elementary Students. Those students aren’t counted in Becker’s enrollment calculation, he said, because the district can place the program at any location. Mary Saul, ACES’ director, told us that up to 36 students in the program occupy permanent classrooms at Becker. Silva initially told us that the district would describe under-enrolled schools as under capacity, not underutilized. That is, he said, many schools not filled with students still use their available space to offer add-on programs for students, families and the community. Also, he said, the district’s central administration places administrative and other staff in space available in the schools. He passed along campus survey results indicating that in 2009-10, 29 of the district’s 2,425 elementary classrooms, 1 percent, were used by principals for "discretionary" purposes, with others used for instruction, student and parental support or by district administrative staff. "Very few campuses are underutilized," Silva said. "But many are under capacity." Bumfuzzled? So were we, until Mitchell told us she’d said "underutilized" after seeing the term in a presentation to the school board. The 15-page presentation, "Facility Master Plan, Board Update," was shown to the board Jan. 10. It includes a page titled "Current Facility Inefficiencies" with this subhead: "Utilization (Permanent Capacity/Enrollment)." The page says the target utilization for the district is 85 percent to 105 percent; 27 schools -- or 25 percent -- are below the bottom target figure and 55 schools are above it. Silva later told us the results differ from the breakdown he gave us because the presentation used 2009-10 enrollment totals and ours had more recent enrollment totals. So, 25 percent or so of the schools are below target capacity for students, but that’s not to say most of their space isn’t being used. In fact, a key consultant on the master plan, Carolyn Staskiewicz, president of Ohio-based DeJong-Richter, told us in an interview that "utilization" -- a term reflecting the students enrolled in a school divided by the school’s capacity--could give the erroneous impression that the schools aren’t fully used. At her suggestion, we poked into the term--underutilization--by contacting the Arizona-based Council on Educational Facility Planners International. Spokeswoman Barbara Worth pointed us to Ron Fanning, chairman of the board of Ohio-based Fanning/Howey Associates, Inc., among the nation’s largest school architecture firms. Fanning agreed with Staskiewicz’s definition of utilization, but said it’s not the only factor to weigh in judging a school’s value: "You really have to look at each individual building" on its merits, "what it can hold, based on the programs being taught at that school... You can’t do a broad-brush statement." Stefan Pharis, who has a child at Barton Hills Elementary, told us the facilities task force has yet to take into account a comprehensive state measure of schools’ efficiency. According to online posts by the state comptroller’s office, the Financial Allocation Study for Texas (FAST), as ordered by the 2009 Legislature, reflects how districts and campuses spend their money -- and how the spending translates into student achievement. "There’s an implication when you say (a school is) underutilized, that somehow they’re wasteful in terms of spending," Pharis said. According to the comptroller, he said, "Some of these schools... excel academically and they do it at a cost-effective price." Our take: Mitchell’s statement accurately echoes the consultant-endorsed characterization of under-enrolled schools as being below their "target" utilization. However, "underutilized" is potentially misleading when applied to schools that may in fact be fully used, and could be targeted for closure as a result of that label. This is critical, missing context. We rate the statement Half True. | null | Janet Mitchell | null | null | null | 2011-02-13T06:00:00 | 2011-01-20 | ['None'] |
snes-00380 | A photograph shows two girls wearing "Fuck Trump" shirts. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/girls-trump-tshirts-rally/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Are These Girls Wearing ‘F*ck Trump’ Shirts? | 3 July 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04718 | Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church changed his name to "Muhammad Hussein Warren." | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rick-warren-changes-name-to-muhammad-hussein-warren/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Rick Warren Changes Name to ‘Muhammad Hussein Warren’ | 24 May 2016 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00417 | Farmville White Gift Box Virus Warning | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/farmville-white-gift-box-warning.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Farmville White Gift Box Virus Warning Hoax | 5th September 2011 | null | ['None'] |
abbc-00113 | The claim: Michelle Rowland says the Coalition has not submitted any policies for costing to the Parliamentary Budget Office. | in-the-red | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-14/michelle-rowland-incorrect-coalition-costings/4865274 | The claim: Michelle Rowland says the Coalition has not submitted any policies for costing to the Parliamentary Budget Office. | ['federal-government', 'federal-elections', 'budget', 'australia'] | null | null | ['federal-government', 'federal-elections', 'budget', 'australia'] | Labor MP Michelle Rowland incorrect on the Coalition's policy costings | Tue 13 Aug 2013, 4:13pm | null | ['Coalition_(Australia)'] |
pomt-06101 | Wisconsin’s monthly job reports have a "margin of error" of 75 percent and were "way off" in eight of first 10 months of 2011. | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2012/jan/04/rebecca-kleefisch/preliminary-vs-revised-job-change-estimates-wiscon/ | No doubt: the primary target of a massive recall campaign in Wisconsin is Republican Gov. Scott Walker. But Democrats and their allies are also collecting hundreds of thousands of signatures on petitions seeking to recall Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch. With the recalls as the backdrop, Kleefisch appeared Dec. 18, 2011 on WISN-TV’s weekly public affairs show in Milwaukee. Host Mike Gousha asked her about job creation, which is not on pace to meet the Walker campaign promise to create 250,000 private-sector jobs during his first term. "The last five months, we've lost private-sector jobs in the state of Wisconsin," Gousha said. "If the reforms are working, if the strategy is working, why are we losing jobs when other states are adding them?" Kleefisch began to smile and replied: "Well, first of all, I think we have to acknowledge how those figures come out. Our Department of Labor actually surveys only about 4 percent of job creators throughout the state of Wisconsin. And so we're talking about a margin of error of plus-or-minus 75 percent, like what we saw in October." Kleefisch also claimed the survey "has been way off" in estimating the number of jobs gained or lost in eight of the months since she and Walker took office in January 2011. She was referring to the difference between the preliminary and revised estimates that are done for each month. To be sure, Kleefisch and Walker did not complain the job estimates were unreliable when they showed job gains during the first six months of 2011. And "margin of error" is really a different measure -- how off the numbers are from reality, not from one estimate to the next. But in the interview, Kleefisch defined her terms, so viewers had a good sense of what she meant. So, is Kleefisch right -- do the state’s monthly estimates on jobs gained or lost have a discrepancy of 75 percent? And are the preliminary estimates often "way off" when compared to the revised estimates? How numbers are generated Let’s start with how the government generates its numbers. Each month, the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, which is part of the Walker administration, releases employment statistics. The figures, which garner regular news coverage, include the number of jobs added or lost since the previous month. The numbers are not actual job counts. They are estimates produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics based on surveys it does of employers throughout the country. The method is statistically valid because the employers surveyed reflect the makeup of each state, said Ken Robertson, the federal bureau’s current employment statistics program manager. A preliminary estimate of the jobs added or lost each month is released after three weeks of surveying, Robertson said. The surveying continues, however, and a revised estimate is reported following the end of the month. The revised figures almost always vary from the preliminary ones because they are based on a larger number of surveys. Kleefisch’s claims Given that Kleefisch’s claims were made in connection with the recall campaign, we asked the the Republican Party of Wisconsin, rather than her staff, for evidence to back her claims. Spokesman Ben Sparks confirmed that Kleefisch was referring in the interview to the preliminary and revised job figures for October 2011. But she misidentified what she was citing. Kleefisch had been asked about private-sector job losses, but the 75 percent variation she cited actually was for private- and public-sector jobs -- that is, all jobs, excluding farm jobs -- according to the Department of Workforce Development figures. The preliminary estimate for October was a loss of 9,700 non-farm jobs in Wisconsin, with the revised estimate showing only 2,400 jobs lost. The revision, as Kleefisch suggested, was a 75 percent reduction. For private-sector jobs lost, the revision was actually higher -- 85 percent. But Kleefisch cited the October 2011 job figures only as an example -- claiming most of the 2011 monthly reports were "way off." How do the preliminary numbers compare to the revised job figures for the first 10 months of 2011? We’ll look at both private-sector jobs and total non-farm jobs, since the question dealt with the first and her answer the second. We calculated the percentages based on figures provided in the state Department of Workforce Development’s Dec. 15, 2011 report, the most recent monthly report available. Here’s an example of one calculation: In January 2011, the revised estimate was that 7,700 total non-farm jobs were added that month; the preliminary estimate was 6,200 jobs added. That’s a difference of 24 percent. Again, the following percentages represent the difference between the revised and preliminary estimates, not the rate at which jobs were lost or added each month. Total non-farm jobs January -- 24 percent February -- 58 percent March -- 15 percent April -- 52 percent May -- 22 percent June -- 16 percent July -- 22 percent August -- 78 percent September -- 11 percent October -- 75 percent So, the 78 percent variation in August was even higher than the 75 percent revision in October that Kleefisch cited. In the other months, the variances were significant, but considerably lower. The average variance over 10 months was 37 percent. (One note for perspective: An estimated 2.75 million people were employed in Wisconsin in October 2011. So, while the final estimate for the month -- 2,400 jobs lost -- was 75 percent smaller than the preliminary estimate, it represents a fraction of the total number of jobs in the state.) Private-sector jobs Here’s how much the preliminary and revised estimates varied on monthly job changes for private-sector jobs only: January -- 12 percent February -- 17 percent March -- 22 percent April -- 20 percent May -- 0 percent June -- 15 percent July -- 14 percent August -- 75 percent September -- 11 percent October -- 85 percent So, once again, the variations were 75 percent or higher in August and October. The average monthly variation was 27 percent, lower than for total non-farm jobs. Robertson of the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics said the August and October variations are "larger than we like to see." He said that, on the national level, variations of roughly that magnitude occur about once a year, but he didn’t know about individual states. Our conclusion Kleefisch said the monthly jobs numbers have a "margin of error" of 75 percent and were "way off" in eight of the first 10 months of 2011. In her response to the question, Kleefisch did some mixing of apples and oranges and using the phrase "margin of error" was misleading. But she did define her terms in the interview. The difference between the preliminary and revised numbers was 75 percent or higher in two of the first 10 months of 2011. As for "way off," on average, the variations between preliminary and final estimates in 2011 have been significant: 37 percent for total non-farm jobs and 27 percent for private-sector jobs. Kleefisch’s statement is partially accurate but left out important details -- our definition of Half True. | null | Rebecca Kleefisch | null | null | null | 2012-01-04T09:00:00 | 2011-12-18 | ['None'] |
pomt-09692 | Claims that Obama said, "For those who oppose our policies, you should just shut up and go away." | false | /florida/statements/2009/nov/11/cw-bill-young/us-rep-claims-obama-told-republicans-shut-and-go-/ | Back in his Florida district, U.S. Rep. C.W. Bill Young decided to toss some red meat at the feet of a group of eager Republicans. Taking the microphone at Monday's meeting of the Pinellas Republican Executive Committee, Young said that President Barack Obama, during a recent campaign rally for a Democratic candidate running in Virginia, told Republicans to "go away." "He said, 'For those who oppose our policies, you should just shut up and go away,' " Young said to an overflowing crowd of Republican Party activists and insiders. "Well, we ain't gonna shut up and we ain't going away." When Young relayed Obama's message, some people in the audience gasped. Could the president have said that? Almost every word the president utters in public is saved, recorded or typed somewhere. That makes separating truth from fiction when it comes to Obama's public statements pretty easy. Let's get one part out of the way: After an exhaustive review of transcripts, newspaper stories and videos of Obama's recent campaign speeches, Obama never said the sentence exactly as Young attributed it to him. We did find the speech Young was referring to, however. It was given by Obama on Aug. 6 on behalf of Virginia gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds, and was referenced in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece written by James Taranto a few days later. At one point while writing about the speech, Taranto describes "Obama's petulant demand that his critics shut up and get out of the way." That's pretty much what Young relayed to the crowd of Pinellas Republicans. So we tracked down the transcript from the speech itself. The Virginia speech focused heavily on the economy and the president's support of a $787 billion stimulus package. He joked with the crowd that some Republicans are trying to blame him for the country's economic woes. "You've got folks on the other side of the aisle pointing at the federal budget and somehow trying to put that at our feet. Well, let's look at the history. When I walked in, we had a $1.3 trillion deficit. That was gift-wrapped and waiting for me when I walked in the Oval Office," Obama said. "Without my policies we'd have an even higher deficit going forward. The one exception is the recovery package that we had to do in order to get this economy moving again." Obama continued, "So you can't go out there and charge up the credit card, go on ... shopping sprees on things that didn't grow the economy, hand over the bill to us, and then say, 'Why haven't you paid it off yet?' I got that bill from (Republicans). So we've got some work to do. I don't mind, by the way, being responsible. I expect to be held responsible for these issues because I'm the president. But I don't want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them just to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don't mind cleaning up after them, but don't do a lot of talking. Am I wrong, Virginia?" The last half of the quote, the "get out of the way," was picked up by the local newspapers covering the speech and spread from there. Conservative commentators like Taranto said it showed Obama's unwillingness to work with Republicans on bipartisan solutions. But the broader context shows that Obama's criticisms were more