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 ⌀ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
tron-02705 | Pictures of the Tsunami | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/tsunamipic2/ | null | natural-disasters | null | null | null | Pictures of the Tsunami | Mar 20, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03785 | A Danish woman fertilized her own eggs with the frozen sperm of her deceased father. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/daughter-fertilizes-eggs-with-fathers-sperm/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | Daughter Fertilizes Own Eggs with Sperm of Deceased Father | 16 October 2016 | null | ['Denmark'] |
goop-01941 | Gigi Hadid Turning Down Zayn Malik’s Marriage Proposals? | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/gigi-hadid-turned-down-zayn-malik-marriage-proposal-engagement-ring/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Gigi Hadid Turning Down Zayn Malik’s Marriage Proposals? | 12:01 pm, December 30, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01575 | NASA has recently confirmed the existence of Earth’s second moon. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nasa-confirms-existence-of-earths-second-moon/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | NASA Confirms Existence of Earth’s Second Moon? | 16 October 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05271 | On transportation financing | half flip | /new-jersey/statements/2012/may/27/chris-christie/christie-administration-backtracks-borrowing-trans/ | New Jersey’s governor often portrays himself as a man of his word. Before taking office he vowed he wouldn’t raise taxes on millionaires and so far, he hasn’t. He’s also taken on the New Jersey Education Association by pledging to reform tenure and funding, infuriating numerous educators, administrators and legislators from Hackensack to Cape May. So it might seem surprising that the governor known for slashing budgets, requiring public employees to contribute more to healthcare and pension costs, and putting a chokehold on various types of aid is changing his tune a bit on one of his major funding concerns: transportation. The change is inconsistent with past statements made by Christie so we’re putting that change to the Flip-O-Meter. The Flip-O-Meter rates politicians' consistency on particular topics from No Flip to Full Flop. The meter is not intended to pass judgment on their decisions to change their minds. It gauges whether they did. Christie’s stance changed with Wednesday’s announcement that the administration will borrow an extra $260 million for transportation projects. That’s contrary to a Christie announcement more than a year ago that through his transportation capital plan, the state would begin relying less on borrowing for that type of work. From a state Department of Transportation news release on Jan. 6, 2011: "Today, we are continuing to put New Jersey on the path towards fiscal health and proposing a sensible and responsible plan that prioritizes vital transportation projects, while limiting the already-heavy debt burden carried by the taxpayers of our state." So what happened? Call it a miscalculation of sorts. Both the Christie administration and David Rosen, chief budget officer for the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, are estimating revenue shortfalls in the budget that will ultimately mean Christie has less available cash to give to transportation. Christie’s revenue shortfall is $676 million through the end of the next fiscal year, while Rosen’s is $1.3 billion. That’s a difference of about $600 million between shortfall predictions. Christie’s original transportation capital plan for FY 2012-2013 called for borrowing $986 million and using $260 million cash in 2013. Now, New Jersey will borrow the $260 million instead, increasing the total amount borrowed to $1.2 billion. The $260 million in cash in addition to other cost-saving measures would help plug the revenue shortfall and allow the administration to kick off an across-the-board 10 percent income tax cut. But Martin E. Robins, director emeritus of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center at Rutgers University, told The Star-Ledger on Wednesday, "We’re really falling right back into the capital financing that the governor critized Jon Corzine for." Despite the move to increase transportation borrowing, State Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff emphasized that the governor’s original goal to lessen reliance on bonding for transportation remains. "This is a one-year initiative, and we do not make this recommendation casually," Sidamon-Eristoff said at an Assembly Budget Committee hearing Wednesday. Our ruling Christie has stated previously that he wants the state to rely less on borrowing for transportation projects and in January 2011 announced a transportation capital plan that calls for more pay-as-you-go financing. But now he’s saying the state will borrow an additional $260 million for transportation work next year in part because of projected revenue shortfalls in the state budget. The governor’s about-face is inconsistent with his previous statements, which rates the change a Half Flip on the Flip-O-Meter. To comment on this story, go to NJ.com. | null | Chris Christie | null | null | null | 2012-05-27T07:30:00 | 2012-05-23 | ['None'] |
pomt-09956 | ACORN "could get up to $8.5 billion more tax dollars despite being under investigation for voter registration fraud in a dozen states." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/may/21/michele-bachmann/bachmann-claims-acorn-has-access-85-billion-federa/ | U.S. Rep. Michelle Bachmann's latest outrage focuses on an old nemesis: ACORN. Not only are there new charges in two states related to fraudulent voter registration efforts by ACORN and its employees during the 2008 presidential election, she said, it now appears the group could tap into billions of dollars of federal money in the economic stimulus and the Obama administration's proposed 2010 budget. In a May 6 news release, Bachmann sounded the alarm: "At least $53 million in federal funds have gone to ACORN activists since 1994, and the controversial group could get up to $8.5 billion more tax dollars despite being under investigation for voter registration fraud in a dozen states. The economic stimulus bill enacted in February contains $3 billion that the nonprofit activist group known more formally as the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now could receive, and 2010 federal budget contains another $5.5 billion that could also find its way into the group's coffers." She has since thrown these numbers out several times in interviews, including ones with Lou Dobbs on CNN and Glenn Beck on Fox. In January, we addressed a piece of this when we fact-checked a claim from House Republican Leader John Boehner, who warned the economic stimulus package "could open billions of taxpayer dollars to left-wing groups like the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)." Boehner was referring to $2.2 billion in the stimulus package for "neighborhood stabilization," essentially money doled out to groups to buy up abandoned and foreclosed homes, to rehabilitate them and then sell or rent them out. ACORN said it had no plans to apply for the funding, and if it did, the money would have to be used to buy and fix abandoned houses, not for voter registration efforts. We ruled that claim Barely True . This latest claim from Bachmann follows the same tortured logic on an even grander scale. A spokesman from Bachmann's office said the congresswoman got her data from a May 6, 2009, Washington Examiner commentary written by Kevin Mooney, who got the $8.5 billion figure from Matthew Vadum, a senior analyst and editor with Capital Research Center, a conservative think tank. Let's first look at how they arrived at that number. It includes, of course, the same $2.2 billion that Boehner cited from the stimulus package. Vadum also adds $1 billion in the stimulus for Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds. ACORN could potentially tap into that, he said. The remaining $5.5 billion comes from the Obama administration's proposed 2010 budget, specifically the budget for Housing and Urban Development. The budget plan includes $1 billion for an Affordable Housing Trust Fund, plus $4.5 billion more for CDBGs. CDBGs have been around since 1974. Obama is seeking to increase the CDBG budget from about $3.6 billion in 2009 to $4.2 billion next year. And then there's the additional $1 billion for CDBGs in the stimulus. But the point is, this isn't some new pot of money that hasn't been available in years past. To the extent ACORN has been eligible for CDBG money for decades, it is available to ACORN now. But the fact is, ACORN isn't eligible for CDBG funding. At least not for the controversial voter registration efforts that Republican leaders claim are a willful effort to forward the group's liberal agenda. ACORN has a complex corporate structure. It's actually a network of affiliates. The ACORN that Republicans love to hate gets involved in political activity like voter registration. But there are other entities, like the sister company, ACORN Housing Corporation, a nonprofit that provides free housing counseling to low and moderate income homebuyers. Some of the ACORN Housing affiliates have also dabbled in affordable housing projects and have received federal funding. But ACORN Housing doesn't get involved in voter registration activities. CDBG money is given to local governments and states to use as they see fit for community development projects. But there are strings attached. CDBG rules list eligible uses of the money, including such things as building sidewalks, sewers and affordable housing, mostly. Specifically ineligible: "political activities." In other words, ACORN can't use the money for voter registration. According to the Washington Examiner 's report, ACORN and its affiliates have received $53 million from the federal government since 1994. Most of that federal money went to the ACORN Housing Corporation, which by law could not be used for voter registration. We checked, and there is no money in the stimulus package or the budget for voter registration programs. So if ACORN Housing was to apply for and receive CDBG money, it would be for a very specific project. And legally, it could not be transferred to other ACORN affiliates to perform political activities like voter registration. But some ACORN opponents allege that's exactly what would happen. "ACORN is constantly shifting funding," Vadum said. If ACORN Housing were to get federal funding, "we don't know where it would go. The problem is that ACORN transfers vast sums of money around in its network all the time. We don't know whether the money would be spent on voter registration or other activities." According to a July 2002 report from the Employment Policies Institute called "Rotten ACORN, America's Bad Seed," tax forms show that since 1997, the ACORN Housing Corporation has paid more than $5 million in fees or grants to other ACORN entities. The report does not claim, however, that federal tax dollars were shifted into ACORN voter registration efforts. Asked what funds ACORN Housing has transferred to other ACORN affiliates, Vadum said ACORN Housing has paid over $1.5 million to Citizens Consulting Inc., which he describes as "the shadowy part of the ACORN network where money seems to disappear into." That's absurd, said ACORN executive director Steven Kest. Citizens Consulting Inc. is the accounting arm of the ACORN organization. CCI handles bookkeeping, payroll accounting and other financial management services for ACORN and its many affiliates. And ACORN Housing doesn't even use CCI anymore, as it now does its accounting in-house, Kest said. Bottom line, we don't see any evidence that ACORN Housing has transferred money to ACORN for voter registration, so we think it's incorrect for Bachmann to link federal money that ACORN Housing might receive with the more controversial voter registration activities performed by sister organization ACORN. Even more ridiculous is the suggestion that ACORN or any of its affiliates might actually get $8.5 billion in federal tax dollars. Vadum said his report has been misrepresented by many on that point. "The key word here is eligible," Vadum said. "Eligible is a pretty expansive word. I made it clear they are not going to get that full amount." Yes, he made that point in the Washington Examiner. But when Bachmann says ACORN could get that amount, it assumes the group would get every single dime in the stimulus for fixing up abandoned homes. And remember, they said they don't even have plans to apply for any of it. "We think it's a great program," Kest said. "But that's not money we are applying for." And they'd also need to get every single dollar allocated through the CDBG program. That's beyond preposterous. Those grants are allocated to thousands of organizations around the country to perform very specific community development projects. "These are competitive grants for very specific projects," Kest said."The money can only be used for the project you bid for. It can't go to voter registration. If you've ever had any experience with grant funding from the federal government, they do a good job of making sure the money is used for the purposes it was intended. You can't use the money for any other reason. You can't transfer the money to other vehicles for other purposes." Charges of voter registration fraud by members of ACORN during the 2008 elections are a serious matter. Investigators allege ACORN employees tried to fraudulently register thousands of ineligible voters. Among them, one Mickey Mouse. But Bachmann's statement is irresponsibly misleading on several levels. She says the group under indictment for voter registration fraud could tap into billions of federal dollars. In fact, none of the federal money can be used for voter registration activities. An affiliate like ACORN Housing could conceivably apply for a grant to build an affordable housing project, or to buy, fix and sell abandoned homes, but that's exactly what the money would have to be used for. Suggestions that one of the affiliates might funnel money to ACORN for political activity is, so far, unsubstantiated conjecture. And then there's the matter of trying to make a splash by throwing out the massive $8.5 billion number, suggesting ACORN "could get" it, as in all of it. That's absurd. We rule Bachmann's statement False. | null | Michele Bachmann | null | null | null | 2009-05-21T18:14:21 | 2009-05-06 | ['None'] |