targeted. Specifically, Obama was criticizing Republicans who blame him for the country's economic problems, when -- he says -- many of the problems were created while Republicans were in power. That's a far cry from Young's report of Obama's statement -- "For those who oppose our policies, you should just shut up and go away." Young's statement is much more sweeping and dismissive than anything the president said. We rate Young's claim False. | null | C.W. Bill Young | null | null | null | 2009-11-11T12:43:09 | 2009-11-09 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-14166 | Says an array of statistics show that conditions in some parts of Baltimore rival that of "the West Bank in Palestine," "North Korea," and "distressed cities in Nigeria, India, China and South Africa." | mostly true | /global-news/statements/2016/apr/28/bernie-sanders/bernie-sanders-says-conditions-baltimore-no-better/ | Residents of some Baltimore neighborhoods are no better off than people living in impoverished North Korea and the violent West Bank, Bernie Sanders said during a campaign rally in Maryland ahead of that state’s primary. "Poverty in Baltimore, and around this country — poverty is a death sentence," Sanders said April 24. He then laid out some rather unflattering and harsh comparisons: "Fifteen neighborhoods in Baltimore have lower life expectancies than North Korea. Two of them have a higher infant mortality rate than the West Bank in Palestine. Baltimore teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 face poorer health conditions and a worse economic outlook than those in distressed cities in Nigeria, India, China and South Africa. We are talking about the United States of America in the year 2016 — a country in which the top 1/10th of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent." While it would be wrong to take Sanders’ claim to mean that conditions overall are worse than Baltimore, we found that his specific comparisons are largely accurate. "The comparisons fairly make the point that there are some parts of this rich country where conditions resemble those in much poorer countries," said Alan Berube, an expert on urban poverty at the Brookings Institution. "This isn't isolated to Baltimore; there are neighborhoods in nearly every big U.S. city and metropolitan area, and many rural communities, that perform just as poorly on these outcomes." Let’s take Sanders’ claims one by one. Life expectancy in North Korea The Sanders campaign referred us to a Washington Post article noting that 14 Baltimore neighborhoods had shorter life expectancies than North Korea in 2013. (The article originally said 15 but was corrected.) His number is slightly outdated. In 2014, the latest year where there’s data on both places, the average life expectancy in North Korea was 69.81 years, according to the CIA World Factbook. That placed the impoverished dictatorship at No. 155 in longest lifespans out of 224 countries. The United States overall ranked at No. 42 with 79.56 years. Residents in 12 of Baltimore's 56 neighborhoods lived shorter lives, according to data from the Baltimore City Health Department provided to the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance. That’s not 15, but it’s close. (For context, just five Baltimore neighborhoods have life expectancies higher than the U.S. national average, and four of them are relatively affluent and white.) Here’s a map from the University of Maryland’s Capital News Service that compares the life expectancies of Baltimore neighborhoods in 2013 to other places in the world: An important caveat: The city of Baltimore has a total population around 600,000 people while North Korea has a population 40 times that. That means fewer events in Baltimore neighborhood could swing the overall life expectancy of a neighborhood up or down. Infant mortality in the West Bank For this claim, the Sanders campaign referred us to a Vox article that said two neighborhoods in Baltimore — Little Italy and Greenmount East — had a higher rate of infant mortality than the West Bank, Honduras and Venezuela in 2013. But in his speech, Sanders only mentioned the West Bank. In 2014, 13.49 out of 1,000 babies died before their first birthday in the notorious conflict zone, according to the CIA’s World Factbook. The West Bank places in the middle of the pack in infant mortality at No. 117 out of 224 countries. The United States, meanwhile, ranked at No. 169 with a rate of 6.17 deaths per 1,000. In 2014, 11 Baltimore neighborhoods had a higher rate than the West Bank. In Hilltop and Little Italy, at least 20 out of 1,000 infants died before their first birthday. That’s not only higher than the West Bank, Honduras and Venezuela but also war-torn Syria and oppressive Uzbekistan. Teen health in distressed cities in developing countries Sanders claimed that "Baltimore teenagers between the ages of 15 and 19 face poorer health conditions and a worse economic outlook than those in distressed cities in Nigeria, India, China and South Africa." The Sanders campaign cited a Washington Post article by Johns Hopkins University researchers. "Teenagers in Baltimore face poorer health and more negative outlooks than those in urban centers of Nigeria, India and China," they write. Contrary to what Sanders said, the work by the Johns Hopkins researchers don’t consider economic outlooks nor do they show Baltimore conditions being worse than South Africa’s. Nonetheless, his broader point is accurate. The researchers published a comprehensive set of studies published in the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2014 that compared the well-being of teens in impoverished areas in Baltimore; Ibadan, Nigeria; Johannesburg, South Africa; New Delhi, India; and Shanghai, China. Baltimore teens reported the highest rates pregnancy and, after Johannesburg, the second highest rates of substance use, sexual and physical violence, and feeling unsafe in their community: Our ruling Sanders presented a series of comparisons showing that conditions in some parts of Baltimore rivaled that of "the West Bank in Palestine," "North Korea," and "distressed cities in Nigeria, India, China and South Africa. Some of Sanders’ figures need to be updated, but the gist of his specific comparisons are accurate: 12 Baltimore neighborhoods have a lower life expectancy than North Korea; 11 have a higher infant mortality rate than the West Bank; and research shows health conditions are worse for poor teens than in Baltimore than in Ibadan, New Delhi and Shanghai. We rate his claim Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/525deb4c-b6b0-41fb-bfa0-ffb25203ddcc | null | Bernie Sanders | null | null | null | 2016-04-28T17:06:34 | 2016-04-24 | ['China', 'South_Africa', 'India', 'Nigeria', 'Baltimore', 'North_Korea'] |
pomt-00626 | Says he was known as "Veto Corleone" for cutting spending as Florida governor. | true | /florida/statements/2015/may/26/jeb-bush/saga-jeb-bushs-one-time-alias-veto-corleone/ | Former Gov. Jeb Bush has resurrected an infamous moniker from his days in Tallahassee on the campaign trail in an attempt to show he is the godfather of fiscal conservatism. During a meeting with business leaders in Portsmouth, N.H., on May 20, 2015, Bush pointed out he was well-known for using the line-item veto at his disposal as governor. "They called me Veto Corleone, which was something I was quite proud of," Bush said, citing a reference to Marlon Brando’s character in The Godfather. He added that he vetoed 2,500 separate line items totaling $2 billion over his eight years. Bush has brought out that anecdote several times during the run-up to a presidential campaign, implying he would again focus on cutting wasteful spending. We wondered if he was accurate in claiming that nickname. We made our own inquiries and found that yes, pork projects really did sleep with the fishes. Offers he could refuse Bush came into office in 1999 vowing to use his line-item veto on state spending he didn’t like, and he followed through with a vengeance. He also wanted the state to focus on building reserves. That first year, he shocked lawmakers by slashing $313 million out of the $48.6 billion budget approved by the Legislature. It was more than double the previous veto record of $150 million set by Republican Gov. Bob Martinez in 1988. The Senate was so angry about the cuts, they sued Bush over his partial veto of funding for an extended school year. The Florida Supreme Court eventually ruled Bush defied the state Constitution by cutting $16 million out of a $40 million appropriation to keep schools open longer. They said he either had to cut all of the program or none of it. Media reports said John Thrasher, then speaker of the House, dubbed Bush "Veto Corleone" after the fictional mafia don (spelled Vito Corleone) for his liberal use of the power. Thrasher, who is now president of Florida State University, confirmed to PolitiFact Florida that he coined the nickname, which seemed to be something of a friendly dig. Thrasher’s collegial relationship with Bush was apparent in 2000, when Thrasher brought the budget to Bush’s office while wearing a white lab coat and a stethoscope "to make sure the governor has a heart." Bush answered by approving a couple of Thrasher’s pet projects, then chopping another $313.7 million out of appropriations. Here’s a look at how much Bush vetoed from each year’s budget: Year Total state budget Amount Bush vetoed 1999 $48.6 billion $313 million* 2000 $51 billion $313.7 million 2001 $48.3 billion $288.8 million 2002 $50.4 billion $107 million 2003 $53.5 billion $33 million 2004 $57.3 billion $349 million 2005 $64.7 billion $180 million 2006 $73.9 billion $448.7 million * The state Supreme Court ruled a $16 million veto in 1999 unconstitutional. The first year of Bush’s second term, in 2003, Bush cut a low of $33 million, but $7.2 million of that was funding for high-speed rail. Bush later led an effort to repeal a constitutional amendment requiring the creation of high-speed rail transit in the state. Bush also saved the most for last, hacking $448.7 million out of the 2006 budget, including a university tuition increase, spending on parks and police vehicles, as well as job training and education programs. That year state spending was up to $73.9 billion, a 52 percent increase from his first year in office. "It's never easy," Bush said in 2006. "You always hurt people's feelings. I don't enjoy that. And I'm always surprised that people are surprised. I've been consistent. There should be no surprises. And the people who really follow the budget knew that." We should note that if Bush wins the presidency, he likely won’t get to whack as much. A president doesn’t have a line-item veto and has to either accept or reject an entire piece of legislation. Our ruling Bush said "they called me Veto Corleone" as governor for his frequent use of the line-item veto. He did have a fondness for ruthlessly slashing projects he deemed wasteful or not in line with his agenda. Thrasher confirmed he nicknamed the governor after the fictional mobster. This is one favor we grant Bush. We rate the statement True. | null | Jeb Bush | null | null | null | 2015-05-26T11:35:46 | 2015-05-20 | ['None'] |
vogo-00216 | Statement: “The figures actually presume that every freed space in the park is occupied before people will start to choose to park in the garage,” Councilman Todd Gloria said July 10 about the projected revenue from a new parking garage in Balboa Park. | determination: false | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/parks/the-numbers-on-parking-in-balboa-park-fact-check/ | Analysis: Last week, the City Council approved a $45 million plan to remodel Balboa Park. Most of the project is planned to be funded by philanthropy, but the city isn’t completely off the hook. | null | null | null | null | The Numbers on Parking in Balboa Park: Fact Check | July 18, 2012 | null | ['Balboa_Park_(San_Diego)'] |
hoer-01263 | Woman Claims She is Daughter of Marilyn Monroe and JFK | fake news | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/fake-news-woman-claims-she-is-daughter-of-marilyn-monroe-and-jfk/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | FAKE-NEWS: Woman Claims She is Daughter of Marilyn Monroe and JFK | February 28, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00838 | Planned Parenthood published a tweet opining that there should be a Disney princess who had an abortion. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/planned-parenthood-disney-abortion/ | null | Politics | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Did Planned Parenthood Say There Should Be a Disney Princess Who Had an Abortion? | 28 March 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03717 | Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren said "America's freedom" would not be disrupted by "dirty natives" engaged in a DAPL protest. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/energy-ceo-disparages-dirty-natives/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Did an Energy Co. CEO Disparage Native Americans as ‘Dirty Natives’? | 24 October 2016 | null | ['United_States'] |
chct-00241 | True: The Taliban Has 'VIP Sanctuaries' | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/01/03/fact-check-does-the-taliban-have-vip-sanctuaries-in-pakistan/ | null | null | null | Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 5:28 PM 01/03/2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04613 | London's Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan banned images of "sexy" women because they're offensive to Islam. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/londons-mayor-bans-sexy-images/ | null | Politics | null | Kim LaCapria | null | London’s Muslim Mayor Bans Sexy Images Because They’re Offensive to Islam | 14 June 2016 | null | ['Islam', 'London'] |
vogo-00160 | Statement: “I have my press conference here because in the 25 square miles that’s represented by this fire station, which is half the size, by the way, of the city of San Francisco, there is one fire truck and there is maybe a cop on duty. And if they’re called to different places we have nothing in this community,” Mayor Bob Filner said at a Nov. 15 press conference at Fire Station 33 in Rancho Bernardo. | determination: mostly true | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/rancho-bernardos-fire-response-limitations-fact-check/ | Analysis: New Mayor Bob Filner vows to restore services and staffing to the city’s public safety departments after years of belt-tightening. | null | null | null | null | Rancho Bernardo’s Fire Response Limitations: Fact Check | December 4, 2012 | null | ['Bob_Filner', 'San_Francisco'] |
pomt-07945 | Says a "Canadian provincial prime minister came to Ohio for his medical treatment because of the delay in Canadian health care which would have endangered his life." | pants on fire! | /ohio/statements/2011/jan/26/bill-batchelder/ohio-house-speaker-william-g-batchelder-tells-heal/ | New House Speaker William G. Batchelder loves telling a good story. With a legislative career in the Ohio House stretching back to 1968, Batchelder is well-known for his floor speeches peppered with political references and historical anecdotes from days long gone. Therefore, it was no surprise that Batchelder’s initial speech as the 101st House Speaker on Jan. 3 tied together the Ohio legislative session of 1937-38, the Roman historian Titus Livy, a lunch meeting with Florida Gov. Jeb Bush as well as the 1787 comments of Ben Franklin upon wrapping up the Constitutional Convention. After describing the challenges facing Ohio, the Medina Republican’s speech took a sunny turn as he mentioned the medical services in Ohio "that are second to none." In illustrating this point, Batchelder mentioned that the king of Saudi Arabia as well as a top Canadian official had sought treatment in Ohio. "The Canadian provincial prime minister came to Ohio for his medical treatment because of the delay in Canadian health care which would have endangered his life," Batchelder said. Beyond suggesting that Ohio medical treatment was first-class, Batchelder was also making a political point in suggesting that Canada’s universal health care system is second-rate. While the Cleveland Clinic’s care for Saudi royalty is well-known, Batchelder’s Canadian anecdote caught us by surprise. It seemed to us that if one of Canada’s premiers (as the top provincial leaders are known) had come to Ohio for medical care that it would have been a big deal, but it just didn’t sound familiar. So we put on our Politifact hardhat, and began digging. We first called Batchelder spokesman Mike Dittoe to find out more about where the claim originated. Dittoe told us that Batchelder personally inserted the reference into his Jan. 3rd speech, but didn’t have more details. Eventually, Dittoe got back to us that Batchelder told him "it’s on the tip of my tongue" but couldn’t quite recall the name. However, Dittoe said it was not former Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams, who traveled to Miami in February 2010 for open heart surgery. It was the leader of one of the western provinces, according to Batchelder. Later, Dittoe reversed himself in an e-mail and wrote that it was Williams that Batchelder was referring to in his speech. He said that it had been "widely speculated" that Williams came to the Cleveland Clinic for "post-operative medical treatment" following his surgery in Florida. But, Dittoe acknowledged, there is no way to know for sure because HIPAA rules prevent the sharing of information of when a patient visits a doctor. Initially told to look west by Batchelder, we searched Canadian newspapers in the national capital of Ottawa and eight provincial and territory capitols from Ontario on westward and northward (Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, Edmonton, Victoria, White Horse, Yellow Knife and Iqaluit for all you geography nerds) for references to a provincial premier getting health care treatment. During our search, we learned that Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie had cancerous tumors removed in 2007— in Vancouver. And we found out that former Ontario Premier Ernie Eves had emergency heart bypass surgery several years ago — in Toronto. But there were a whole raft of stories about Williams, who resigned his office in December. His February 2010 trip to Miami for specialized heart surgery was big news — and a public relations disaster up north — in all of the major Canadian newspapers. The initial stories didn’t say where Williams was getting treatment, but afterward news trickled out that it had taken place in Miami. Williams told the press that the health care treatment in Miami was better, and that he knew he would be criticized or perceived as a line-jumper if he stayed in Canada, where the special surgery has a waiting list. Not the same thing as saying your life is endangered by the Canadian health care system, but in the ballpark. More importantly, we didn’t find even find any references to any Canadian officials heading to Ohio for medical treatment. Much less for medical treatment that saved their life that was endangered because of delays in the Canadian system. As far as the Canadian press is concerned, a provincial premier has never come to the Buckeye State for medical treatment. Just to double-check on whether Williams had an Ohio stop for medical treatment, we called the St. John’s Telegram, the daily newspaper in the provincial capital. We spoke to Dave Bartlett, a reporter who interviewed Williams following the February 2010 heart surgery. "I’m fairly confident he never came to Ohio for any kind of treatment," Bartlett said. "My understanding is that he stayed in Florida for several weeks after the surgery and then he went to the Vancouver Olympics." So let’s take a look at what we’ve got cooking here: Batchelder claimed that a Canadian provincial premier came to Ohio for medical treatment that basically saved his life but could only remember that it was the head of a western province. And after scouring newspapers across eight Canadian provincial capitals, we could find nothing matching Batchelder’s description. Batchelder’s staffer said it definitely was not Danny Williams, former premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada’s easternmost province. Williams did have a trip south to Miami for specialized heart surgery. But then the staffer said it was Williams that Batchelder referred to in the speech and said it has been "widely speculated" that he came to the Cleveland Clinic for post-operative treatment. However, they had no proof of it. Meanwhile, a local Canadian reporter who covered Williams surgery said he is "fairly confident" he never came to Ohio for treatment. The Williams surgery in the United States was big news and it was initially unclear where in this country he was going for treatment. But by the time Batchelder made his speech in the House, it was 11 months after Williams had his surgery. Batchelder, as speaker of the House, is in a position of authority that also carries great responsibility. When he speaks, people listen. Yet neither he nor his office could point us to any concrete evidence that a high level provincial official came to Ohio for treatment. And given that the best they could come up with was that it was "widely speculated" that Williams might have come to Cleveland, the claim is more than just inaccurate; it’s ridiculous to a point that we’re ready to set the good speaker’s double-knits ablaze. We rate Batchelder’s claim Pants on Fire. Comment on this item. | null | William G. Batchelder | null | null | null | 2011-01-26T06:00:00 | 2011-01-03 | ['Canada', 'Ohio'] |
tron-00386 | Ligers Are Biggest Cats in the World | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/ligers-biggest-cats-world/ | null | animals | null | null | null | Ligers Are Biggest Cats in the World | Aug 17, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00753 | Says "all my grandparents" immigrated to America. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/apr/16/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-flubs-familys-immigration-history-/ | Hillary Clinton this week became the latest example of a politician flubbing her family’s ancestry while making the case for her presidency. Clinton was speaking at a business roundtable inside an Iowa produce store when she related her personal family heritage to the struggles of undocumented immigrants trying to work in the United States. "I think if we were to just go around this room, there are a lot of immigrant stories," Clinton said, according to a video of the event. "All my grandparents, you know, came over here, and you know my grandfather went to work in a lace mill in Scranton, Pa., and worked there until he retired at 65. He started there when he was a teenager and just kept going. So I sit here and I think well you’re talking about the second, third generation. That’s me, that’s you." BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski quickly pointed out that Clinton was wrong, primarily using census and military records from Ancestry.com. An unidentified Clinton spokesman admitted the error in a statement to BuzzFeed, saying Clinton’s "grandparents always spoke about the immigrant experience and, as a result she has always thought of them as immigrants." While it’s clear Clinton is incorrect, and why her claim rates False on the Truth-O-Meter, we wanted to provide as much context as possible to this claim. Megan Smolenyak, a "genealogical adventurer and storyteller" who recently examined Clinton’s Welsh roots, can see where the campaign is coming from. Seven of Clinton’s eight great-grandparents were born overseas into working-class families. Clinton’s paternal grandfather, Hugh Rodham Sr., was born in England, but her three other grandparents were born in the United States. Hugh Rodham’s wife, Hanna (also Hannah) Jones Rodham, was born in Scranton, Pa., to Welsh parents a couple years after they emigrated. Census, civil and military records show Clinton’s maternal grandparents, Della and Edwin Howell, were born in Illinois. (Della’s mother was the one great-grandparent born in the United States.) Even though three of Clinton’s grandparents were born in the United States, Smolenyak said they probably strongly identified with their immigrant parents and older siblings, and she considers Clinton’s ancestors more "off the boat" than most politicians. Clinton is not the first person, famous or not, to potentially confuse family lore with the cold facts of her roots. Her misfire follows the misinterpreted family trees of U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, who wrongly said his parents were Cuban exiles, and Elizabeth Warren, who claimed American Indian heritage while working as a Harvard professor. "We hold politicians to higher standards for accuracy in their family histories than we do genealogists and historians," Smolenyak said. "Your Great Aunt Tilly tells you something, and you believe it." Finding Hanna Jones Again, it is clear Clinton was wrong when she said "all my grandparents" immigrated to America. But Smolenyak recently upended the real story about one-quarter of Clinton’s roots. A few months ago, Smolenyak started researching Clinton’s Celtic connections for Irish America magazine. She was not expecting to find anything new in the well-documented background of a high-profile American, but she wrapped her investigation with a "wake-up call" for genealogists. Researchers had made critical mistakes in the background of Clinton’s paternal grandmother, Hanna Jones Rodham (born in Scranton), she found. At the beginning, Smolenyak knew she needed to search for records with names spanning all kinds of possibilities, as Jones is a common name in Wales , and a woman named Hanna could go by several names, including Annie, Anna, Hanna, Honora or Nora. (Americans weren’t as picky about the spelling of their names and records retention back then, she said.) Census records show two women born in the early 1880s in Lackawanna County, Pa., named Hanna (or Hannah) Jones. But researchers chose the wrong Hanna Jones and ran with it, wrongly assigning Hillary Clinton’s roots to that woman’s parents and creating a false echo chamber (PolitiFact can relate to the frustration). The wrong Hanna Jones, born in 1883, had a readily accessible birth record, but the right one, born in 1882, did not. Smolenyak confirmed the real Hanna Jones, Clinton’s grandmother, by picking up clues from records over time. A low-key marriage announcement in the Aug. 9, 1902, edition of the Scranton Times-Tribune offered potential proof that Jones and Hugh Rodham eloped in a nearby New York town where marriage had fewer restrictions: Ms. Anna Jones, of Brick avenue, was quietly wedded to Hugh Rodham, of Park place, at Binghamton, Memorial Day. Mr. and Mrs. Rodham will make their residence with the bride’s parents on Brick avenue. From there she could find out more information about the Joneses who lived on Brick in Scranton and match up what she knew about Hanna with other records about the family. Census records from 1910, 1920 and 1930 say Hanna (and also Hannah) Jones was born in Pennsylvania while her husband was born in England. Her parents are listed as born in Wales. PolitiFact found an unfinished application for a 1937 marriage license from Clinton’s father, Hugh E. Rodham, that lists the birthplace of both of his parents, Hugh Sr. in England and Hannah in Scranton. Interestingly, the marriage license does not list Hugh Jr.’s eventual wife and Hillary’s mother, Dorothy Howell, but another woman whom he did not marry, Catherine Meisinger. Our ruling Talking about immigration in Iowa, Clinton said, "All my grandparents, you know, came over here." It’s very clear from the evidence that not all of Hillary Clinton’s grandparents were immigrants. In fact, only one was. It’s possible she misspoke, but it doesn’t make her comment more accurate. We rate her claim False. | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2015-04-16T16:47:39 | 2015-04-15 | ['United_States'] |
snes-04464 | A photograph shows actor Elijah Wood with his identical twin brother. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elijah-wood-twin-brother-photo/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Photograph of Elijah Wood with Identical Twin Brother | 12 July 2016 | null | ['Elijah_Wood'] |
pomt-09059 | In her first appellate argument, Ms. Kagan told the court that the speech and press guarantees in the First Amendment would allow the federal government to ban the publication of pamphlets discussing political issues before an election. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jun/29/jeff-sessions/sessions-says-kagan-argued-government-could-ban-po/ | In the Supreme court nomination hearings for Elena Kagan, Republicans quickly zeroed in on Kagan's first oral arguments before the Supreme Court as solicitor general in the landmark case Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, which dealt with corporate financing of political materials. Taking the first crack in his opening statement was Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee: "In her first appellate argument, Ms. Kagan told the court that the speech and press guarantees in the First Amendment would allow the federal government to ban the publication of pamphlets discussing political issues before an election. "I would remind my colleagues that the American revolution was in no small part spurred by just such political pamphlets: Thomas Paine's Common Sense." To suggest that the government now has the power to suppress that kind of speech is breathtaking." Sessions' comment does get to the heart of the controversy surrounding the government's position on the case, but Sessions paints the substance of those arguments with a very broad brush and ignores the limits of the legal questions involved. The case before the Supreme Court challenged the application of a campaign reform bill known as the McCain-Feingold Act with respect to whether the nonprofit corporation Citizens United could air a video critical of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. In a broader sense, though, the issue was whether the government had the authority to ban corporate or labor union funding of independent political broadcasts advocating for a candidate just prior to an election. In her oral arguments before the Supreme Court, Kagan argued that pamphlets were "pretty classic electioneering," and therefore fell into the category of corporate-financed election materials that could be limited by the McCain-Feingold Act. Now, corporations could still form separate political action committees (PACs) to get their message out. But Kagan said she argued in favor of the position taken by Congress that corporations and labor unions had such a "corrupting influence" on elections that they should not be allowed to directly fund political messages for or against a particular candidate very close to an election. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court went the other way, arguing that the First Amendment protects the speech of corporations and individuals alike. In his concurring opinion, Justice John Roberts wrote that the government's position "asks us to embrace a theory of the First Amendment that would allow censorship not only of television and radio broadcasts, but of pamphlets, posters, the Internet, and virtually any other medium that corporations and unions might find useful in expressing their views on matters of public concern." So, right off the bat, we are talking about pamphlets directly funded by corporations or labor unions. That's a big qualifier left out of Sessions' comment. And Sessions' point is further muddled when he drops in the example of Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense, -- which in 1776 argued for American independence from British rule. Paine's 48-page pamphlet was not corporate-financed, so it's technically not applicable in this discussion. And it might not have been even if it was. "Solicitor Kagan was arguing that, under the Federal Election Campaign Act, corporate funds could not be used to publish a pamphlet that expressly advocated the election or defeat of a specific candidate for federal office," said Brett Kappel, an attorney specializing in ethics and lobbying law at the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Arent Fox. "The Act would not have prevented Thomas Paine from publishing Common Sense since that famous pamphlet had nothing to do with candidates running for office. Today it would be considered an issue ad, not an electioneering communication." The Federal Election Commission doesn't regulate advertising unless it includes the name or image of a candidate for federal office, Kappel noted. Others argue that whether Common Sense was technically not corporate-financed is not the issue. "Common Sense itself was probably not published by a corporation, but in today's world, it surely would have been," said Bradley A. Smith, Professor of Law at Capital University Law School. "How many such efforts can you name that are not?" The statement by Sessions "was a bit of rhetorical excess, perhaps," said Sean Parnell, president of the Center for Competitive Politics, a campaign-finance advocacy group. Obviously, he said, Sessions could have added a good bit of context. Kagan never argued that the government could ban any pamphlet. Nonetheless, Parnell said, in the context of limited corporate-financed political messages, Sessions' comment accurately described Kagan's position that in addition to a video, the government could ban a pamphlet. During some close questioning by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on the Citizens United issue on the second day of the confirmation hearing, Kagan quickly framed the limits of the issue, stating that the statute ''applies only to corporations and unions when they make independent expenditures, not to their PACs ... within a certain period of an election." She also noted that as solicitor general, she was defending the statute as written by Congress, which "made the determination broadly that corporations and trade unions had this corrupting influence on Congress." "And the statute as it was written applies to pamphlets as well as to the movie in the case, and we made a vigorous argument that the application of that statute to any kind of classic electioneering materials, not books -- because they aren't typically used to electioneer -- but that the application of the statutes to any kinds of classic electioneering materials was in fact constitutional and that the court should defer to Congress' view of the need for this," Kagan said. Given the time constraints on opening statements, we are willing to allow Sessions a bit of rhetorical leeway. Kagan did argue that pamphlets should be included in the types of communication the government could prohibit. But again, that's in the context of pamphlets paid for directly by corporations or labor unions making independent expenditures (not through their PAC) for a pamphlet advocating for a specific candidate within the last months of an election. That's an awful lot of limiting context left out. And the point is further muddled by using the example of Paine's Common Sense. It's not at all clear that that pamphlet would have fallen under the regulation of the McCain-Feingold Act. And so we rate Sessions' comment Half True. | null | Jeff Sessions | null | null | null | 2010-06-29T18:50:59 | 2010-06-28 | ['None'] |