pomt-09264 | Alaska's Prince William Sound "is pristine now." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/apr/30/rush-limbaugh/rush-limbaugh-says-alaskas-prince-william-sound-no/ | With 200,000 gallons of oil a day spewing from an exploded oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, forming a slick the size of West Virginia and threatening the coastline of Louisiana, radio pundit Rush Limbaugh said there's no need to panic, that "the ocean will take care of this on its own if it was left alone and was left out there. It's natural." And to prove his point, Limbaugh pointed to the restoration of Alaska's Prince William Sound, which was devastated by an oil spill from the Exxon Valdez 21 years ago. "They were wiping off the rocks with Dawn dishwater detergent and paper towels and so forth," Limbaugh said on his April 29, 2010, radio show. "The place is pristine now." Government officials involved in the cleanup say the conditions are long way from being pristine, which is defined as "completely free from dirt or contamination." Despite the beautiful scenery and wildlife in full view in Prince William Sound, a report from the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council released last year on the 20th anniversary of the spill stated, "one of the most stunning revelations of Trustee Council-funded monitoring over the last 10 years is that Exxon Valdez oil persists in the environment and in places, is nearly as toxic as it was the first few weeks after the spill." The Trustee Council, formed by the Alaska government to oversee the restoration of the injured ecosystem, concluded the oil is decreasing at a rate of 0 to 4 percent a year, and "at this rate, the remaining oil will take decades and possibly centuries to disappear entirely." We asked Craig Tillery, deputy attorney general for the state of Alaska, about Limbaugh's comment. Tillery, a who has served as counsel to the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, said it depends on how you define pristine. "The vast majority of oil that landed in Alaska is gone," he said. But the government dug hundreds of test holes and found pockets of "still fresh-looking oil that is still toxic to the marine environment." In all, they estimated 23,000 gallons (of the 11 million gallons spilled by the Exxon Valdez) remains in isolated pockets of some beaches. "It's buried, you wouldn't see it," said Tillery. "It looks pristine, but it's not pristine if your definition is that there's no oil left." And that oil is still getting into the environment, he said. Sea ducks and sea otters are still exhibiting signs of exposure to oil, he said. And animals such as sea otters, which dig for clams, have released some of the oil trapped under the ground. Most of the wildlife has recovered from the spill, Tillery said, but you also need to consider what you don't see. "You don't see as many killer whales as you did before the spill," he said. "You don't see herrings in the numbers you did before the spill. On the surface, you'd probably say this looks pretty pristine. Underlying that, though, there is still evidence of the spill." "There are beaches where you can turn a shovel and still find oil," said Stan Jones, director of external affairs for the Prince William Sound Regional Citizens Advisory Council. Prince William sound has "mostly recovered visually," Jones said, but to call it pristine is an "overstatement." Dr. Jeffrey Short, who was the leading chemist for the governments of Alaska and the United States following the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, led a series of studies on the unexpected persistence of the oil. In a Q & A with the environmental group Oceana, with whom he is now employed, Short stated, "We found that it (oil) lasted a lot longer than we thought in some locations and it was much better preserved than we thought it would be. In some places the oil hadn't degraded much beyond the first couple months after it had spilled." We asked Short about Limbaugh's comment and he said that while it's fair to say most of Prince William Sound has recovered from the impact of the Exxon Valdez, "there are some places where the oil continues to linger." In fact, the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council has a link on its website to its "Report on Recent Lingering Oil Studies." "At the time of the spill, most scientists believed that, within a few years, the process of weathering would either break down and decompose the oil, or would cause it to turn into a form of asphalt that would have little potential to release toxic components into the environment," the report states. "Contrary to these expectations, oil persists at some sites in Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Alaska in a relatively unweathered and potentially toxic condition." "Organisms that use the intertidal were severely affected by the spill and continued to show adverse effects from exposure to oil for many years after the spill. These effects manifested themselves in reduced survival rates and diminished populations. In recent years, however, there is evidence of improvement. The extent of oil exposure appears to be diminishing in most species, and there is evidence that the populations of some species are beginning to increase." That sounds encouraging. But it doesn't change the fact that, despite outward appearance, 21 years after the Exxon Valdez spill, Prince William Sound is not pristine. You may not be able to see it, but scientists and anyone willing to turn over rocks with a shovel attest to the fact that thousands of gallons of oil remain buried in some beaches, and the oil continues to adversely affect the environment. We rule Limbaugh's statement False. | null | Rush Limbaugh | null | null | null | 2010-04-30T18:21:47 | 2010-04-29 | ['Prince_William_Sound', 'Alaska'] |
pomt-00481 | Wisconsin's still one of the highest-taxed states in the country. | mostly false | /wisconsin/statements/2018/aug/10/josh-pade/democratic-candidate-wisconsin-governor-miscalcula/ | Josh Pade was a latecomer to the crowded Democratic governor’s race. The Kenosha lawyer has not been a major factor in the polls, or the fundraising tallies. But we were struck by a claim Pade made June 1, 2018, in an interview on WisconsinEye, since it went right to the tax cuts Republican Gov. Scott Walker touts as a major achievement. When asked what he would do about the state’s struggling middle class, Pade referenced his tax background and said as governor he wants to put together a bipartisan group to reform the state’s tax code. He also said this: "Scott Walker touts his tax cuts. Unfortunately Wisconsin’s still one of the highest-taxed states in the country." Is he right about Wisconsin’s tax status? The evidence When we asked Pade’s campaign to provide backup for the statement, spokeswoman Kate Cooney pointed us to a study by Wallethub, a personal finance website, that ranked Wisconsin as 46th in effective tax rate (Number 1 being the lowest). "We do acknowledge that other measurements of taxation have shown a lowered trend over time beginning before Governor Walker took office, but those studies are not as comprehensive in their data sets," said Cooney. "We have also pointed out the tax burden as a percentage of income in Wisconsin is often lower on the most wealthiest income brackets than those with lower income." A spokesman for Walker’s campaign declined to offer any evidence on the issue, so we checked with a variety of experts and other rankings. Since Pade’s statement referred to taxes in general, we’ll start with what experts said about the overall tax burden. Tamarine Cornelius, a research analyst at the Wisconsin Budget Project: She said the state ranks somewhere in the middle when looking at state and local taxes -- 20th when measured on a per-state resident basis in 2015 and 21st when measured as a share of personal income. "Measured either way, state and local taxes in Wisconsin are actually below the national average," she said, noting that when fees are included it drops Wisconsin’s rank even further. "In Wisconsin, residents pay lower fees than residents in many other states," she said. Tax Foundation: A 2018 report from the Tax Foundation, an independent tax policy nonprofit, also shows Wisconsin in the middle of the pack with a rank of 18 for state tax collections per capita for 2016. Richard Auxier, a research associate with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute: "It looks like it’s a stretch to say Wisconsin is one of the highest taxed states in the country," he said. He mentioned the state’s "somewhat progressive" income tax rates, noting the top rate isn’t that high compared to other states; the existence of an Earned Income Tax Credit, though it isn’t as large as some others; and an average, if not low, sales tax rate compared to other states. So, all three put Wisconsin in the middle of the pack, not "one of the highest." Why does the Wallethub study differ? Cornelius said she had concerns with how Wallethub did its analysis. She noted thestate Legislative Fiscal Bureau had determined the amount of property taxes paid on a median-valued house in Wisconsin to be $2,830. Cornelius said the Wallethub study "overestimated property taxes on a median-valued house by 27%." Specific taxes What about Wisconsin’s rank for specific taxes? On property taxes, we contacted senior research analyst Adam Langley from the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a nonprofit focused on economic, social and environmental components of land. He pointed us to a ranking of states by property tax collection as a percentage of personal income from the Tax Policy Center’s State and Local Data Query Systembased on a survey of state and local governments. Wisconsin ranked 12th at 3.7 percent. He also pointed to an analysis his group did using U.S. Census Bureau data. That analysis examined the median property tax bill as a percentage of the median household income for homeowners for 2015. Wisconsin ranked eighth at 4.6 percent. "Property taxes are definitely higher in most New England states, New Jersey and Illinois than they are in Wisconsin," Langley said, "Depending on the specific measure of property taxes used for the comparison, there are several more states that also have higher property taxes than Wisconsin." On income taxes, Auxier called Wisconsin’s income taxes "somewhat progressive" and referenced the state Department of Revenue’s tax rates and an Urban Institute summary of U.S. Census Bureau data. Auxier said Wisconsin’s four brackets, with a top rate on income above $329,810 for married filers, are relatively progressive because half the states that have an income tax have one flat rate or a threshold for their top rate on income below $40,000, which is "essentially flat." Auxier said the most important thing to keep in mind when thinking about state taxes is different people pay different taxes. This is why statements saying one state is the highest-taxed are not that simple. He referenced an Urban Institute study he co-authored that estimated what each state’s revenue would look like with a tax system based on national average tax rates. Results showed "Wisconsin’s actual taxes raise about as much revenue as it would with the average system," Auxier said. Our rating Pade said "Wisconsin's still one of the highest-taxed states in the country." The study his campaign provided as evidence was from an organization that does not specialize in tax analysis and experts we spoke with were skeptical of how the study was done. In any case, the statement was too broad to be accurate. Specific taxes may rank higher than others, and the rankings might vary for different income groups. But the claim was about taxes in general. And, in general, the state is now more middle of the pack. We rate his statement Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Josh Pade | null | null | null | 2018-08-10T14:57:20 | 2018-06-01 | ['Wisconsin'] |