pomt-15146 | Of the 25 wealthiest nations, we're the only one that doesn't provide basic health coverage. | true | /virginia/statements/2015/sep/01/dan-gecker/dan-gecker-says-us-only-wealth-nation-without-univ/ | When it comes to health care, state Senate hopeful Dan Gecker says the U.S. is in a dubious league of its own. "Of the 25 wealthiest nations, we’re the only one that doesn’t provide basic health coverage," Gecker, a Democrat who serves on the Chesterfield County Board of Supervisors, said during an Aug. 18 candidates’ forum. Gecker is seeking the 10th District Senate seat that long has been held by Republican John Watkins, who is not seeking re-election. Also running is Glen Sturtevant, a Republican who serves on the Richmond School Board; Marleen Durfee, an independent who is a former Chesterfield supervisor; and Carl Loser, a Libertarian from Powhatan County. Gecker, in his comment, was referring to universal coverage, in which all citizens get national help in paying for health costs. We wondered if he was right about about the United States’ exceptional status among the wealthiest nations. Gecker pointed us to a report last year issued by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group of 34 nations -- mostly with industrialized economies -- seeking to improve trade. The report says only two OECD countries -- the U.S. and Mexico -- do not offer universal care. A chart in the study shows that all of the other OECD nations provide coverage for more than 90 percent of their people.. The roster of OECD nations, however, does not translate to a list of the 25 wealthiest countries. Gecker also directed us to the World Bank’s ranking of the wealthiest nations based on each country’s gross domestic product divided by its population -- a figure called GDP per capita. About two-thirds of the nations on the World Bank’s 25-richest list belong to the OECD. We sought to compare that ranking with a list of all nations that provide universal health care. We found two organizations that try to keep tabs on nations that provide universal coverage. One is the New York State Department of Health, which compiled a 2011 list to give medical providers guidance on billing practices when they treat foreign patients. The other resource is a 2010 study by researchers in the United Kingdom and the U.S. examining universal health care around the world. Among high GDP-per-capita nations, universal care coverage is the norm. Only three of the 25 wealthiest -- the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Qatar -- weren’t listed as having universal health care. The embassy for Qatar told us that the country does provide universal health care. Saudi Arabia is listed as providing universal health care in a June 28, 2012, story from The Atlantic magazine. We reached out to the Saudi Arabian embassy several times to confirm that’s the case, but did not hear back. A 1998 study published in the Journal of Family Community Medicine says "Saudi Arabian policy is to provide free, comprehensive and universal health care services to all citizens." The final source Gecker cited is a 2012 op-ed by David de Ferranti, former vice president of the World Bank, and Julio Frenk, the former dean of the Harvard School of Public Health, about universal health care coverage. "Except for the United States, the 25 wealthiest nations have some form of it (universal coverage)," de Ferranti and Frenk wrote in their op-ed. We got a similar take from two other health care analysts we contacted. Andrea Feigl, a visiting scientist at Harvard who co-wrote the 2010 U.K.-U.S. report, told us in an email that "The United States is still on its way towards UHC (Universal Health Coverage), and it is the last developed country to do so." The World Health Organization said in a September 2014 report that the United States is "currently the only high-income country without nearly universal health-care coverage." Our ruling Gecker said that "of the 25 wealthiest nations, we’re the only one that doesn’t provide basic health coverage." Gecker was referring to rich nations that provide coverage to all of their citizens. We can’t say definitively that the U.S. is the only one that doesn’t provide universal coverage, but evidence strongly points that way. So we rate his statement True. | null | Dan Gecker | null | null | null | 2015-09-01T09:55:27 | 2015-08-18 | ['None'] |
snes-05804 | Archaeologists have discovered Pharaoh's chariot and the bones of horses and men under the Red Sea. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/chariot-wheels-found-bottom-red-sea/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | Were Chariot Wheels Found at the Bottom of the Red Sea? | 25 October 2014 | null | ['Red_Sea', 'Pharaoh'] |
pomt-01696 | Says Rick Scott "is letting Duke (Energy) keep collecting billions" despite troubled power plants. | half-true | /florida/statements/2014/aug/13/nextgen-climate/pac-accuses-rick-scott-letting-duke-energy-fleece-/ | Gov. Rick Scott has a new enemy on the campaign trail: Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer. And Steyer has started bringing his message and massive checkbook to the airwaves. In an Aug. 8, 2014, commercial from Steyer’s political action committee NextGen Climate, the group accused the Republican incumbent of letting utility company Duke Energy run wild on the state’s citizens. The ad references the botched upgrade at the now-shuttered Crystal River nuclear plant and canceled Levy County nuclear project. "We Floridians are paying billions to the nation's largest power company and getting nothing in return," says a TV reporter. Then the narrator: "One defective power plant. Another never built. Florida fleeced by Duke Energy. Rick Scott knew, but he’s letting Duke keep collecting billions anyway." The ad flashes a statement attributed to the Tampa Bay Times: "Duke’s customers on the hook for up to $3.2 billion." It also says Scott received $500,000 in campaign contributions from Duke and its pre-merger counterpart, Progress Energy, strongly implying a connection. The commercial was one of two NextGen Climate ads released attacking Scott. The other accused Scott of accepting campaign contributions from a Texas company performing unauthorized oil drilling in Collier County. We looked at that one in a separate item. It’s obvious Scott heard of the troubles in Citrus and Levy counties, since it was a major headache for the 1.7 million Florida residents billed by Duke Energy for electricity (the company said it doesn’t comment on political ads). But we wondered, is there something Scott could have done to prevent the utility from pulling in billions for the troubled projects, even though no customer is benefitting from them? PolitiFact Florida decided to check the fine print. The nuclear option The saga of Duke Energy’s ill-fated nuclear plants on Florida’s west coast is complex, making it hard to comprehensively explain its ups and downs. (The Tampa Bay Times has extensively covered the morass.) We will give you a quick overview, though: In 2006, the state Legislature overwhelmingly passed SB 888, allowing utilities to charge a so-called "advance fee" to customers in order to pay for nuclear projects. The fee was based on the number of kilowatt hours the customers used, and shifted the expense of new nuclear projects to customers instead of shareholders. Unfortunately, while the bill allowed utilities to collect the fee for facilities yet to be built, there was no language included to ensure those companies had to actually build anything. That same year, Progress Energy began selecting a site in Levy County for a new nuclear power plant. Over the years, the potential cost of the project neared $25 billion, and Progress collected roughly $1 billion in advance fees to help pay for it. In 2009, Progress Energy was also upgrading its Crystal River nuclear plant by installing new steam generators. Progress elected to perform the upgrade itself and the reactor containment dome contracted during the project, requiring extensive repairs. Progress planned to reopen the plant in 2011, but the company committed one mistake after another in the work. Estimates to repair the building reached as high as $3.4 billion. Progress merged with Duke Energy in 2012. State lawmakers changed their tune about the advance fee in 2013 amending the 2006 law with SB 1472, saying a utility has 10 years after it gets its federal license to begin construction or lose access to the fees. The projects also had to be "reasonable," an important addition, considering the Levy project had turned into the most expensive nuclear power plant in U.S. history. The same day lawmakers passed the amendment by a wide margin, the Florida Supreme Court rejected an environmental group’s challenge to the fee, saying the 2006 fee was constitutional and the state’s Public Service Commission had a framework with which to apply it. Duke then decided in 2013 to shut down the Crystal River plant rather than fix it, even after using $265 million in advance fee money. The total cost of the Crystal River project grew to about $1.7 billion from repair work, having to buy electricity for customers elsewhere and other expenses. The company also canceled the Levy County project after spending $1.5 billion on it. Duke continued to clamor for more advance fee cash, saying it may one day continue the Levy County project or build a natural gas plant. They also claimed decommissioning the Crystal River facility would take 60 years and cost another $1.18 billion, much of which the utility collected for its federally required decommissioning fund. The five-member Public Service Commission voted 4-1 in October 2013 to settle with Duke Energy over $5 billion in costs for the two doomed projects. Customers would shoulder $3.2 billion in expenses, insurance would pay $835 million and shareholders would pay the rest, with Duke keeping about $250 million ($150 million for Levy, $100 million for Crystal River). Customers will have to pay monthly charges of $3.45 per 1,000 kilowatt hours for Levy through the early part of 2016 and $2.17 for Crystal River through at least 2017 -- all for two projects that never produced any electricity in exchange for the money paid. Who’s to blame? The commission’s members are appointed by the governor, who relies on the Legislature to draft a list of nominees when members’ four-year terms are up. Of the five veteran members on the board under Scott, four were previously chosen by Gov. Charlie Crist, and one was originally picked by Gov. Jeb Bush. Scott reappointed each, and the Legislature confirmed them. "Like judges appointed by the governor to the judiciary, PSC commissioners make independent decisions based on the established evidentiary record for each case," spokesperson Cindy Muir said. "PSC decisions are not reviewed by the Legislature or the governor." Scott did have some say on who served on the commission, however, although he has not spoken publicly about the two nuclear plants or the PSC’s vote. Scott could have urged lawmakers to deal with the advance fee, but no action was taken until 2013. Many lawmakers were still not pleased with the commission’s settlement. Rep. Dwight Dudley, D-St. Petersburg, called the 2013 changes to the fee "total eyewash" and several legislators demanded a complete repeal of the advance fee. That hasn’t happened. A change in the law is the only way consumers could avoid the advance fee, and that’s not up to the PSC or the governor alone, according to Public Counsel J.R. Kelly. "Whether the governor likes it or not and, to a certain extent, whether the PSC likes it or not, they have to follow the law," Kelly said. "I don’t know what the governor’s office or anyone else could have done." He pointed out that whether or not the governor and the commissioners share opinions on subjects, the PSC’s board members are appointed to four-year terms in order to avoid political reprisals after making unpopular decisions. Commissioners can only be removed for malfeasance, he said. Our ruling NextGen Climate said Scott "is letting Duke (Energy) keep collecting billions" after the utility company took in billions for two failed nuclear projects. The $3.2 billion settlement was the decision of the Public Service Commission, however, and not the governor or the Legislature. Scott and lawmakers have a say in who serves as commissioners, but the board’s decisions in utility matters is final. Scott could have asked for a change in the advance fee from 2006 that led to the flap, but he didn’t. He also could have appointed commissioners who may have voted differently. Beyond that, there’s not much the governor could do about the settlement the PSC awarded Duke. But it’s not like Scott has spoken up on the issue. If anything, he has been notably silent. We rate the statement Half True. | null | NextGen Climate | null | null | null | 2014-08-13T11:33:44 | 2014-08-08 | ['None'] |
pomt-08511 | Says Peter Kilmartin voted "in favor of expanding the 'good behavior' statute to sex offenders." | false | /rhode-island/statements/2010/oct/07/erik-wallin/wallin-says-kilmartin-voted-expand-good-behavior-l/ | There are few things that scare the public more than the possibility of sex offenders running loose on the streets. So when Republican candidate for attorney general Erik Wallin issued a news release warning voters that his opponent, Democrat Peter Kilmartin, voted to allow sex offenders to shave time off their prison sentences for good behavior, it caught our attention. His claim began like this: "Erik Wallin, candidate for Attorney General, today criticized Representative Kilmartin for his vote in favor of expanding the 'good behavior' statute to sex offenders and called for its overall repeal for those who commit violent felonies (including sex crimes) and domestic violence offenses." He repeated much of that accusation in a subsequent appearance on WPRO 630-AM's "John DePetro Show." The good behavior statute he's talking about is part of a state law that dictates when and how prison inmates are allowed to earn time off their sentences. He is referring to a change in that policy enacted by lawmakers in 2008. But let's go back to what the law said before that rewrite. Since 1976, the statute has allowed well-behaved prison inmates -- except those serving life sentences -- to trim up to 10 days a month off their prison stays under a formula that was tied to the length of their sentence. For example, an inmate sentenced to eight years could knock eight days per month off his or her prison time, while someone serving five years could earn up to five days off a month. Prisoners could also earn small amounts of additional time off for what is known as meritorious service. Sex offenders were not excluded from those guidelines. Nor were violent felons or anyone else besides those with life sentences. In 2008, faced with cost concerns, crowding and calls for a good conduct policy that would allow those serving short sentences to earn as much time off as those imprisoned for more serious crimes, the state convened a panel to revamp the policy. That group was made up of prosecutors, public defenders, state police, the chief judge of the Superior Court, corrections officials and legislators. The result was a line item in Governor Carcieri's midyear budget that would have allowed all inmates except those serving life sentences to earn up to 10 days per month off their time -- a full third -- regardless of their crimes. The proposal also allowed inmates to earn up to five days more per month off for participating in rehabilitation programs such as substance-abuse treatment and anger management. House leaders later decided to consider the measure as a separate bill, rather than a budget item. (It is worth noting that as the House whip, Kilmartin was a member of that leadership team.) But as that bill made its way to the House floor, a small group of legislators on both sides of the aisle roared in protest. The new rules, they said, did not specifically exclude sex offenders, meaning they too were eligible for the increased good behavior benefits. House lawmakers rewrote the bill to specifically exclude sex offenders from benefiting from the new policy. In other words, they were still governed by the less generous statute from the 1970s. The legislation passed March 27, 2008, with Kilmartin voting yes. For procedural reasons, it found its way back into the midyear budget bill. It passed, complete with the language excluding sex offenders, in May of that year. Kilmartin again voted yes. But neither of his two votes that year gave any new privileges to sex offenders, as Wallin suggests. In fact, they did exactly the opposite, targeting sex offenders as the only inmates -- along with those serving life sentences -- who could not benefit. "Basically every other inmate at the [Adult Correctional Institutions] got a real benefit from this change, and the sex offenders did not," said Patricia Coyne-Fague, chief legal council for the state Department of Corrections. So why did Wallin accuse Kilmartin of a vote the representative never made? Wallin acknowledged that the new rules excluded sex offenders, and he said his initial new release contained "bad wording," noting that he sent out a subsequent statement that downplayed the sex offender side of what he said. In retrospect, Wallin said the essence of his claim had more to do with what Kilmartin didn't do than what he did. "My argument is simply that [Kilmartin] voted for a bill that continues to allow sex offenders to get credit for good behavior ... He failed to close the loophole," or repeal the older portion of the law that rewards sex offenders. Wallin is right about that. Sex offenders are still eligible to trim time off their sentences under a policy that some voters might not approve of. But that is the result of a law that passed in 1976, when Kilmartin was 14 years old. It had nothing to do with the 2008 votes. The claim stops short of receiving a Pants on Fire because Wallin acknowledges that the news release was poorly worded. But that doesn't change the fact that he accused his opponent of voting in favor of something he didn't vote for. We find this claim False. | null | Erik Wallin | null | null | null | 2010-10-07T00:01:00 | 2010-09-27 | ['None'] |
snes-01741 | A video shows three sharks in an area of Miami, Florida that was flooded by Hurricane Irma. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/three-sharks-filmed-in-miami-flood-waters-after-hurricane-irma/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Were Three Sharks Filmed in Miami Flood Waters After Hurricane Irma? | 12 September 2017 | null | ['Miami'] |
pomt-14925 | My campaign "finished the last quarter reporting the most cash on hand of any Republican in the field … $13.8 million in the bank, $3.5 million more than the Jeb Bush campaign." | mostly true | /texas/statements/2015/oct/30/ted-cruz/ted-cruz/ | Ted Cruz of Texas recently declared that his campaign’s fundraising is "astonishing" and suggested that’s a surprise to the "Washington chattering class" and maybe even former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, another Republican bidding for president. Sen. Cruz, appearing in Houston Oct. 26, 2015, to accept endorsements from statewide elected Republicans including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, celebrated how much he’s raised in Texas and in general. He made us wonder with mention of the Texas-born Bush, who’s trying to become the third member of his family to win the White House. Cruz said: "And we finished the last quarter reporting the most cash on hand of any Republican in the field… $13.8 million in the bank, $3.5 million more than the Jeb Bush campaign." Cruz added that if he’d predicted such an outcome relative to Bush six months before, reporters would have laughed aloud. Early in 2015, Bush drew headlines for raising money at a vigorous clip. No giggling here. But was Cruz right about his campaign having the biggest pile of cash on hand and exceeding Bush’s balance by $3.5 million? Campaign vs. campaign, you bet your cacti. But throw in money raised by PACs and Super PACs devoted to individual candidates and it could be there’s far more money stowed away to boost Bush. Then again, PAC fundraising updates won’t be filed until 2016. Campaign vs. campaign To our inquiry, Cruz campaign spokeswoman Catherine Frazier emailed us a list indicating that Cruz’s campaign ended the year’s third quarter, June through September 2015, with more cash on hand than any other Republican aspirant. Separately, we fetched a Federal Election Commission summary, dated Oct. 19, 2015, stating that through September 2015, Cruz’s campaign had nearly $13.8 million cash on hand. And Cruz’s balance, according to the document, exceeded the cash on hand of any of 15 other listed current or former Republican presidential candidates. At No. 2, retired surgeon Ben Carson had nearly $11.3 million cash on hand, according to the summary, followed by Florida Sen. Marco Rubio with nearly $11 million and Bush with nearly $10.3 million. To be precise, per Cruz’s claim in Houston, Bush’s cash on hand of $10,271,129 was a little more than $3.5 million less than Cruz’s $13,778,904. We’re not saying here that Cruz outraised everyone. According to another FEC summary, also dated Oct. 19, 2015, Carson raised some $31 million through September 2015, outpacing Cruz’s nearly $27 million and Bush’s nearly $25 million. Businessman Donald Trump, who has led many Republican voter polls, reported a scant $254,773 cash on hand through the third quarter. But Trump, who's wealthy, also has declared plans to self-fund his candidacy. Maybe how much cash he has on hand isn’t significant. Also, Politico noted Oct. 15, 2015, Trump fielded about $3.7 million in donations in the third quarter. Notably too, Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders each ended the quarter having raised more money and also having more cash on hand than any Republican. Clinton, the former first lady, senator and secretary of state, had nearly $33 million on hand, according to the FEC, and Sanders, a Vermont senator, had $27.1 million. PACs and Super PACs There’s another wrinkle if you consider how much money PACs and Super PACs devoted to candidates may have in cash on hand. According to a chart built by the New York Times, last updated Oct. 16, 2015, Bush-backing PACs and Super PACs had $98.2 million cash on hand through June 2015. In contrast, Cruz PACs and Super PACs had $37.5 million cash on hand. We don’t see a path to more recent balances; a footnote to the Times chart says most of these groups aren’t required to file an updated report until Jan. 31, 2016. Separately, the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign spending, posted a chart in October 2015 showing Bush PACs and Super PACs fielding far more money than any other hopeful, again with information limited to what such groups had reported through June 2015: SOURCE: Web post, "Behind the Candidates: Campaign Committees and Outside Groups," Center for Responsive Politics, last updated Oct. 27, 2015 (accessed the same day) The chart is preceded by explanatory text: "The modern presidential campaign isn't a single organization. Yes, there's always an official campaign committee. But for every White House candidate, there is usually at least one super PAC or other outside organization devoted to getting him or her elected. These groups can solicit unlimited donations and later use them to pummel rivals – or, as seems to be the case this cycle, take on some of the duties traditionally handled by a campaign, such as organizing town hall meetings or doing voter outreach." The explanation continues: "Outside groups aren't allowed to coordinate with official campaign committees, but they're often run by friends and former staffers – even family members – of the candidate they're helping. Overall, as of the middle of 2015, single-candidate super PACs in the presidential race had raised more money than the candidates themselves. But that wasn't true among Democrats, whose potential nominees raised more than the super PACs supporting them." Frazier of Cruz’s camp agreed by email it could be that money accumulated to promote Bush’s candidacy still runs ahead of funds raised for Cruz’s cause. Regardless, she reminded, Cruz limited his Houston claim to funds raised by campaigns alone. Our ruling Cruz said his campaign "finished the last quarter reporting the most cash on hand of any Republican in the field… $13.8 million in the bank, three and a half million dollars more than the Jeb Bush campaign." This is all so, though Bush still might remain ahead (perhaps way ahead) in money accumulated on behalf of a Republican. We won’t know how much total cash has been stashed to help each candidate until PACs report again in 2016. We rate this claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Ted Cruz | null | null | null | 2015-10-30T10:57:36 | 2015-10-26 | ['Jeb_Bush', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
goop-02334 | Brad Pitt Falling For 21-Year-Old Ella Purnell Who Played Young Angelina Jolie In ‘Maleficent’? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/brad-pitt-ella-purnell-angelina-jolie-young-maleficent/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Brad Pitt Falling For 21-Year-Old Ella Purnell Who Played Young Angelina Jolie In ‘Maleficent’? | 12:43 pm, October 18, 2017 | null | ['Brad_Pitt', 'Angelina_Jolie'] |
goop-00026 | Matt Damon ‘Distancing Himself’ From Ben Affleck, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/matt-damon-ben-affleck-friends-social-circle-not-true/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Matt Damon NOT ‘Distancing Himself’ From Ben Affleck, Despite Report | 10:02 am, November 8, 2018 | null | ['Ben_Affleck', 'Matt_Damon'] |
pomt-09515 | In the three months before the act took effect, America lost 750,000 jobs a month. In the last three months, we've lost about 35,000 jobs a month. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/feb/17/joe-biden/biden-says-job-losses-have-fallen-750000-month-350/ | The stimulus bill is one year old. To celebrate its anniversary, administration officials are touting its successes. Vice President Joe Biden is among those talking up the bill. In a USA Today op-ed, he wrote that the success of the stimulus legislation, formally known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, can be measured by the number of jobs it has created. "We think the Recovery Act is working because of the progress we've made in slowing job loss," Biden wrote on Feb. 17, 2010, exactly a year since the stimulus bill was signed by President Barack Obama. "In the three months before the act took effect, America lost 750,000 jobs a month. In the last three months, we've lost about 35,000 jobs a month. That's progress — not good enough, not where we need to be, but progress. And most economists agree that that progress is thanks in a very large part to the Recovery Act." For this item, we'll focus on whether Biden is correct that America lost 750,000 jobs a month before the stimulus bill went into effect and only 35,000 a month in the last three months. Jay Carney, Biden's communications director, said that the numbers cited in the op-ed came from monthly job losses reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in January, February and March of 2009, as well as the last three months. On average, the economy lost about 752,000 jobs per month in the first three months of 2009, which is close to the 750,000 that Biden wrote in his op-ed. But Biden specifically wrote that job losses averaged that amount "in the three months before the act took effect," which was officially Feb. 17, 2009, the day the bill was signed. So, that time frame includes November and December of 2008, and January 2009. For that time period, the average was about 726,000 jobs. So, when it comes to job loss averages in the months before the stimulus bill officially went into effect, Biden is off by about 26,000 jobs. Carney said that the stimulus bill had very little effect on the economy until April 2009, so that's why they included March in their calculations. Next, we turned to average job losses for the last three months. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has not published data for February yet, so we focused on November and December of 2009, and January 2010. In this case, Biden is spot on: The average number of job losses over the last three months has been about 35,000. Whether the stimulus is entirely responsible for slowing job losses is a matter of opinion, and the subject of heated debate between conservative and liberal economists. Brian Riedl, a budget expert with the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that knowing whether the bill has helped stem job losses requires knowing how the economy would have performed had the stimulus bill never been put into law. He argues that the economy may have actually lost jobs as a result of the stimulus bill. For every job that's created through government spending, the government has to take money away from another part of the economy, which can produce job losses, he said. "At best, it's a zero-sum game." Jim Horney, director of federal fiscal policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says that it's difficult to say exactly how many jobs have been created by the stimulus. "You can't look at a job and say, 'This job would not have been here without the stimulus.'" But you can measure the stimulus bill's impact on employment by looking at aggregate demand, Horney added. People have been buying more groceries, clothes and other goods, which indicates a stabilizing job market. So, back to Biden's claim. He said that job losses averaged about 750,000 in the three months before the stimulus bill went into effect. Including job loss statistics for the month of March 2009, Biden is correct. But the bill was signed Feb. 17, 2009, and officially went into effect that day. And using that measure — November and December of 2008, and January 2009 — Biden is off by about 26,000 jobs. Biden also said that job losses averaged about 35,000 for November and December 2009, and January of 2010, which is also correct. Because Biden is not quite right on the first part of his statement, we'll knock him down a point. As a result, we find his claim to be Mostly True. | null | Joe Biden | null | null | null | 2010-02-17T18:34:30 | 2010-02-17 | ['United_States'] |