pomt-04457 | Says Romney wants to "take away early childhood education, slash K-12 funding, and cut college aid … to pay for a $250,000 tax break for multi-millionaires." | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/10/priorities-usa-action/super-pac-says-romney-takes-education-gives-millio/ | A new super PAC ad accuses Mitt Romney of pushing deep cuts in education to finance a tax cut for the wealthy. The ad from Priorities USA Action, which supports President Barack Obama, shows images of children playing, along with these words: "Take away his toys, and he’ll play with a stick. Take away their bikes, and they’ll still find a way to get where they’re going. But if you take away early childhood education, slash K-12 funding and cut college aid for middle class families, they won’t go far. Yet that’s exactly what Mitt Romney wants to do to pay for a $250,000 tax break for multi-millionaires." The kicker: "If Mitt Romney wins, the middle class loses." A spokesman for Priorities USA told us that the claims about education refer to the budget proposed by Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan. We’ll check whether the ad is accurate about the budget’s impact on education and if those changes are things Romney "wants to do" in order to fund a tax cut. The Ryan budget Ryan, a congressman from Wisconsin, first presented his budget in 2011. Versions of it have passed the House each of the last two years, but it has never passed the Democratic-controlled Senate. The 2013 proposal cuts $5.3 trillion from the federal ledger over the next decade by enacting major changes in entitlement programs and making steep reductions in discretionary domestic spending. It’s important to keep in mind that Ryan’s plan doesn’t say which programs would be cut or by how much, nor does it dictate that programs be cut across the board. On early childhood education: Nowhere in the Ryan budget is there a line item cutting Head Start funding, or any other program. But because the budget reduces federal spending so drastically -- from its current level of 12.5 percent of GDP down to 5.75 percent by 2030 -- experts say deep program cuts will be necessary. The numbers alone have early education advocates nervous. One analysis by the National Education Association determined that Ryan’s proposed 2013 budget could eliminate spots in Head Start programs for about 191,000 children in 2014, and 2 million over the next decade. Head Start uses federal funds to provide education, nutrition and parent-involvement services to help low-income kids be school ready by age 5. Romney’s campaign website does not mention early education. We would note that during his time as governor of Massachusetts, Romney vetoed a bill that had passed the legislature authorizing universal prekindergarten in the state. On K-12 funding: the ad points to a study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning think tank. The study notes that a cut of 22 percent in 2014 of non-discretionary spending, plus more in subsequent years, "would force states and localities to reduce the quality and reach of their basic public systems — their schools, clean water facilities, and law enforcement activities, for example — or raise new revenue or cut other programs to continue meeting these needs. Either way, the result would be a huge cost shift from the federal government to states and localities." Again, as this study points out, these cuts are speculative. It would be state and local governments deciding on the cuts, not the federal government. On college aid for the middle class: This charge stems from a study by the Tax Policy Center, a joint project of the Brookings Institution and Urban Institute, attempting to calculate the effects of Romney’s tax proposal. The proposal lacks detail but sets some broad outlines, including allowing the American Opportunity tax credit for higher education, which was part of the 2009 stimulus bill, to expire. According to the study, Romney’s economic advisers say that the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC) would revert back to the Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally (HOPE) tax credit, which also provides aid to college students but is less generous and covers fewer Americans than the AOTC. In addition, Romney and Ryan have been criticized for what could happen to federal Pell Grants in Ryan’s budget. The program provides the largest source of grant funding for needy college students, with more than 9.7 million students expected to get grants worth up to $5,635 per student in 2013, according to the Education Department. Republicans say in documents accompanying the budget that they favor reining in the Pell program, by keeping the maximum grant award in 2013 at this year's level of $5,550, and other means. The House Budget Committee says it would stay at $5,550 for the full 10 years of the budget, though that’s not spelled out in the budget resolution itself. In fact, the budget resolution says nothing at all about Pell grants. Romney’s stance So where does Romney stand on the Ryan budget? That answer is something of a moving target. In March 2012, Romney said in Chicago, "I’m very supportive of the Ryan budget plan. The following week, while campaigning in Wisconsin, he added, "I think it’d be marvelous if the Senate were to pick up Paul Ryan’s budget and adopt it and pass it along to the President." More recently, since Ryan joined the ticket, Romney has said the two agree broadly. "I’m sure there are places that my budget is different than his, but we’re on the same page," he said in August. The campaign has also emphasized the Romney will put together his own plan. But on his website, Romney makes this promise about "stopping the bleeding" of federal spending: "Pass the House Republican Budget proposal, rolling back President Obama’s government expansion by capping non-security discretionary spending below 2008 levels." Regarding the specific charges in the ad, the Romney campaign points to remarks he has made on the trail. On early childhood education and K-12 funding: "I'm not going to cut education funding. I don't have any plan to cut education funding and grants that go to people going to college. I'm planning on continuing to grow, so I'm not planning on making changes there," Romney said in his Oct. 3 debate with Obama. On college aid: "We’re going to continue a Pell Grant program. … I think the Republican budget called for a Pell Grants being capped out at their current high level. My inclination would be to have them go with the rate of inflation," he said at a Univision Forum in Miami on Sept. 19. About those multi-millionaires Finally, the Priorities USA ad says Romney will make all these education cuts "to pay for a $250,000 tax break for multi-millionaires." The dollar figure also comes from the Tax Policy Center study. The authors found that under Romney’s proposal, people with $1 million or more in annual cash income will receive an average tax cut of $250,535. Those in the millionaire category will receive an 11.8 percent increase in after-tax income, easily the highest of any income group. Collectively, the tax savings for millionaires would amount to nearly one-third of all the tax benefits that result from Romney’s plan. But is the accounting really that simple? There’s not a direct link between spending cuts and tax rates for the wealthy, said Maya MacGuineas, president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. They’re separate policy areas, and legislation affecting each area would typically be handled separately. Nevertheless, choices about spending and taxes are not entirely unrelated, given the imbalance in the federal budget in recent years and the significant debt that is building up, MacGuineas said. We asked her in general about the various Democratic claims saying that specific spending cuts "pay for" tax breaks for the wealthy. "It’s a huge fight over priorities and semantics," she said. "But it’s difficult to say that one is linked to the other." Our ruling Priorities USA Action said Romney wants to pay for a tax cut for multimillionaires by taking away early childhood education, slashing K-12 funding, and cutting college aid for middle class families. Each charge is an interpretation of how the House budget, proposed by Ryan and somewhat embraced by Romney, could impact education at all levels. The warnings are plausible given the scale of spending cuts called for in Ryan’s budget, but they’re speculative -- these cuts aren’t specified in the Ryan budget, and Romney has said his policies would be different. Finally, spending cuts and tax breaks aren’t a one-to-one comparison, though they do reflect priorities. The ad’s claim contains an element of truth but takes liberties as it tries to fill in the blanks in Romney's plan. We rate it Mostly False. | null | Priorities USA Action | null | null | null | 2012-10-10T16:22:29 | 2012-10-08 | ['None'] |
snes-02429 | If the vial to a mercury-containing vaccine is broken, the building must be evacuated. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/vaccine-vial-evacuating-building/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Would Breaking a Vaccine Vial Necessitate Evacuating a Building? | 15 May 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-06309 | The ghostly image of a boy who died in the home where Three Men and a Baby was filmed can be seen in the finished movie. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/three-men-and-a-ghost/ | null | Entertainment | null | David Mikkelson | null | Does a Ghost Boy Appear in ‘Three Men and a Baby’? | 2 June 1997 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01522 | Paul LePage: Hungry Kids Grow Up to Be Better Workers | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/paul-lepage-hungry-kids-grow-better-workers/ | null | government | null | null | ['congress', 'conservative agenda', 'satire', 'states'] | Paul LePage: Hungry Kids Grow Up to Be Better Workers | Aug 29, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02929 | “Dancing With The Stars” Pros In “Revolt,” | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/dancing-with-the-stars-pros-revolt-divas-dwts-salary-feud/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | “Dancing With The Stars” Pros NOT In “Revolt,” Despite Report | 12:49 pm, March 18, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
thal-00120 | Claim: Fianna Fáil’s policy on water charges is consistent with what they said during the election | half true | http://www.thejournal.ie/fianna-fail-water-charges-policy-changes-2976299-Sep2016/ | null | null | null | null | null | FactCheck: Has Fianna Fáil's position on water charges really been "consistent"? | Sep 14th 2016, 8:06 PM | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12150 | Bill Clinton gave North Korea $5 billion and two nuclear reactors in 1994, essentially giving them nukes. | false | /punditfact/statements/2017/aug/09/viral-image/viral-image-wrongly-blames-bill-clinton-giving-nor/ | A viral meme spreading through Twitter blames former President Bill Clinton for not just allowing North Korea to develop nuclear weapons, but fostering their program more than two decades ago. "Bill Clinton gave North Korea $5 billion and two nuclear reactors in 1994, essentially giving them nukes," read the meme we first noticed on Aug. 9, 2017. It included an image that showed Clinton seated next to late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. It’s worth noting that the photograph is actually from Aug. 4, 2009, when Clinton traveled to Pyongyang to negotiate the release of two American journalists. Kim Jong Il died two years later. HELP KEEP POLITIFACT GOING! MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO SUPPORT INDEPENDENT FACT-CHECKING The meme popped up after revelations that Kim Jong Un’s regime had potentially developed miniaturized nuclear devices capable of fitting inside intercontinental ballistic missiles. The center of this claim — that Clinton negotiated a deal with North Korea that included two reactors — is based on a real agreement. But there are significant problems with the assertion that Clinton paid the country $5 billion, "essentially giving them nukes." The Agreed Framework While president, Clinton did broker a deal with North Korea, amid revelations that the country was building a full-scale processing facility to produce plutonium. North Korea had kicked international inspectors out of the country in 1993, announcing its intention to pull out of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, an international agreement North Korea had joined in 1985. By then, the North Koreans had separated enough plutonium from spent fuel from a reactor it had built while Clinton was governor of Arkansas to create a couple of nuclear weapons, according to Joshua Pollack, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. In October 1994, Clinton arranged a deal with incoming leader Kim Jong Il, whose father Kim Il Sung had died in July. North Korea would have to take its current reactor offline and stop