abbc-00187 | The claim: Tony Abbott says some places in Queensland and NSW are experiencing a "once-in-a-quarter-century" or even a "once-in-a-century" drought. | in-the-green | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-12/tony-abbott-drought-severity-claim-checks-out/5295232 | The claim: Tony Abbott says some places in Queensland and NSW are experiencing a "once-in-a-quarter-century" or even a "once-in-a-century" drought. | ['environment', 'climate-change', 'government-and-politics', 'abbott-tony', 'liberals', 'australia', 'nsw'] | null | null | ['environment', 'climate-change', 'government-and-politics', 'abbott-tony', 'liberals', 'australia', 'nsw'] | How severe is the drought in Queensland and New South Wales? | Tue 18 Mar 2014, 7:15am | null | ['Tony_Abbott', 'Queensland', 'New_South_Wales'] |
pomt-07640 | Put simply, less government spending equals more private sector jobs. | half-true | /virginia/statements/2011/mar/16/eric-cantor/eric-spending-says-less-government-spending-equals/ | Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., has focused on two topics since becoming House majority leader in January: spending and jobs. He linked the two in a March 4 news release. "To put it simply: less government spending equals more private sector jobs." We set out to see if economists -- and past economic data -- agree with Cantor, who returned to this theme in a March 15 press conference with other Republicans. First we looked for occasions where government spending has decreased. There have been three since World War II: At the end of that war, with government spending falling in the 1946, 1947 and 1948 fiscal years. During the Korean War, followed by a drop of 6.9 percent in 1954 and a further decline of 3.4 percent the following year. From 1964 to 1965, with spending falling 0.25 percent. That a large decrease came after World War II should come as little surprise, as government spending went from $9.14 billion in 1939 to $92.71 billion in 1945, with the American government essentially funding most of the global war effort against Germany and Japan. As the U.S. economy returned to peacetime status, government spending fell by 40.4 percent in the 1946 fiscal year, 37.5 percent the next year and 13.7 percent the year after that. Comparing spending data to job data is tricky, in part because the Treasury Department, which tracks spending and Gross Domestic Product, operates on a fiscal year that runs from Oct. 1 until Sept. 30. Before 1976 the fiscal year ran July 1 through June 30. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, by contrast, operates on calendar years. In 1946 private sector employment soared, driven by millions of veterans who came home, left the military and returned to former jobs or took new ones. Strong employment growth continued in 1947 before tailing off in 1948. But again, these changes reflected far more than a cut in government spending. The American economy was far and away the world’s strongest after the war, with much of Europe’s industrial capacity ruined by six years of terrible devastation. What about the mid-1950s? Government spending fell during two consecutive fiscal years. Private sector jobs dropped in 1954 by 585,000, grew by 2.3 million in 1955 and then climbed by 673,000 in 1956. In the final case the U.S. economy added more than 2 million private sector jobs in both 1965 and 1966. Brian Riedl, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, suggested we also look at job expansion in years where government spending grew at a slower rate than GDP. In those years the government essentially becomes a smaller part of the overall economy. This occurred five times during the 1983 through 1988 fiscal years, and each year the economy had strong employment growth, adding more than 1.5 million jobs annually. In 1983 and 1984, more than 3.4 million annual jobs were added, though that was also a period when the United States was recovering from the severe recession of 1981 and 1982. GDP also grew faster than government spending between 1992 and 2000. The U.S. gained jobs each of those years, and in all but two of those years more than 2 million private sector jobs were added to the economy. The low point was 1992, when 915,000 new jobs were created. So again, large job growth has often happened during times when government spending was decreasing or growing slower than GDP. But several economists told us we should not confuse correlation -- the fact that these two things were happening at the same time -- with causation. Government spending has historically risen during times of recession, as Uncle Sam seeks to prop up the economy. And social programs such as unemployment insurance or food stamps cost more when more people are out of work. At the same time, tax revenue is falling because people who lose jobs pay far less income tax. Riedl, who said he strongly believes cutting government spending helps grow the private sector, noted that the positive impacts occur in the long-run, not the short-term. "When federal spending drops that leaves more money for the private sector," he said. "That’s a neutral effect. But over time the private sector is more likely to spend the money in [more] productive ways than the government, and to invest it better than the government." The Heritage economist said the lag time for these benefits depends on how the private sector spends any additional funds. Investments in new factories or research projects can take years to return profits to a company and the economy. Cantor’s staff said their claim was based in part on a blog post by John Taylor, an economist from Stanford University. Taylor has long argued against the stimulus spending. On his blog he disputes reports by Moody’s economist Mark Zandi that the $61 billion in spending cuts proposed by the House GOP would cost the economy 700,000 jobs over 2011 and 2012. Taylor said that if the government can produce a "credible" debt-reduction plan it should "increase economic growth and reduce unemployment by removing uncertainty and lowering the chances of large tax increases in the future." The removal of uncertainty would also stimulate higher investment spending -- on both employees and technology -- by American businesses, Taylor believes. His calls were echoed in a February 13 letter to President Barack Obama from about 150 economists. The letter said action should be taken to immediately "rein in federal spending." Cantor and other House Republicans are also citing a new report on government spending by Andrew Biggs, Kevin Hassett and Matt Jensen, scholars at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The report, essentially an extended version of a Dec. 29, 2010 op-ed that ran in The Wall Street Journal, stated that cutting federal spending is the most efficient way to balance the budget and feed future economic growth. They claimed deficit reduction programs fail if they are too reliant on tax increases. Chris Edwards, director tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said the GOP is right to pursue spending cuts. But he said the argument that spending cuts would definitely create more private-sector jobs is rooted in political rhetoric, not economic fact. "I’m not sure talking about jobs is the way to go," Edwards said. "The unemployment rate has more to do with microeconomic factors" than federal spending plans. Edwards added that the U.S. budget deficit may be increasing uncertainty and making businesses more cautious about hiring, but he said it is virtually impossible to quantify the size of this impact. Not all economists are convinced the cuts will have a positive impact on jobs. Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, said the short-term impact of a spending cut is usually negative. Consider, for example, the $61 billion cut proposed by House Republicans for the current fiscal year. If approved, Burtless said, government agencies might find themselves cutting back on contracts with private companies. Those companies, having less business, might then need to lay off employees to maintain their profits. "Let’s say a cut to the defense procurement budget leads to a loss of 300,000 defense industry jobs," Burtless said by way of example. "To have any benefit, we now need to add 300,000 jobs to replace the lost ones, then add more." Stressing that he does not think the long-term benefits match up to Cantor’s claim, Burtless said that even if it is true, the private sector makes hiring decisions based on economic demand or the need to increase production. The only way to reduce unemployment, he added, is for product demand to increase. Let’s review. Cantor says "less government spending equals more private sector jobs." His staff cites letters and articles by a group of economists. Total federal spending has only decreased a few times in the past 70 years, and the only large drops came at the end of World War II and the Korean War. Private sector jobs increased after both of those wars, but the gains were driven by many factors, including the return to a peace-time economy and the demobilization of millions of soldiers, many of whom went directly into the private work force. During larges stretches of the 1980s and 1990s government spending grew at a slower rate than the overall economy, and large job growth occurred. But economists warned us there is a not a direct link between spending policies and job policies. Cantor may be right with his prescription of lower spending to spur higher job growth. But he goes too far when he asserts a cut equals more private sector jobs. No one knows for sure. The congressman is presenting an economic theory as established fact. We rate this claim Half True. | null | Eric Cantor | null | null | null | 2011-03-16T06:00:00 | 2011-03-04 | ['None'] |
vees-00138 | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Pro-Duterte vlogger makes claim about CHR expenses in online post | misleading | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-pro-duterte-vlogger-makes-misleading-c | null | null | null | null | fake news,CHR training expenses | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Pro-Duterte vlogger makes MISLEADING claim about CHR expenses in online post | July 14, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00073 | Expand funding—including loan repayment, adequate reimbursement, grants for training curricula, and infrastructure support to improve working conditions— to ensure a strong workforce that will champion prevention and public health activities. | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/76/expand-funding-to-train-primary-care-providers-and/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Expand funding to train primary care providers and public health practitioners | 2010-01-07T13:26:47 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01244 | Proximity to high-voltage power lines lowers property values by as much as 30 percent. | half-true | /rhode-island/statements/2014/nov/16/friends-india-point-park/india-point-park-group-says-proximity-large-power-/ | For more than a decade, residents and officials from Providence and East Providence have lobbied to have the high-voltage power lines that traverse the waterfront along India Point Park buried. The latest estimate to complete the job is $33.9 million, with a 25 percent contingency fund, meaning costs could be as low as $25 million or as high as $42 million, according to figures made public by National Grid. The Friends of India Point Park, the group that has led the effort to move the power lines underground and take down the poles and towers that support them, argues that the project is worthwhile, primarily because it will remove what its members contend is a visual blight along the shores of East Providence and Providence. Burying the lines would improve the scenic beauty of the park and make the vacant land abutting it near Route 195 more marketable -- and more valuable, the group argues. "Proximity to high-voltage power lines lowers property values by as much as 30%," the group says on its website, adding that multiple studies bear this out. We were curious if there really is a negative effect on property values and, if there is, whether it’s that large. We called David Riley, the co-chairman of Friends of India Point Park, for more information. He sent us a lot of documents and references to back up the claim -- burying us in information, so to speak -- but we decided to start with a paper published in 2010 in the Journal of Real Estate Literature that is cited on his group’s website. That paper, written by a Texas A&M University professor and a colleague, reviewed more than a half-century of studies on the effects of electric transmission lines on property values. The studies included a 1992 survey of appraisers, with the majority of respondents saying that high-voltage power lines would lower the market value of a nearby property by 10 percent on average. They also included sales price analyses. Many were inconclusive or failed to quantify an effect. One 1979 model predicted a 6-percent decrease for homes between 50 and 200 feet of power lines. Another 1995 study said the effect was a drop in value of less than 5 percent and another done in 2002 in an area near Montreal put it at 9.6 percent on average. None mentioned a decrease of 30 percent. "The studies reviewed, while having some inconsistencies in their detailed results, generally pointed to small or no effects on sales price due to the presence of electric transmission lines," the authors said. That didn’t sound like it supported the Providence group’s claim. So we looked at what Riley sent us. His documents included a summary on the previously cited Montreal study that described the negative price effect as "ranging from 5% to well in excess of 20%." We got a copy of that 2002 study. Although it said that the average decrease was smaller, it did find a 21-percent decrease in residential sales prices for an area of homes within 50 feet of high-voltage power lines. We found separate studies in Canada carried out in relation to a power line outside Vancouver that found negative price effects of up to 27 percent for homes in close proximity, according to a report on a transmission line proposal in Alberta. Riley also sent us part of a report on property values near a power line outside of Houston. That 1993 report found that assessed values of properties abutting the easement for the power line were up to 31 percent less than those farther away. And he sent an excerpt from a 2012 report on sales in Montana that found a decrease in the values of homes in a subdivision near a transmission line of 25 percent to 30 percent. Lastly, we found two references (here and here) to a study in Quebec that found that values of second home lots near a high-voltage power line along recreational land were up to 34 percent lower than expected. (Because the study is in French -- and our last French class was in high school -- we were reliant on secondary sources that summarized it.) We called Providence-based real estate appraiser Tom Andolfo, who has chaired the Rhode Island chapters of the Appraisal Institute and the Real Estate Appraisers Board, to get his view. In testimony before state regulators in 1994 on removing the power lines that cross from East Providence to Providence, he cited the 31 percent number from the Houston study. He told us, however, that he believes the actual effect is not as large. "A realistic figure could be from 5 to 15 percent," he said. But Riley said he believes that because the power lines running across East Providence and Providence are on the water, the effect on property values would likely be at the upper range of figures cited in the studies. "It … seems logical to me that power lines obstructing water views will likely depress property values more than wires in front of, say, buildings, because they'll be more conspicuous and obstructing a more pleasant, valued view that owners are paying for," he told us. Our ruling The Friends of India Point Park says that proximity to high-voltage power lines lowers property values by as much as 30 percent. There are many studies on the effects of power lines on property values. Nearly all of the ones that we found determined that there was a negative effect on values. But they differ widely in what that effect actually is. Most put it at less than 10 percent. But we found four studies in the United States and Canada that found decreases that ranged from close to 30 percent to more than 30 percent. They appeared to be isolated cases, but they did occur, according to the studies. The Friends of India Point Park does not say that such a price effect is the norm. The group only says that a decrease in value can be as much as 30 percent. Riley says that language was chosen on purpose. (There’s also some question about what the group means by "proximity) but we won’t get into that here.) Because the statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details -- the preponderance of studies showing property value decreases of 10 percent or less -- 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 | Friends of India Point Park | null | null | null | 2014-11-16T00:01:00 | 2014-10-31 | ['None'] |
pomt-08816 | This year, Newt Gingrich "has raised as much money as Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee combined." | true | /georgia/statements/2010/aug/15/esquire-magazine/magazine-says-newt-gingrich-leads-fundraising/ | Twelve years after he resigned amid Republican Party defeats and ethics troubles, former longtime Georgia Congressman Newt Gingrich is "ascendant," a recent Esquire magazine article reported. Gingrich, who gained renown for helping orchestrate the historic 1994 Republican takeover of Congress, has managed to maintain his position as the party's philosopher king, according to "Newt Gingrich: The Indispensable Republican" a profile by John H. Richardson. This accomplishment may have produced real political gains. Although Gingrich has not said he is running, he is an early leader in polling for the 2012 presidential election, the article said. Plus, he's trouncing the competition in the thing that matters most in contemporary politics: raising cash. This year, Gingrich "has raised as much money as Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee combined," the article states. Is he really beating all of them? Even Palin? Granted, the 2012 race is far from beginning in earnest, and Gingrich's real chances are unclear. Thanks in part to his conservative fan base, his name comes up regularly as a possible presidential contender, but he has yet to commit. Still, his fundraising is well worth a look. Even though it's not clear whether Gingrich plans to run for president, federal law allows him to operate a "527 group," a type of political organization capable of raising massive amounts of money. His American Solutions for Winning the Future raised the cash mentioned in the Esquire article. It describes itself as "a unique tri-partisan organization designed to rise above traditional gridlocked partisanship, to provide real, significant solutions to the most important issues facing our country." American Solutions has opposed stringent regulation of the energy industry and advocated for giving more leeway to school districts that want to fire mediocre teachers, among other things. One of Esquire's fact-checkers backed up the article's claim by pointing us to a page on the website of Media Matters for America,a liberal group that fact-checks claims by the media. It referenced articles about the fundraising efforts of various political action committees, or PACs, and American Solutions. They show that American Solution's haul dwarfed those of the PACs for potential political candidates. So what are PACs and 527 groups? We asked Paul Ryan,an attorney for the Campaign Legal Center,which advocates for campaign finance reform and strengthening federal ethics rules and enforcement. We also consulted Federal Election Commission rules and tax code. It's complicated, so bear with us. 527 groups are a type of nonprofit named after the section of federal tax code that outlines what they can do. They exist to raise money to get a candidate elected. Political action committees, or PACs, raise money to elect candidates, too. Many are also free from paying income tax under the same code that creates 527 groups. There are several types of PACs, and the kind that's controlled by candidates can't accept money directly from corporations or labor unions. They have strict donation limits that can be as small as $2,400 per individual. 527 groups such as Gingrich's try hard to avoid being regulated as a PAC, and that's a tricky business. A bunch of local, state and federal laws chime in on what it means to be a PAC, but if a 527 can avoid being pigeonholed, the payoff is big: Corporations and labor unions can give non-PAC 527 groups as much money as they choose and as often as they want. According to OpenSecrets.org, Newt Gingrich's 527 received $350,000 from a single corporate donor during the 2010 election cycle. Politicians interested in running for major offices find it useful to start 527s or PACs to lay the groundwork for their campaigns. They help them exert influence over issues or races. Which one they start depends on how they want to spend. Yes, 527s can raise far more money, but PACs can do things that 527s can't. For instance, by law, current federal officeholders have to play by PAC rules when they raise funds. And it's easier for a PAC to give money to a specific candidate. So 527 groups and PACs are not the same thing, a fact that the Esquire article acknowledges, albeit imperfectly. It said that 527s are barred from promoting the interests of a specific candidate when, in fact, that's what they're all about. But a lot of them avoid contributing to candidates to duck being regulated under tougher PAC rules. Pawlenty, who is governor of Minnesota, does not have a 527 group, a PAC staffer confirmed. Press representatives of the other candidates did not respond to our requests for comment, and a Web search found no evidence that they currently have 527 groups either. Now it's time to examine the numbers. We looked up American Solutions' Internal Revenue Services filings, plus the FEC filings for the PACs of Huckabee, Palin, Pawlenty and Romney. By June 30, American Solutions had raised $6,081,984.00.The others had raised $6,015,422.33. Gingrich wins. Federal filings confirm that Gingrich has indeed raised more than the other candidates combined -- but with a very important caveat. Comparing 527 groups with PACs is not entirely fair because it's much easier for a 527 group to raise money. The Esquire article acknowledged the difference between PACs and 527 groups. And while it mixed up some details, it got right the overall point that they're hard to compare. Given that Esquire gave its statement adequate context, we rule this statement True. | null | Esquire magazine | null | null | null | 2010-08-15T06:00:00 | 2010-08-10 | ['Newt_Gingrich', 'Mike_Huckabee', 'Mitt_Romney', 'Tim_Pawlenty', 'Sarah_Palin'] |
pose-01083 | As governor, I will immediately . . . (Create) an anonymous tip line, so that women who are earning less for equal work will be able to report their employer's non-compliance | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/promises/gina-meter/promise/1166/create-anonymous-tip-line-pay-disparity/ | null | gina-meter | Gina Raimondo | null | null | Create an anonymous tip line for pay disparity | 2014-12-19T06:50:19 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12154 | We’re spending 18 percent of our GDP on healthcare while the average among industrialized countries is closer to 8 percent. | mostly true | /wisconsin/statements/2017/aug/09/mike-gallagher/mike-gallagher-target-claim-health-care-costs-us-v/ | Since his arrival in Congress in January 2017, first-term U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher, (R-Green Bay) has gotten a crash course in health-care politics. When he was interviewed July 9, 2017, on "Upfront with Mike Gousha," a public affairs show that airs on WISN-TV (Channel 12), Gallagher reiterated his support for repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, but said the issues with health care in the U.S. are deeper than those the now-stalled House bill tried to address. "Whatever we’re doing right now with our health care system is not working," he said, later adding: "The biggest source of frustration for me, as a new member of Congress, is we’re having this debate over health insurance reform when, really, we need to turn to the drivers of health care costs in this country." Then he offered this statistic: "We’re spending 18 percent of our GDP on health care while the average among industrialized countries is closer to 8 percent." Is he right about the numbers? The numbers Gallagher drew his statistics from two reports, according to Madison Wiberg, his communications director. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) tracks the nation’s expenditures on health care over time. Those numbers show the U.S. spent 17.8 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available. The 8 percent came from the amount the U.K. spent of its GDP in 2013 (actually 8.8 percent), according to Wiberg. That number came from a 2015 report from the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that aims to improve health care systems in industrialized nations through funding independent research. But Gallagher’s claim referenced the average of all industrialized nations, not just England. The average high-income nation actually spent 10.6 percent of its GDP on health care in 2015 according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. That gap between the U.S. and other developed nations is longstanding and well-known. But the difference isn’t one that began with the passing or even the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, often termed Obamacare. Kaiser found that the gap between the U.S. and other high-income nations has been growing since about 1980. In the four decades since, the percentage of GDP in the U.S. spent on health care shot up from 6 percent (on par with other high-income countries at the time) to the 17.8 percent in 2015. In comparison, the Netherlands, the next highest spender, used 12 percent of its GDP on care. When spending is measured by person, the picture is not much different. At $9,451 per person, the U.S. spends almost twice the average for comparable countries, $4,908, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD). For a while, the rate of growth was slowing, both in the U.S. and abroad. A 2015 report by The Commonwealth Fund listed the slowdown as a key finding and data from the 2017 annual National Health Spending report by the CMS showed the same slowdown from about 2003 to 2013. In 2014 and 2015, the major provisions of the ACA were implemented and CMS reported increases in spending growth comparable to periods of recession. The difference, according to the paper, was "from 2013 to 2015 the number of uninsured individuals fell by 15.0 million, and the insured share of the population reached 90.9 percent." In other words, the spending went up in part because more people were insured. More for our money? While it does not impact our rating, we thought we’d take a quick look at how the U.S. stacks up in terms of outcomes. According to most recent data from the OECD, American life expectancy at birth was 78.8 in 2015, the 9th lowest of 34 OECD nations (the data does not include Canada). In a 2013 report, "U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health," authors wrote that even Americans in advantaged demographics -- "white, insured, college-educated or upper income" -- have worse health outcomes than similar people abroad. The panel found that in addition to obesity and other lifestyle-related issues, Americans are worse off than their foreign counterparts with respect to drug use, HIV/AIDS, lung disease (even though other countries smoke more). The list goes on: Americans are dying of heart disease more often. They’re having limbs amputated due to diabetes complications more often. In two areas, the U.S. fared better -- Americans are less likely to die from cancer and received better end-of-life care. "Almost always, Americans were in poorer health," said Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University, who chaired the National Academies committee that did the report. The researchers identified five overlapping reasons for the discrepancy: a health system where people lack access to basic care and insurance coverage, behaviors such as alcohol abuse and overeating, social and economic conditions, physical environments (for instance, we drive more than we walk or bike), and public policies and social values that fail to consider health impacts. Our rating Gallagher said "We’re spending 18 percent of our GDP on health care while the average among industrialized countries is closer to 8 percent." His number for the U.S. spending is on target, but the one he uses for other industrialized nations is a bit low. That said, he’s right about his major point: The U.S. has long outspent industrialized nations on health care -- a trend that began long before the implementation of Obamacare. We rate Gallagher’s claim Mostly True. div class='artembed'>See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Mike Gallagher | null | null | null | 2017-08-09T05:00:00 | 2017-07-09 | ['None'] |
pose-00474 | We'll establish a program for the Department of Energy and our laboratories to share technology with countries across the region. | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/494/share-enviromental-technology-with-other-countries/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Share enviromental technology with other countries | 2010-01-07T13:27:00 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01143 | A lot of what (Cuba’s) survival depends on is Venezuelan oil money, which is drying up. | mostly true | /punditfact/statements/2014/dec/18/ana-navarro/navarro-cubas-economy-survives-largely-venezuelan-/ | President Barack Obama’s historic decision to open full diplomatic relations with Cuba has appalled many opponents of the Castro regime. Among their biggest complaints is that Cuba got huge concessions from the United States without being required to make fundamental changes to its political system. CNN contributor and Republican strategist Ana Navarro also argued that Obama could have outwaited the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul. The Cuban economy is in shambles, Navarro told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. "A lot of what their survival depends on is Venezuelan oil money, which is drying up," Navarro said. "Now that we are so close to the end of those two dictators -- who have oppressed these people for over half a century -- now we're going to change and do it unilaterally without them lifting the oppression?" The Cuba-Venezuela connection has been on the lips of many commentators since the news broke. We thought it would be good to put a number to Venezuela’s generosity toward Cuba and to what extent that aid is a matter of life or death for the Cuban economy. Cuba and Venezuela have been joined at the hip in their shared antipathy toward the United States. The superpower to the north sees both governments as fundamentally opposed to political freedom and free markets. In return, leaders in Cuba and Venezuela regularly speak out against the United States. Out of this tension emerged a deal between Cuba and Venezuela. Cuba sent tens of thousands of medical staff and other skilled professionals to treat Venezuela’s poor and otherwise aid the government. In exchange, Venezuela sent Cuba oil and provided money to modernize that country’s infrastructure. The plunging price of oil has put the basic tenets of that swap in jeopardy, experts say. Cuba’s supply line We found estimates that Venezuela sends about 80,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil per day. Luis R. Luis is the former chief economist with the Organization of American States, an international body with representatives of governments that span from Canada to Argentina. Luis told PunditFact the swap means a lot to Cuba. "Venezuelan oil and transfers play a key role in allowing the country to import essential foodstuffs, medicines and industrial inputs," Luis said. "The value of oil plus investments and grants from Venezuela to Cuba varies greatly from year to year largely because of oil price fluctuations. In 2008 it was over 10 percent of GDP. Last year some 6 percent of GDP. This year less." Former International Monetary Fund economist Ernesto Hernandez-Cata offered a slightly higher estimate of "just over $7 billion, or 11 percent of Cuba’s GDP," in 2011. Whatever the exact percentage, and even though the aid has been falling, Venezuela pulls a lot of weight in the Cuban economy. University of Maryland economist Roger Betancourt said that impact only grows when you factor in trade between the two nations. Betancourt, who co-founded the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy, said Venezuela accounts for about 40 percent of Cuba’s trade in goods. We found another estimate that put Venezuelan purchases at 20 percent of Cuba’s GDP. Why would Venezuela stop helping Cuba? Venezuela has seen the price it receives for sending oil overseas fall 40 percent this year because of the drop of oil prices worldwide. And oil revenues account for about 95 percent of the country's export earnings, according to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. As such, Venezuela faces an economic collapse that include defaulting on its debts. "You only need to look at the economic disaster that is Venezuela, and clearly it’s a bad bet to have all your chips in one basket," Christopher Sabatini, policy director at Council of the Americas, told Bloomberg. "That 100,000 barrels per day gift of oil is going to end very soon." Not a matter of life or death While the Venezuelan connection is hefty, its importance can be overblown. Hernandez-Cata ran the numbers and found that if the aid stopped, Cuba's real GDP would contract "somewhere between 7 percent and 10 percent" without Venezuelan oil. Which would be no garden party for Cuba, but as Hernandez-Cata noted, the country emerged from a fall of 38 percent in GDP when the USSR cut off its economic support in the early 1990s. And today, Cuba has been moving to diversify. "Current efforts to obtain financing at non-market terms from other countries, like Algeria, Angola and Brazil, would, if successful, diminish the magnitude of the shock," Hernandez-Cata wrote. A longtime critic of the Castro regime, Pedro A. Freyre, a partner in the law firm of Akerman LLP, is skeptical of the doom and gloom predictions of Cuba’s precarious economy. "Cuba has turned surviving misery into an art," Freyre said. "Cuba has been diminishing expectations for decades. Everything collapsed in 1992. It was a disaster and they survived." For the record, Freyre, who lost a brother-in-law in the failed U.S.