construction of two other reactors they said were for electricity. In exchange, the United States would help the country build two so-called light-water nuclear reactors to produce power for the country. The light-water reactors would make it harder for North Korea to produce weapons-grade material. Those reactors were estimated to cost about $4 billion, and would be financed by South Korea, Japan, and possibly Germany, Russia and the United States, the Washington Post reported. In addition, the United States would help provide heavy fuel oil to North Korea, which would have to halt plans to produce nuclear weapons and submit to international inspections. It would have to surrender spent nuclear fuel once the new reactors were built. The deal, which did not require congressional approval, was referred to as the Agreed Framework. Clinton hailed it as a path to easing sanctions and normalizing diplomatic relations. "This agreement will help achieve a longstanding and vital American objective — an end to the threat of nuclear proliferation on the Korean Peninsula," Clinton said of the deal. End of the deal Spoiler: The Agreed Framework failed. North Korea accelerated its efforts to enrich uranium, which wasn’t a direct violation of the framework, and accused the United States of reneging on fuel oil promises. That certainly irked the George W. Bush administration, which cut off fuel oil shipments in 2002. North Korea withdrew from the agreement, ending its obligation to abide by the deal’s terms. By 2006, North Korea claimed it had successfully tested a nuclear device. To say that Clinton’s deal was the culprit is wrong, however. Richard Nephew, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said that while the Agreed Framework was flawed, it impeded North Korea’s ambitions. The meme misrepresented much about the deal. "This is a problem that is years in the making, owned by bipartisan administrations, and — for a time, anyway — delayed by President Clinton rather than him giving North Korea nuclear weapons," Nephew said. Importantly, Clinton didn’t give North Korea two reactors, because the construction was never completed. You can even look up the unfinished sites online. And the $5 billion figure the viral image cited wasn’t cash, but likely included the construction costs of the reactors (which were never completed) and energy aid. The Congressional Research Service noted in a 2014 report that the United States provided more than $400 million in heavy fuel oil to North Korea between 1995 and 2003. The consortium created to oversee the reactors’ construction, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, still exists on paper. It officially ended the light-water reactor project, but is still working "to settle financial and legal obligations stemming from the termination." "All the North Koreans got out of it in the end is that they stole the construction equipment" for the reactors, Pollack said. "They also learned a few things about building that type of reactor. They’ve tried to make a small initial one themselves, but it appears to have been stalled for years now." In the meantime, Pollack added, the North Koreans have created enough plutonium and enriched enough uranium to create as many as 60 nuclear bombs. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com Our ruling An image circulating on the Internet claims "Bill Clinton gave North Korea $5 billion and two nuclear reactors in 1994, essentially giving them nukes." Clinton did negotiate a deal in 1994 to provide two nuclear reactors and provide heavy fuel oil to North Korea in exchange for the country giving up its nuclear weapons program. That's about where the truth of this image stops. The energy aid costs didn’t approach anywhere near $5 billion, and the reactors were never built. North Korea had continued to enrich uranium on its own, leading the Bush administration to end the deal. The agreement, while a failure, didn’t give North Korea nuclear weapons. Experts said the agreement actually slowed North Korea down. We rate this statement False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Viral image | null | null | null | 2017-08-09T16:03:54 | 2017-08-09 | ['Bill_Clinton', 'North_Korea'] |
goop-01630 | Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert At “War”? | 2 | https://www.gossipcop.com/blake-shelton-miranda-lambert-war-made-up/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Blake Shelton, Miranda Lambert At “War”? | 1:49 pm, February 7, 2018 | null | ['Blake_Shelton'] |
pomt-05576 | I think it’s seven or eight of the California system of universities don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to be taught. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/apr/03/rick-santorum/rick-santorum-says-american-history-not-available-/ | Rick Santorum might want to read more closely next time. On the stump in Wisconsin on April 2, 2012, the Republican presidential candidate filled in his audience on something he was "just reading … last night." "I think it’s seven or eight of the California system of universities don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to be taught," he said. "Just to tell you how bad it's gotten in this country, where we're trying to disconnect the American people from the roots of who we are, so they have an understanding of what America should be." Soon the progressive news site Think Progress posted a video clip, along with some skepticism, triggering links around the Web. Readers asked us: Was Santorum right? Do that many state universities in California fail to offer American history courses? ‘The California system of universities’ California has a two-tiered university system, with 23 campuses in the California State University system and 10 University of California campuses. All 23 CSU campuses offer courses on U.S. History, the Constitution and American ideals, said Erik Fallis, media relations manager for the California State University — indeed, almost every student needs such a class (or two) to graduate. The story is slightly different at the University of California, which also has an American history and institutions requirement. The graduation requirement can be satisfied with a high school class, except at UC Santa Barbara, which requires a college-level course. Does that mean the campuses don’t offer American history courses? Not at all. Of the nine University of California campuses that offer humanities classes — the San Francisco campus focuses exclusively on health sciences — all nine offer American history. Do those classes get to "the roots of who we are," as Santorum said? Well, among the offerings at UC Davis is "The American Revolution, 1763-1790." UC Riverside teaches upper-division courses on "Revolutionary America" and "The Early Republic: The United States, 1789-1848." UC Santa Cruz includes a course on the "U.S. Revolution: 1740-1815." UC Berkeley addresses, "The United States from Settlement to Civil War." UCLA has "History of the U.S. and Its Colonial Origins: 19th Century" and "Constitutional History of U.S.: Origins and Development of Constitutionalism in U.S." Bottom line, of 33 state universities in California, just one, a health sciences campus, doesn’t teach American history — and nearly all graduates have to complete a related course to graduate, whether in high school or college. What was Santorum talking about? Santorum’s reading We contacted Santorum’s campaign to ask for support for his claim but didn’t hear back. So we tried tracing his reading material ourselves. Eric Dolan, an editor for progressive news site Raw Story, noted that Santorum appeared to be making a reference to a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, "How California's Colleges Indoctrinate Students." The March 30, 2012, column by Hoover Institution fellow Peter Berkowitz argues that higher education is politicized and declining in quality as its curriculum changes. He notes: "None of the nine general campuses in the UC system requires students to study the history and institutions of the United States. None requires students to study Western civilization, and on seven of the nine UC campuses, including Berkeley, a survey course in Western civilization is not even offered." Berkowitz is right that most University of California campuses don’t require a college-level course, with the exception of Santa Barbara — though they do require at least a high-school level class. We didn’t check on class offerings in Western civilization, since that’s not what Santorum said. Berkowitz also cites a recent report, called "A Crisis of Competence," from the National Association of Scholars, where he’s on the board of directors. It mentions that "the vast majority of our colleges have made a course on the broad themes of U.S. history or government optional." Then it points out a laudable exception: The California State University system. "All but three of the more than twenty campuses of the CSU system require American History and Institutions as an essential part of their curricula. But the situation in UC is very different: not a single UC campus has such a requirement. … To be sure, UC requires a year of U.S. history in high school for undergraduate admissions, but University of California level instruction ought to be on a completely different level – why otherwise would students need to go on to a university at all if high school coursework is equivalent?" Santorum went much further than either Berkowitz or the National Association of Scholars report, declaring that at seven or eight universities in the California system, they "don’t even teach an American history course." There’s simply no support for that claim. Our ruling Rick Santorum said, "I think it’s seven or eight of the California system of universities don’t even teach an American history course. It’s not even available to be taught." While he appeared to be referencing a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, he bungled the details — and badly. Far from "not available," American history courses are offered at all but one of 33 state universities in California. We rate his statement False. | null | Rick Santorum | null | null | null | 2012-04-03T18:26:05 | 2012-04-02 | ['United_States', 'California'] |
snes-05737 | President Obama has decreed that the phrase "In God We Trust" be removed from all U.S. currency. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/currency-exchange-2/ | null | Business | null | David Mikkelson | null | ‘In God We Trust’ to be Removed from U.S. Currency | 24 May 2014 | null | ['United_States', 'Barack_Obama', 'God'] |
pomt-08076 | The Milwaukee business community "did not speak about the facts" -- and in support of train manufacturer Talgo -- as the Milwaukee-Madison rail link was being killed. | true | /wisconsin/statements/2010/dec/20/talgo-inc/talgo-says-milwaukee-business-community-did-not-sp/ | Nearly two years ago, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle made a quiet trip to Spain to look into high speed rail. During that jaunt -- announced the day he departed -- Doyle visited train maker Talgo Inc. Talgo had been seeking business in Wisconsin, and Doyle’s visit was another step in the courting dance between the Spanish firm and state and local officials, a relationship that turned into a sour one in December 2010. Not long after Doyle’s visit, Talgo won a $43.1 million no-bid contract to build two trains for Amtrak service between Milwaukee and Chicago. Local officials had hoped Talgo would share work with local firm Super Steel, but Talgo rejected that idea. Milwaukee later offered Talgo incentives to open its own factory at a portion of the old Tower Automotive site on the city’s north side. Talgo also received an option for two more trains as part of $810 million in federal funds for a planned high-speed route from Milwaukee to Madison. The firm was in the process of hiring 125 people to build the trains when the project hit the wall. Virtually all of that federal money was withdrawn Dec. 9 and sent to other states after Governor-elect Scott Walker held fast to his opposition to the Milwaukee-Madison link. And the finger-pointing began. Well, make that, continued. Talgo issued a statement from Nora Friend, the company’s vice president for public affairs and business development, that included this comment directed at the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce: "Talgo is also disappointed that the business community did not speak about the facts on this project." She added: "Talgo was encouraged by the business community to move to Wisconsin, and they were silent about the very same facts that made this project the only one in the nation that qualified to be fully funded by the federal government." So, did the influential MMAC really sit idle while a new employer was, in essence, sent packing? Even after, in late November, Talgo pleaded publicly pleaded that it speak out on behalf of the train project? We talked with MMAC president Tim Sheehy, one of the most plugged in business and political figures in the state. The high speed train situation, he said, was one of the most contentious matters he has grappled with in the 17 years he’s led the group. Sheehy took the unusual step of