-backed Bay of Pigs assault on Cuba in 1961, now favors normal diplomatic relations. Our ruling Navarro said a lot of Cuba’s survival depends on Venezuelan oil money, and that it's drying up. The data we found and the experts we reached back that up, to a point. Venezuelan aid added at least 6 percent to Cuba’s GDP last year. Venezuela is also a major trading partner, buying as much as 40 percent of Cuba’s trade in goods. The loss of direct support from Venezuela could cause a 7 to 10 percent drop in Cuba’s GDP, experts told us. While that hasn't happened yet, it's certainly a strong possibility. Though Cuba has been moving to reduce its dependency on Venezuela, and has a track record of making it through tough times, that would still be a significant hit. We rate the claim Mostly True. | null | Ana Navarro | null | null | null | 2014-12-18T18:19:12 | 2014-12-17 | ['Venezuela', 'Cuba'] |
pomt-04903 | Says the "largest tax increase in American history is set to occur on January 1st unless President Obama and Congress can come to an agreement." | half-true | /texas/statements/2012/aug/03/francisco-quico-canseco/quico-canseco-says-bush-cuts-expiring-would-cause-/ | EDITOR’S NOTE: A reader emailed us to point out that we got one tax-cut option backwards in the next-to-last paragraph. Nobody’s considering giving tax cuts only to the wealthy; rather, one option is to extend the tax cuts for everyone but the wealthy. The tax increase figure is given correctly, though: Letting the tax cuts expire for the wealthy would translate to a tax increase of about 0.4 percent of GDP. We’ve corrected the sentence below, and it does not affect our calculations. U.S. Rep. Francisco "Quico" Canseco opened a recent email blast by saying that an historic tax surge has his attention. "As you may know," the San Antonio Republican wrote constituents, "the largest tax increase in American history is set to occur on January 1st unless President Obama and Congress can come to an agreement." His email also says the Republican-majority House would vote later that week on preventing the increases. Canseco was hardly the first advocate to declare that the tax hike would be record-setting. When the tax cuts put in place under President George W. Bush were last up for renewal in 2010, "largest ever" became a rallying cry of sorts for congressional Republicans and news entities alike. In a Fox News Sunday appearance that year, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin made a similar claim. At the time, PolitiFact ruled her claim "Pants On Fire" because she was wrong about the ranking and incorrectly described the Democrats' plans. The tax-related figures haven’t changed much since. Estimates vary as to how much taxes would rise if the Bush-era tax cuts were allowed to expire without exceptions. Congress approved the tax breaks in 2001 through the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, and adjusted them in 2003 through the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. The tax cuts were set to expire in 2010, because they passed Congress through a procedure known as reconciliation, which only requires 50 votes in the Senate. But, after a heated debate, lawmakers voted in 2010 to extend them for two more years. Some tax analysts have argued that, because the tax cuts were intended to be temporary, their expiration does not count as a tax increase. We’re not getting into that argument here. Most estimates for the increase caused by repealing the tax cuts hover around $3.7 trillion over 10 years, the number represented in the Congressional Budget Office’s Budget and Economic outlook from January 2012. (The number is listed under the category of "extend certain income tax and estate and gift tax," though analysts assured PolitiFact New Hampshire that it refers to the Bush tax cuts). Another $900 billion increase would stem from keeping the Alternative Minimum Tax from socking more taxpayers. In raw dollars, then, the resulting $4.6 trillion total would rank among the greatest tax increases in history. By email, Canseco’s spokeswoman, Kyler Arnold, pointed out by email that the CBO said in January 2012 that the impact of not extending the Bush-originated tax cuts would be about $5 trillion. Table 1-6 in the report indicates that the cumulative costs of extending the tax cuts and steadying the Alternative Minimum Tax through 2023 would be $5.3 trillion, counting nearly $800 billion in debt service. But there’s a better way to compare the potential increase with tax increases through history. Economists do this by calculating tax increases as a percentage of the gross domestic product, or GDP. GDP means a country's entire annual economic economic output; it's a way of measuring the entire economy. If we calculate tax increases as a percentage of GDP, it means we don't have to worry about distortions from variables like inflation or economic growth. Spread over the next 10 years, the $4.6 trillion tax increase would amount to about 2.25 percent of the nation’s GDP. That figure, calculated with help from several tax analysts, starts from adding together the Budget Office’s projected GDP figures over the next 10 years, 2013-2022; then the total is divided by the $4.6 trillion figure. The result is higher than most tax increases in recent history, according to a 2006 U.S. Treasury report analyzing all tax measures since 1940. According to the report, the Bush tax cuts have held a higher percentage of the GDP than many of the biggest tax laws in recent history. It beats out the the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982, which measured in at 1.23 percent of GDP by the time all its provisions went into effect in 1986. It also measures larger than the Revenue Act of 1941, which at $3.6 billion, amounted to 2.2 percent of GDP. Yet, according to the analysis, the Bush tax cuts fall well below the Revenue Act of 1942, which is estimated at 5.04 percent of GDP. That act passed into law after the United States entered World War II. And this would make the Bush tax cuts, should they expire, the second-largest tax increase in history, as a percentage of GDP. "There is no doubt, if all the (Bush) tax cuts were allowed to expire, this would have a very big impact," Howard Gleckman, an analyst at the Tax Policy Center, an independent tax analysis group, told PolitiFact New Hampshire. Gleckman, author of the blog TaxVox.org, continued: "But, if you’re asking the question, would it be the largest tax increase ever, the answer is no." By email, Arnold pointed out the 1942 tax increase included a 5 percent "Victory" income tax add-on that was repealed in 1944 "and never designed to be a permanent tax increase" while, she said, "the tax increase set to occur at the end of the year is a permanent tax increase, absent legislative action. Comparing a tax bill (including a temporary tax increase for the war) to a permanent tax increase is not apples to apples." We ran Arnold’s thought by Gleckman, who pointed out that when they passed into law, the Bush tax cuts had a built-in end date -- one since extended by Congress. Broadly, he said, all tax laws are temporary in that sense, though Bush’s cuts were explicitly temporary. Gleckman agreed that ending the Bush tax cuts would result in the biggest hike by the GDP gauge since 1942. However, he said, the difference between the No. 1 and speculated-about No. 2 tax increase, 2.25 percent of GDP versus 5 percent, is huge. "This is like saying the horse that came in second by 20 lengths almost won," he said by phone. Broadly, as Gleckman notes, few in Washington expect the Bush tax cuts to expire in full. Rather, the debate this year has centered on whether to extend the tax breaks for everyone or extend them for all but the nation’s highest earners. If only cuts for the most wealthy residents were allowed to expire, it would mean a tax increase of about 0.4 percent of GDP. Our ruling The trillions of dollars at stake with the expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts places them among the nation’s most costly. Still, the cuts, if allowed to expire, would amount to less than half the percentage of the gross domestic product reflected in the 1942 tax increase. We rate Canseco’s claim as Half True. | null | Francisco "Quico" Canseco | null | null | null | 2012-08-03T12:38:30 | 2012-07-31 | ['United_States', 'Barack_Obama', 'United_States_Congress'] |
snes-02083 | Was an American Flag Displayed on the White House? | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/american-flag-white-house/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Was an American Flag Displayed on the White House? | 11 July 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05594 | There is not one single federal housing program yet that has not needed a bailout to survive. | half-true | /georgia/statements/2012/mar/30/lynn-westmoreland/westmoreland-all-federal-housing-programs-need-bai/ | U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland thinks taxpayers may be dragged into the bailout business again, thanks to the Federal Housing Administration. The FHA provides mortgage insurance to encourage banks to write loans to people who have little cash for a down payment. Many of these loans went bad when the housing bubble burst, and FHA officials are trying to raise money to keep the insurance afloat. It’s not the first time, Westmoreland said during a Feb. 29 congressional hearing. "There’s not been one single federal housing program yet that has not needed a bailout to survive," Westmoreland said. All federal housing programs? We contacted a Westmoreland spokeswoman to get the story. Leslie Shedd, the spokeswoman, said Westmoreland was referring to three programs that were started to keep the housing market stable and encourage Americans to buy homes: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA. Here’s how the feds got involved in the housing market: After the real estate market collapsed during the Great Depression, the feds took steps to encourage banks to make home loans and families to buy houses. They created the FHA, which issues mortgage insurance to guarantee that banks will get their money back even if a homeowner doesn’t make payments. This encourages banks to approve mortgages for people who don’t have a lot of money or have mediocre credit. They also created Fannie Mae, and later Freddie Mac, to help lenders raise money to make more loans. Fannie and Freddie do this by selling the mortgages lenders’ make in bulk as securities and guaranteeing they will make a return. Other programs perform similar tasks. For instance, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, like the FHA, insures home loans, but only for houses in rural areas. The Office of Public and Indian Housing backs them for native lands, while the Department of Veterans Affairs guarantees them for veterans. Ginnie Mae, like Fannie and Freddie, guarantees mortgage securities, but its securities are made up of government-backed loans by the FHA, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Public and Indian Housing. This is what our research found: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Fannie and Freddie were bailed out by taxpayers in 2008. But calling them "federal housing programs" is a thorny issue. They weren’t controlled by the government until the bailout. Congress chartered Fannie and Freddie as "government-sponsored enterprises," or GSEs. They are supposed to help the U.S. meet its housing policy goals, but they were designed as for-profit corporations with their own shareholders and boards of directors. The federal government explicitly said it did not back the GSEs’ securities. "They are in no way categorized as federal housing programs," said Ted Gayer, co-director of the economic studies program at the Brookings Institution. The feds estimate the bailout will cost between $220 billion and $311 billion through 2014, though some of that will be paid back. Federal Housing Administration The president’s proposed budget for 2013 says the U.S. Treasury might have to give the FHA $688 million in emergency funds, but whether help will come in the form of a taxpayer-funded bailout is uncertain. The FHA hiked the cost of mortgage insurance earlier this month to raise money, and it is set to receive about $1 billion from a legal settlement over fraudulent foreclosure practices. Its officials say these measures will avoid a bailout, but critics say this won’t be enough. Ginnie Mae Ginnie Mae hasn’t been bailed out, and it’s not clear it’s in dire trouble. A November 2011 General Accounting Office report found that higher-than-expected defaults could force Ginnie Mae to dip into its reserves. It also concluded that Ginnie should do better at predicting future costs and documenting its methods. But so far, Ginnie has taken in more money than it has spent, the GAO said. All the rest The remainder of the federal programs are smaller players in the mortgage markets. As of the second quarter of 2011, the FHA backed nearly $1 trillion in single-family loans. Veterans Affairs backed less than a quarter of that, while the USDA backed some 7 percent, according to data from the federal agency that took over Fannie and Freddie. They have yet to run into the kinds of trouble that Fannie, Freddie and the FHA are experiencing. The USDA and PIH have not needed a bailout so far, but Edward Pinto, a former Fannie Mae executive and scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, warns the USDA might need one, in part because it makes riskier loans. The FHA requires down payments of 3.5 percent. The USDA allows loans with no money down. As for Veterans Affairs, the word "bailout" does not apply. Whenever one of its loans defaults, taxpayers automatically pick up the tab. The program is not expected to pay for itself. Conclusion Westmoreland’s claim that "there is not one single federal housing program yet that has not needed a bailout to survive" has shortcomings. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been bailed out. And the FHA is in need of help, though it has not been bailed out at this point. But Fannie and Freddie did not come under federal control until 2008. They are strange creatures on the U.S. financial landscape. They were created by the government but operated independently until the housing bust. At that time, they were bailed out by the feds. The three other federal housing efforts have not been bailed out. And it’s not clear that they will need taxpayer assistance. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and the FHA are much larger players in the housing market. This bolsters Westmoreland’s larger point that organizations designed to help the housing market need help, too. Westmoreland earns a Half True. | null | Lynn Westmoreland | null | null | null | 2012-03-30T06:00:00 | 2012-02-29 | ['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.