surveying his membership about high speed rail and posted the results online. "It was huge and it was hot," he said of the response. About 40 percent of MMAC members responded, and about 200 included comments with their vote. The key question: "Do you support creation of a high speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison as part of a proposed Midwest rail network connecting Chicago to the Twin Cities?" The answer was a 50-50 split: 214 members for and the same number against. Said Sheehy: "When you have a membership split so dramatically and so evenly on an issue you don’t have anything to lobby for." The MMAC previously had supported the Milwaukee-Madison connection, along with the new trains and other upgrades for the service to Chicago. Sheehy said he went "line by line" through the application for the $810 million to tease out items that his members would agree upon. "We wanted to see if there was a way to keep half of the money," for existing rail service, he said, adding: "Why throw out the baby with the bathwater?" Sheehy’s efforts to find middle ground failed, in part because the positions of Walker and the federal Department of Transportation were so rigid. Five weeks after the Nov. 2 election, the feds said they would yank the money from Wisconsin. One day later Talgo said it would pull out the manufacturing jobs after the work was done. Some 60 maintenance jobs will remain. "Quite frankly, the door closed pretty fast here," Sheehy said. Sheehy included this statement with the survey results, which were posted after the state lost the train money: "We are disappointed the administration took an ‘all or nothing’ approach to these funds. While our survey reflected clear disagreement on the passenger rail spur to Madison, there was considerable support for individual components of the proposal that would have upgraded existing passenger and freight rail capacity." Friend said Talgo felt the MMAC survey "did not do justice or reflect benefits of rail development." She said Talgo thought the MMAC "would be a neutral educational resource and could speak factually about pros and cons of different infrastructure projects and help disseminate accurate information for people who naturally don't appreciate rail because they are not privileged to know that industry or its benefits." "A simple return on investment analysis could prove that a $810 million project shows a very positive return even if the state had to invest $7.5 million a year over 20 years." Talgo is not a MMAC member, but Sheehy said that had no bearing on the group’s handling of the issue. So where does that leave us? The state lost $810 million in federal funds, Talgo’s train manufacturing jobs and the area’s leading business group and political leaders have a black eye for wooing and then freezing out an international business. Some of Talgo’s ire was directed toward the MMAC, for not speaking out on its behalf. The organization said its hands were tied by a split membership. We rate the statement True. | null | Talgo Inc. | null | null | null | 2010-12-20T09:00:00 | 2010-12-10 | ['Milwaukee', 'Talgo'] |
pomt-07591 | On his support for sharply limiting collective bargaining by public employees. | half flip | /wisconsin/statements/2011/mar/25/jeff-stone/collective-bargaining-stones-votes-were-consistent/ | State Rep. Jeff Stone’s path to keeping the Milwaukee County executive’s job in Republican hands became a bumpy one when massive protests greeted Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to sharply curtail collective bargaining rights for public employees. Stone supported Walker’s move in two Assembly votes, but his comments in between those votes drew criticism from opponent Chris Abele, who said Stone, R-Greendale, was trying to have it both ways. That means it’s time to roll out the Flip-O-Meter, which measures whether politicians have changed their position on key issues. Here’s our standard disclaimer: We’re not evaluating whether it was good or bad policy -- or politics -- to shift, just to what degree a shift occurred. Let’s start back in February. At a Feb. 11, 2011, news conference in Madison, Stone joined a small group who stood with Walker as the governor unveiled his budget-repair bill. The plan included the collective bargaining changes imposed new pension and health care contributions on workers. On Feb. 22, 2011, amid the Capitol protests, Stone argued against changes in Walker’s budget-repair bill, which he termed a difficult but reasonable step to solving deficits of $130 million in the budget year that ends June 30, 2011, and more than $3 billion for the next two years. "I don't think we can solve this problem by going part way with this bill," he said in lengthy remarks during the Assembly floor debate. He backed his words with his votes: Stone voted against dozens of Democratic amendments during the long debate on the bill, including ones that would have preserved the current collective bargaining setup. So, no change in position there. Ten days later, wearing his other hat as a candidate to succeed Walker as Milwaukee County executive, Stone took a different tack. He told a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter he would have taken a different approach to the budget than limiting collective bargaining and signaled he would have supported the budget bill without the provisions. "I understand it's a major issue to the unions," Stone said in the story. "It's not necessarily the way I would have drafted this budget-repair bill. I would have approached it in different ways." "Those weren’t elements that had to be included for me to support this bill," Stone said, according to the reporter’s notes. "I didn’t think they were necessary for me to make the (pension and health) changes in Milwaukee County." Stone, the Journal Sentinel story reported, emphasized that he felt the other provisions in the measure made the repair bill worth supporting. So Stone had voted against amendments that would have kept the bargaining rights intact -- but said soon after that he would have been willing to support a version that kept the bargaining rights intact. Was he doing one thing and saying another? It was those remarks that touched off partisan charges of double-speak and flip-flopping. They also drew some skeptical attention from a conservative Walker campaign supporter who backs the governor’s plans regarding unions. WTMJ-AM (620) talk show host Charlie Sykes asked Stone during his March 8, 2011, show to explain his position in light of his remarks to the newspaper. "I’m confused," Sykes told candidate Stone. Stone said he was "confused" about the story but did not suggest it was wrong. He said he was trying to draw a contrast between his views and those of Walker. He repeated his position that there were things he "might have approached differently" on bargaining. But moments later he tacked again, offering an unequivocal defense of Walker’s plan. "I support what’s in the bill," Stone said. "I support what Gov. Walker has proposed. I support the requirements there as far as the votes that are in the bill." On the same day, Stone’s office tried to remove all doubt, quoting Stone in a news release as saying: "My position on collective bargaining for public employees is this; the current practice needs to be ended." The Assembly gave the bill final passage on March 10 -- a scaled-down version that nevertheless kept intact all the collective bargaining restrictions. We turned to Stone to explain his shifting statements. He did not challenge that he told the Journal Sentinel he would have excluded the bargaining limits. He acknowledged that people could read into his remarks that he was against the move. Stone said he erred when he said that he would have written the bill differently. He said he underestimated the size of the state’s budget challenge, saying it became clear when Walker came out with his two-year budget for 2011-’13, which is separate from the short-term budget-repair bill. "I didn’t understand the budget situation," including how deep the cuts would be if the bargaining changes were not made, Stone said. But Walker’s budget was introduced two days before Stone made his remarks to the newspaper. "I never flipped on the bill," Stone said. "I voted for it both times." Stone’s right on that. But he has offered clearly inconsistent statements on his feelings on the most controversial aspect of the bill, appearing to want it both ways and changing rhetorical course several times. On the Flip-O-Meter, here is the definition for a Half Flip: "A partial change of position or inconsistent statements." That’s what fits here. | null | Jeff Stone | null | null | null | 2011-03-25T09:00:00 | 2011-03-03 | ['None'] |
snes-05098 | Bernie Sanders called for "chemtrail reform" during a campaign stop in Nevada. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bernie-sanders-chemtrail-reform/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Bernie Sanders on Chemtrails? | 8 March 2016 | null | ['Nevada', 'Bernie_Sanders'] |
tron-01588 | 5 Things You Should Know About Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/5-things-you-should-know-about-benjamin-bibi-netanyahu/ | null | government | null | null | null | 5 Things You Should Know About Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu | Mar 19, 2015 | null | ['Benjamin_Netanyahu'] |
pomt-04722 | Says that when Democrats controlled Congress and the White House, federal spending as a share of the Gross Domestic Product leapt from 18.2 percent in 2001 to 25.2 percent in 2009 -- the largest such increase in any eight-year period since World War II. | mostly false | /texas/statements/2012/aug/31/john-cornyn/john-cornyn-says-when-democrats-controlled-congres/ | U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, recently declared an "inconvenient factoid" about Democrats and spending. Cornyn’s Aug. 21, 2012, Facebook post says next that "when Ds controlled Congress and WH: federal spending as a share of GDP leapt from 18.2 percent in 2001 to 25.2 percent in 2009 (this was the largest such increase in ANY 8 year period since WWII)." That is, Cornyn says, federal spending in comparison to the nation’s economic production, or Gross Domestic Product, spiked. Asked how the senator reached his conclusion, his spokesman, Scott Gosnell, pointed us to a chart in a report by the Office of Management and Budget, the budget-policy arm of the executive branch. And according to the chart, federal outlays were equivalent to 18.2 percent of the GDP in 2001 and 25.2 percent of the GDP in 2009, as Cornyn says. Such spending dipped to 24.1 percent of the GDP in 2010 and 2011, according to the chart, which appears on a White House web page in connection with President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for the 2013 fiscal year. And was the 39 percent increase over that period the greatest since World War II? Seems so. Federal outlays were equal to 9.8 percent of the GDP in 1940. They were 43.6 percent of the GDP in 1943 and 1944, the chart says, or more than quadruple the 1940 ratio.. From 1947 through 1974, by our calculation, the ratio averaged 18 percent. It was 20 percent to nearly 24 percent each year from 1975 through 1997, dropping to 18.5 percent in 1999. In other words, we did not spot any eight-year post-WW II spikes bigger than the one underscored by Cornyn. Then again, we noticed, federal spending as a share of GDP averaged 20 percent over his cited years, not much greater than in previous years. Also, in two years, 2004 and 2007, federal spending compared with the GDP was slightly down from the previous year. Next, we looked into whether Democrats controlled Congress and the White House over the cited years, as Cornyn says. Not exactly. A Democrat, Bill Clinton, was president for about four months at the start of the 2001 fiscal year. But George W. Bush, a Republican, was president from Jan. 20, 2001, until Obama, a Democrat, was inaugurated on Jan. 20, 2009. Obama accounts for a little more than eight months of the cited years. And did Democrats rule Congress over those years? Occasionally, though Republicans were dominant for longer spells. As we noted in an earlier fact check, the GOP controlled the House from 1995 through 2006, while Democrats controlled the House from 2007 through 2010, as detailed on a House web page. According to a Senate web page, Republicans were the upper chamber’s majority party in 2000 through early June 2001 and again from Nov. 12, 2002, through 2006. Democrats have comprised the majority since 2007. So, a Republican was president for all but one of the cited years and Republicans held the House majority for six of the nine years and a Senate majority for about four years and seven months of the nine years -- with Democrats holding the Senate majority for four years and five months. Still, Democrats held House and Senate majorities from 2007 through 2010 -- and Obama was president for 2009 and 2010. Over this more limited time period, the ratio of spending to the GDP escalated from nearly 21 percent to 25.2 percent before dropping to 24.1 percent. We asked Cornyn’s office about the mixed-bag dominance of Democrats in his cited period. Gosnell replied by email that Cornyn "was making the point that out of the 8-point increase in outlays between 2001-2009, the majority of that increase (5.5 points) occurred in just three years – 2007-2009 – the same three years the Democrats controlled both chambers and then the WH in 2009. The point is: the huge jump in outlays occurred with D’s in charge." That’s an interesting focus, yet not what Cornyn wrote on Facebook. The theme of Gosnell’s reply, that the brunt of the spending-to-GDP uptick occurred when Democrats were dominant, was explored in a June 4, 2012, article by our colleagues at FactCheck.org, headlined: "Obama’s Spending: ‘Inferno’ or Not?" That article says the one-year 19 percent spending surge in fiscal 2009 "was mostly due to appropriations and policies that were already in place when Obama took office" in January 2009, the fourth month of the fiscal year. Obama’s spending initiatives, the story says, increased that year’s spending by up to $203 billion, or well under half the year’s overall increase, which was caused in part by bank bailout legislation approved by President Bush. The FactCheck.org article mentions a May 24, 2012, analysis in Forbes by Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior fellow at the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute, giving responsibility for even less of the 2009 increase to Obama. Generally, Mitchell concluded that since President Lyndon Johnson’s tenure, George W. Bush shakes out, like Johnson and Richard Nixon, a "relatively profligate" president. We asked Mitchell about Cornyn’s recent statement blaming Democrats for the spending-to-GDP increase. Mitchell replied by email that while most of the key spending increases occurred after Democrats won control of Congress in the 2006 elections, the bumps also had Bush’s approval, "so both parties deserve blame." Finally, the story by FactCheck.org says that the health care overhaul Obama signed into law in 2010 calls for a new spending wave, starting in 2014, to subsidize coverage for millions of Americans who would otherwise lack it -- adding an estimated $110 billion to federal outlays in fiscal 2015, and more in later years. Significantly, too, the story says, government revenue receipts are running well below historical averages. "It is the combination of historically high spending and low revenues that is producing the current string of trillion-dollar annual deficits, and piling up debt," FactCheck.org said. "Those who blame deficits solely on spending ignore the other side of the ledger." Our ruling Cornyn said that when Democrats controlled Congress and the White House, federal spending as a share of the GDP leapt from 18.2 percent in 2001 to 25.2 percent in 2009 -- the largest such increase in any eight-year period since World War II. Those percentages and the claim to a post-war record are correct. However, Democrats were in control of Congress solely in the last few years of the period and held the presidency for only eight of the 108 cited months. All told, Cornyn’s claim has the math right but errs significantly by laying all the blame on Democrats. We rate it Mostly False. | null | John Cornyn | null | null | null | 2012-08-31T13:03:38 | 2012-08-21 | ['United_States_Congress', 'White_House', 'Democratic_Party_(United_States)'] |
pomt-14436 | Almost every poll has shown that Sanders vs. Trump does a lot better than Clinton vs. Trump … and, that’s true nationally. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/08/bernie-sanders/bernie-sanders-says-he-consistently-beats-donald-t/ | To potential supporters who worry about his viability as a general-election candidate, Bernie Sanders has often pointed to polls showing him doing better against Republican frontrunner Donald Trump than Sanders’ Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. Sanders repeated this point during the Democratic presidential debate in Flint, Mich., on March 6. "I would love to run against Donald Trump, and I’ll tell you why," Sanders said. "For a start, … not all, but almost every poll has shown that Sanders vs. Trump does a lot better than Clinton vs. Trump. … And, that’s true nationally." We decided to take a closer look at the national polling data and to check with polling experts to see whether head-to-head polls at this stage of the campaign are reliable. HELP US RAISE $15,000 TO HIRE AN EXTRA FACT-CHECKER Using the RealClearPolitics.com poll archive, we found seven national surveys since Jan. 1 that tested both Clinton and Sanders against Trump in a general-election contest. Here’s the rundown. For each poll, the candidate who runs stronger against Trump is listed in bold. Poll and date Clinton vs. Trump result Sanders vs. Trump result CNN/ORC, 2/24-2/27 Clinton +6 Sanders +12 Fox News, 2/15-2/17 Clinton +5 Sanders +15 Quinnipiac, 2/10-2/15 Clinton +1 Sanders +6 USA Today/Suffolk, 2/11-2/15 Trump +2 Trump +1 Public Policy Polling, 2/2-2/3 Clinton +7 Sanders +4 Quinnipiac, 2/2, 2/4 Clinton +5 Sanders +10 NBC-Wall St. Journal, 1/9-1/13 Clinton +10 Sanders +15 The chart shows that Sanders has a point. Of the seven polls in 2016 that tested both Democratic candidates, Sanders ran stronger against Trump in six of them. (In one case, the USA Today/Suffolk poll, Trump beat both, but beat Sanders by slightly less.) Case closed? Not quite, say polling experts. Clinton has been scrutinized and attacked as a public figure for a quarter century, but Sanders is a relatively new figure to voters nationally. So while a lot of voters’ minds are already made up about Clinton based on her long history in the public eye, it remains to be seen how open potential voters will be to supporting Sanders once Republicans start airing negative attacks, especially ones that note his identification as a democratic socialist. (We have previously reported that, according to polls, being a socialist is a less attractive quality for voters than being an atheist.) "Very few Americans are making these comparisons yet, so opinion about these choices is likely to be weakly held, particularly for a large number of middle-of-the-road, independent, and disinterested Americans who are not participating in primaries and caucuses," said Steven S. Smith, a Washington University political scientist and a specialist in public opinion. Smith added that early polls do not weed out "likely voters," as polls later in the campaign do. This could matter, given Sanders’ high rates of support among college students and younger voters, who have not yet demonstrated a long track record of voting. "If Sanders draws disproportionately from people who are not likely to vote, which is a reasonable speculation at this point, then his support may be somewhat overstated in some comparisons," Smith said. (He added that the same high level of first-time or irregular voters applies to Trump, but this should be less of a factor for Clinton, whose supporters skew older and more experienced than Sanders’ do.) Karlyn Bowman, a polling analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, agreed that "national polls don’t have a great deal of predictive value this early in the campaign." She pointed to research by Harry Enten, a polling analyst at the website fivethirtyeight.com. Enten found that since 1944, general election polls about a year before Election Day "have only been weakly predictive of the eventual result." He found that polls pitting the eventual Democratic and Republican nominees were, on average, off by more than 10 points from the eventual result. To cite just one example, Enten wrote that "if you trusted the polls in late 1991, you might have thought Bill Clinton was finished in the 1992 presidential election. George H.W. Bush was ahead of Clinton by 21 percentage points at the time; Bush was basking in sky-high approval ratings after the first Gulf War. But as the Gulf War triumph faded and the economy became the focus of the campaign, Clinton would gain in the polls and eventually overtake Bush." Our ruling Sanders said that "almost every poll has shown that Sanders vs. Trump does a lot better than Clinton vs. Trump … and, that’s true nationally." On the numbers, Sanders is right. He runs stronger against Trump than Clinton in six of the seven national head-to-head polls since Jan. 1. However, polling experts say such results should be taken with a grain of salt, since polls taken well before the start of the general-election contest have historically not been very accurate predictors of the November results. The statement is accurate but needs additional context, so we rate it Mostly True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bernie Sanders | null | null | null | 2016-03-08T13:54:38 | 2016-03-06 | ['Bill_Clinton', 'Donald_Trump'] |
tron-02439 | Allen B. West Penned an Open Letter to Colin Kaepernick | authorship confirmed! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/allen-b-west-penned-open-letter-colin-kaepernick/ | null | miscellaneous | null | null | ['congress', 'criminal justice', 'media', 'sports'] | Allen B. West Penned an Open Letter to Colin Kaepernick | Sep 2, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04421 | Undocumented McDonald's worker Maria Englesia was fired for telling police officers "we don't serve pigs." | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/illegal-alien-denied-cops-service-we-dont-serve-pigs/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Illegal Alien Denied Cops Service, ‘We Don’t Serve Pigs’ | 19 July 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-06292 | Harley-Davidson's 'Fat Boy' motorcycle was designed to represent the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fat-boy/ | null | Business | null | David Mikkelson | null | Harley-Davidson Fat Boy | 8 November 2000 | null | ['Japan', 'Harley-Davidson'] |
farg-00082 | The U.S. sold its embassy in "the best site in all of London" and ended up building a new one in a "lousy location" at a loss to taxpayers of about $750 million. | distorts the facts | https://www.factcheck.org/2018/05/trump-blurs-facts-on-london-embassy/ | null | the-factcheck-wire | FactCheck.org | Robert Farley | ['embassy'] | Trump Blurs Facts on London Embassy | May 2, 2018 | 2018-05-02 18:22:37 UTC | ['United_States', 'London'] |
goop-02913 | Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck “Booze Boot Camp” Claim Tru | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-garner-boot-camp-ben-affleck-booze-rehab/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck “Booze Boot Camp” Claim NOT True | 9:52 am, March 24, 2017 | null | ['Ben_Affleck', 'Jennifer_Garner'] |
pomt-01332 | 95 percent of job creators say Wisconsin is headed in the right direction. | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2014/oct/24/republican-state-leadership-committee/nearly-all-wisconsin-job-creators-say-state-going-/ | The Republican State Leadership Committee, a Washington, D.C.-based group that works to elect GOP lieutenant governors and other "down-ballot" state officials, is new to PolitiFact. And it is newly making an eye-popping claim -- albeit one quite similar to a claim we rated more than a year and a half ago. In a Wisconsin radio ad released Oct. 9, 2014, the GOP group promotes the campaign of Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch, who is running on the ticket with Gov. Scott Walker in the Nov. 4, 2014 election. They face Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke and her running mate, state Sen. John Lehman of Racine. The ad makes a number of boasts about the Walker-Kleefisch administration, including this one: "95 percent of job creators say Wisconsin is headed in the right direction." That's decidedly favorable; but, the way the group states it, also misleading. Previous claim Walker made a similar claim in February 2012, saying 94 percent of Wisconsin employers think the state "is heading in the right direction" and a majority say they will "grow their companies in 2012." We rated his statement Half True. Both numbers were correct. But they came from a small survey by the pro-Walker Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce of some of its members. The December 2011 survey of 281 chief executive officers amounted to a sample that is not reflective of the overall makeup of businesses in the state. For example, a majority of the survey respondents were manufacturing executives, but manufacturing establishments are just 6 percent of Wisconsin’s businesses. Walker, however, presented the statistics without noting the critical limitations. New survey WMC does its survey every other year. The latest one was conducted in November and December of 2013. This time, 95 percent of 341 CEOs said the state was going in the right direction. And that's the survey the national GOP group relies on in making its claim. But that claim has the same problems as the one Walker made. Our rating The Republican State Leadership Committee said: "95 percent of job creators say Wisconsin is headed in the right direction." The number is correct, but it comes from a small survey by one trade group and amounts to a sample that is not reflective of the overall makeup of state businesses. We rate the claim Half True. To comment on this item, go to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s web page. | null | Republican State Leadership Committee | null | null | null | 2014-10-24T05:00:00 | 2014-10-09 | ['Wisconsin'] |
hoer-00719 | Multicoloured Roses - Happy Roses Photograph | true messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/multicoloured-roses.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Multicoloured Roses - Happy Roses Photograph | 16th August 2010 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-01281 | Pope Francis and the Third Vatican Council | fake news | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/satire-pope-francis-and-the-third-vatican-council/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Satire Pope Francis and the Third Vatican Council | January 8, 2014 | null | ['None'] |
chct-00017 | FACT CHECK: Newt Gingrich Said That 179 Million Latin Americans Want To Migrate To The US - Is That True? | verdict: false | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/10/25/fact-check-179-million-latin-americans-migrate-us/ | null | null | null | David Sivak | Fact Check Editor | null | null | 9:07 AM 10/25/2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12734 | We've repealed regulations for the first time in 20 years using the Congressional Review Act -- three regulations that were going to cost the economy hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/mar/02/rand-paul/rand-paul-says-repealing-3-regulations-saved-milli/ | With a powerful Republican ally in the White House, Sen. Rand Paul said Congress is moving fast to reduce the burden of government regulations. On ABC’s This Week on Feb. 19, Paul, R-Ky., held up the deregulatory action taken by Congress as an example of the administration’s earliest weeks not being as chaotic as they may have seemed. "We repealed regulations for the first time in 20 years using the Congressional Review Act," Paul added. "Three regulations that were going to cost the economy hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs." We decided to review Paul’s claim about whether the moves saved money and jobs. His statement hinges on analyses by the government and industry advocates, but they also occasionally contradict his point. The rules Under the Congressional Review Act, Congress can disapprove a rule by a simple majority vote, and then the president must sign off. Trump signed one disapproval on Feb. 14, which rejected a provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. The rule required publicly traded mining, oil and gas companies to disclose their payments to governments. Another, signed Feb. 16, nullified the Stream Protection Rule, a rule created by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (within the Department of the Interior) to limit coal mining companies from releasing waste into waterways. Opponents of the rule said that it would reduce jobs in an already-contracting industry. Proponents said it would help keep ecosystems free of the toxic waste. The third disapproval, which Trump signed on Feb. 28 after Paul’s interview, concerned some provisions of the 2007 National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Intended to stop the mentally ill from obtaining guns, the rule required the Social Security Administration to share information about beneficiaries who do not manage their own benefits to the national background check system. Expected financial toll Paul’s claim that these regulations could cost "hundreds of millions of dollars" is reasonable, said Brian Mannix, a research professor at the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center. He said many federal rules can cost much more than that, though it is difficult to say without a detailed analysis. We found some reports on the effects of the financial and environmental regulations. We did not, however, find a government report assessing costs or job impact for the rule on guns. The SEC estimated that 425 companies might be affected by the new financial disclosure regulation, with average total assets of $6.4 billion. The SEC also set compliance costs for the companies at $54.7 million to upwards of $700 million (the variation is due to variations in fixed costs), though they acknowledged "significant limitations" on their analysis that might have made it much lower. As for the cost of the Stream Protection Rule, the report prepared for the Office of Surface Mining and Enforcement’s estimated total U.S. compliance costs at $81.5 million (or 0.3 percent of estimated total annual revenue for the coal industry). That figure includes $63.6 million for operational costs, which includes commercial transport and reforestation. The government’s potential tax revenue loss to states was $995,000. Paul’s spokesman Sergio Gor sent us a study by Ranboll Environ that was prepared for the National Mining Association, a private group with public opposition to the rule. The study estimates the potential annual value of coal lost to production restriction is between $14 billion and $29 billion, with between $3.1 billion to $6.4 billion lost in state and federal tax revenue. The Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement declined to comment on the record. Expected jobs impact The question of whether these regulations would save "tens of thousands" of jobs is more complex. On the disclosure rule, the SEC report did not comment on potential job increases or losses. And again, there is no estimate for jobs lost as a result of reduced reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. As for the Stream Protection Rule, an impact analysis prepared for the Office of Surface Mining in November 2016 said the rule "would reduce employment by 124 jobs on average each year due to decreased coal mining," though the regulation might add 280 jobs in compliance efforts. The Ramboll Environ report stated that the Stream Protection Rule threatened 113,000 to 280,000 American mining jobs based on what it said was an independent analysis performed at 36 mines across the country. An expert said the government’s estimates are "much more reasonable" than the one completed for the mining association. "My take based on the available research is that the impact of the rule would be minimal," said Robert Godby, the director of the University of Wyoming Center for Energy Economics and Public Policy, said about the Stream Protection Rule. He said he thought that the NMA study conflated the potential effects of the Stream Protection Rule with other regulations enacted in 2009, and that the study didn’t account for other market factors that have caused larger downward trends in coal production. Our ruling Paul said that repealing three rules will save "hundreds of millions of dollars" and "tens of thousands of jobs." Studies of the regulations partially back up Paul’s claim, particularly in terms of financial burden. The evidence is less strong for his point about "tens of thousands" of jobs lost. The only information we could find for a regulation with a job-killing aspect is the stream protection rule. The government’s estimate said the rule could result in 124 lost mining positions a year (though compliance could result in the creation of more than twice as many). An industry-backed study offered a much more dramatic outlook for lost coal jobs, but one expert questioned its methodology. We rate this claim Half True. Correction: The Stream Protection Rule came from the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, which is a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Interior. An earlier version of this story incorrectly characterized the source of the rule. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Rand Paul | null | null | null | 2017-03-02T17:38:04 | 2017-03-02 | ['None'] |
pomt-11709 | Law passed: All child support in the United States will end by beginning of 2018. | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2017/dec/19/tmzbreaking/no-trump-and-congress-didnt-pass-bill-ending-child/ | Child support is coming to an end in the United States thanks to President Donald Trump and Congress, at least that's what a fake news story on Facebook would have you believe. "Law passed: All child support in the United States will end by beginning of 2018," stated the headline on tmzbreaking, a website that describes itself as "the most notorious fauxtire & satire entertainment website in the world." Facebook users flagged the post as being potentially fabricated, as part of the social network’s efforts to combat fake news. The fake article has been circulating at least for a few months on Facebook. The end of the article directs readers to Channel50news, a prank website. The dateline on the story says Sept. 20, 2016, but when we read the oldest comments at the bottom of the story, they started on Sept. 20, 2017. Another hint that this is fake news is that the three-paragraph article has typos or sentences that make no sense: "President Trump claims he will no longer for any party of parent to pay child support. Trump also says that ant reports of abuse or negligence to a child from either party will result in the child automatically being turned over to the State Child Welfare." While this fake story suggests that the federal government is wiping out child support, it’s worth noting that states set child support policies and have enforcement programs. We emailed the authors of the website and did not get a reply. A story stated that a law will end all child support in the United States in 2018, but no such law has been passed. We rate this claim Pants on Fire. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | tmzbreaking | null | null | null | 2017-12-19T10:00:00 | 2016-09-20 | ['United_States'] |
vees-00504 | Is that so? Marcosian state secrecy in Duterte’s FOI executive order | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/so-marcosian-state-secrecy-dutertes-foi-executive-order | null | null | null | null | Duterte,FOI,Martial Law | Is that so? Marcosian state secrecy in Duterte’s FOI executive order | August 19, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02892 | Ben Affleck Did Gain 50 Pounds, | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ben-affleck-weight-gain-pounds-food/ | null | null | null | Michael Lewittes | null | Ben Affleck Did NOT Gain 50 Pounds, Despite Report | 4:10 pm, March 31, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01619 | Shakespeare or Julius Caesar quote about war | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/war-rightsquote/ | null | government | null | null | null | Shakespeare or Julius Caesar quote about war | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00747 | Said he can bring Ohio colleges and universities together to share resources, entice major institutions to collaborate and force Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly to tackle tough issues. | in the works | https://www.politifact.com/ohio/promises/kasich-o-meter/promise/777/promote-cooperation-between-colleges-universities/ | null | kasich-o-meter | John Kasich | null | null | Promote cooperation among colleges, universities and major institutions | 2011-01-07T15:00:12 | null | ['Ohio', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Democratic_Party_(United_States)'] |
tron-03322 | Steven Furtick Signs 6-Year, $110 Million Contract With Lakewood Church | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/steven-furtick-signs-leaving-elevation-church/ | null | religious | null | null | null | Steven Furtick Signs 6-Year, $110 Million Contract With Lakewood Church | Jul 31, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00002 | Sketchers Lightable Shoes Star Fire, Burn Toddler | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/sketchers-lightable-shoes-fire-hazard/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | Sketchers Lightable Shoes Star Fire, Burn Toddler | Jul 2, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00634 | Will "ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives." | promise broken | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/gop-pledge-o-meter/promise/664/publish-the-text-of-bills-online-at-least-three-da/ | null | gop-pledge-o-meter | John Boehner | null | null | Publish the text of bills online at least three days before a House vote | 2010-12-22T09:57:30 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00410 | While Richard Cordray was Attorney General, 12,000 rape kits like Allyssa's were left untested. Cordray's failure left serial rapists free to strike again. Then Mike DeWine became Attorney General. He tested all 12,000 rape kits. Now hundreds of rapists are behind bars. | half-true | /ohio/statements/2018/aug/30/mike-dewine/fact-checking-mike-dewines-attack-rich-cordray-abo/ | Republican Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said he has tested thousands of rape kits that his predecessor Richard Cordray had let languish. "While Richard Cordray was Attorney General, 12,000 rape kits like Allyssa's were left untested. Cordray's failure left serial rapists free to strike again," said DeWine’s TV ad narrated by rape survivor Allyssa Allison. "Then Mike DeWine became Attorney General. He tested all 12,000 rape kits. Now hundreds of rapists are behind bars." DeWine ousted Cordray in 2010. The two men are now facing off for governor. DeWine portrays Cordray as ignoring untested rape kits as they piled up. But the backlog of untested rape kits can’t be blamed mainly on the attorney general; local police departments had a role, too. The ad omits that Cordray started to address the backlog as it drew more attention in the summer of 2010, but he had little time left in office. Cordray’s actions on rape kits "Rape kits" are shorthand for sexual assault forensic evidence kits, which are collected soon after a sexual assault or rape. A nurse or a doctor collects evidence including tissue and hair samples from the victim’s body and clothing, including saliva, blood and semen. The evidence helps law enforcement investigate assaults. The ad said that while Cordray was attorney general, 12,000 rape kits were left untested, but they were not sitting around his office. That number reflects those that were sent in by police departments across the state once DeWine took over. Untested rape kits languishing in police evidence rooms had been a longstanding problem in many states when Cordray became Ohio attorney general in 2009. Some departments didn’t test the kits, citing hassles or cost. The national backlog continues today. During Cordray’s tenure, news coverage by the Cleveland Plain Dealer led to more scrutiny. Here’s what was known about untested kits when Cordray was in office. In July 2010, the Cleveland Police said they had found in their possession more than 6,000 rape kits going back to 1993, some of which had already been tested. The department decided it would start submitting all kits for testing to the state. By mid 2011, Cleveland began submitting untested kits in small batches to the state, according to a timeline written by Case Western Reserve University. While Cordray was attorney general, Ohio -- like much of the country -- had no consistent testing policy. Each law enforcement agency decided whether and how to test rape kits, which could be done at local labs or sent to the state. Cleveland police decided whether to test kits on a case by case basis. The Plain Dealer reported that the state Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation would test every kit Cleveland planned to send, though its preference was for departments to limit their submissions to evidence that officials thought would be most likely to provide leads. (BCI is under the purview of the attorney general.) Cordray in 2010 called for lawmakers, law enforcement officials and victim advocates to study best practices for testing and develop a statewide protocol. In his final months in office, Cordray formed the Ohio Sexual Assault Kit Testing Commission and announced that the state would receive new DNA-testing robots to speed up testing. Cordray then lost to DeWine. In a recent conference call with reporters, Cordray questioned why DeWine took seven years -- until he was in the middle of a campaign -- to clear out the backlog. "What he cannot explain is why it took him seven years to do a job he says I should have done in five months," he said. Cordray counterattacked with his own ad that featured Republican Shelby County Sheriff John Lenhart. The sheriff said that Cordray put the technology in place and "fixed" the backlog that had stretched for decades. That’s misleading -- while Cordray started to address the problem, he didn’t fix it. DeWine’s actions on rape kits DeWine took office in January 2011. A few months later he restarted the rape kit test commission after the Cleveland Heights police department misplaced evidence tied to Anthony Sowell, a serial killer and rapist. The Cleveland Plain Dealer wrote in an editorial in May 2011 that "building on an initiative of his predecessor, Richard Cordray, DeWine says he will stop sending DNA samples to private labs." Instead, the state would handle processing. In December 2011, DeWine announced that police should submit all kits for testing if a crime probably occurred. At the time, about half of sexual assault kits were submitted to the state crime labs. DeWine started a new unit with four forensic scientists to test the old kits and began the push to clear out the backlog in 2012. Six more scientists were added later. Though DeWine deserves credit for tackling the backlog, so does Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty. His office worked with Cleveland police to inventory rape kits, which resulted in identifying thousands of untested rape kits that were submitted to the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation in 2014. The General Assembly played a role, too. In 2014, Gov. John Kasich signed Senate Bill 316 to require law enforcement agencies to forward untested rape kits to the state or other crime labs within one year. In February 2018, DeWine announced that the state had analyzed 13,931 rape kits and had loaded more than 8,600 DNA profiles to a federal database used by law enforcement. (The TV ad cited 12,000 rape kits because it subtracted any rapes that occurred after Cordray left office.) DeWine said that charges had been filed against hundreds of attackers. The Cuyahoga County Prosecutor said that they have convicted 376 defendants between 2013 and 2018 largely based on rapes that occurred between 1993 and 2010, before DeWine took office. The average prison sentence is 11 years. Our ruling DeWine said in a TV ad, "While Richard Cordray was Attorney General, 12,000 rape kits like Allyssa's were left untested. Cordray's failure left serial rapists free to strike again. Then Mike DeWine became Attorney General. He tested all 12,000 rape kits. Now hundreds of rapists are behind bars." The ad leaves out a lot of context when it blames Cordray. First, it omits that Cordray inherited a statewide problem. Cordray started to take steps to address the problem, but didn’t get far before he was ousted by DeWine in November 2010. The ad is on firmer ground when it gives credit to DeWine for his efforts to clear out the backlog. But it omits that it took him several years to do it. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important context. We rate this statement Half True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Mike DeWine | null | null | null | 2018-08-30T13:00:00 | 2018-08-22 | ['None'] |
pomt-04139 | Taxpayers are "on the hook ... for less than a third" of the proposed new Atlanta Falcons stadium, and those funds are "repaid from money that comes from outsiders." | half-true | /georgia/statements/2013/jan/04/nathan-deal/deal-makes-premature-claim-falcons-stadium-bid/ | The public may be wary, but key elected officials are warming up to the idea of helping the Atlanta Falcons build a new stadium for the low, low price of $1 billion. Taxpayers would help finance a projected $300 million to construct the retractable-roof colossus, but boosters say the burden is smaller than it seems. A cautious Gov. Nathan Deal recently told WSB-TV reporter Lori Geary that the plan could make fiscal sense. "I think that, overall, if we get a new facility that’s upgraded and meets the current demands and needs of the future, then being ‘on the hook,’ so to speak, for less than a third – that is repaid from money that comes from outsiders – I think that’s probably a pretty good deal," the governor said. There’s got to be a catch, right? A stadium can cost more than the price of on-site construction. Off-site roads, bridges and other infrastructure may need upgrades to accommodate crowds. Looks like it’s time for the Truth-O-Meter. If the Falcons get their wish, the 20-year-old Georgia Dome would be razed in favor of a facility with luxury suites and other features that could boost the team’s bottom line. Skeptical taxpayers stand in their way. The public fully financed the Dome. But in the decades since, voters have soured on helping sports teams build new arenas. Under the current proposal, they would pitch in big time. The facility would be owned by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, which owns the Dome, the Georgia World Congress Center and Centennial Olympic Park. Each year, a portion of the budgets for the Dome and World Congress Center come from a cut of an 8 percent tax on hotel and motel rooms within Atlanta’s city limits and unincorporated Fulton County. The GWCCA would help the Falcons pay for stadium construction with a bond backed by revenue it expects this tax to make over the next 30 years. The projected amount: about $300 million. We emailed Deal spokesman Brian Robinson for more information. He said the governor was speaking about the burden the stadium would put on state funds, and Deal overstated the cost. "In reality, it would come at no cost to STATE taxpayers," Robinson responded. We think viewers may have gotten the impression that Deal was talking about the total burden to taxpayers. The financing the governor mentioned in the interview would be backed by the local hotel/motel tax, not state funds. We’ll take both interpretations into account. This brings us to the first part of our fact check. Are taxpayers "on the hook ... for less than a third" of the stadium’s cost? This appears to be a matter of arithmetic. The $300 million contribution from local motel/hotel taxes is less than one-third of the projected $1 billion construction cost. If this were the only pot of public funds going to the stadium, then this portion of Deal’s claim would be correct. But there’s more to the story. In a "term sheet" approved in December that outlines the deal, both parties agreed that the GWCCA would buy land for the facility. Deal earmarked $15 million from the state budget in 2012 to buy land that could be used for the complex. Land acquisition costs could rise depending on which site planners select. In addition, roads and other infrastructure near the stadium may need hundreds of millions of dollars in upgrades. Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said in September that these improvements could push the stadium’s total cost to $1.2 billion. This could push the cost to the public upward of $500 million. The Falcons expect to seek government help. The term sheet says that the GWCCA will cooperate with them "in pursuing other possible governmental funding sources with respect to such offsite infrastructure as may be required." Reed floated the possibility of using an additional $53 million in city economic development dollars. WXIA-TV recently reported that the stadium could receive millions of dollars in tax breaks from the state through an economic development program for projects of "regional significance." And furthermore, state money that the Georgia Department of Transportation gives local governments for road maintenance could be available, state DOT spokeswoman Jill Goldberg said. The project may be eligible for federal funds, too. Goldberg stressed, though, that no plans have been made, and the project may need no state money. Robinson told PolitiFact Georgia that he did not "foresee" state DOT money being used, but there are no set plans. "There’s too many unknowns at this juncture," Robinson said in an email. "There’s no deal at this time." Let’s move on to the second part of Deal’s claim. Will the public’s share of the cost really be paid for by "outsiders"? Not entirely. As we mentioned earlier, the GWCCA would use state funds to buy the site, and state, local and federal funds could be used for infrastructure. But the majority of the projected $300 million in hotel/motel taxes for stadium construction would be paid by outsiders. Some 86 percent of those who stay in hotels in unincorporated Fulton and the city of Atlanta are from out of state, Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau spokeswoman Lauren Jarrell said. Our ruling: Regardless of how you interpret Deal’s claim, it fell short. Yes, a large portion of the public’s contribution would come from local hotel/motel taxes, and these are overwhelmingly paid by "outsiders." But the state will buy land for the stadium, could chip in to help with hundreds of millions in infrastructure costs, and could provide substantial tax breaks. The total share for taxpayers could easily exceed $300 million. Deal’s claim is premature. And it leaves out important details. The governor gets a Half True. | null | Nathan Deal | null | null | null | 2013-01-04T06:00:00 | 2012-11-29 | ['None'] |
pomt-12982 | Say Bill Gates is linked to HPV vaccine related deaths in India. | pants on fire! | /global-news/statements/2016/dec/20/blog-posting/anti-vaccination-blog-revives-debunked-hpv-story/ | The post on an anti-vaccination website was damning. The headline "Bill Gates uses 30,000 Indian girls as guinea pigs to test cancer vaccine," appeared on the Organic & Healthy blog in October and is still being shared. The article described a 2009 human papillomavirus vaccination demonstration project in India. In the span of about a year, thousands of girls between the ages of 10 and 14 received one of two vaccines to prevent genital warts that are linked to cancer later in life. According to the blog, the project went terribly wrong. In one Indian state, "some of the girls’ health deteriorated and five of them died the next year," the article said. In a second state, "two deaths were reported." One of our readers saw the blog post and asked us to check it out. We did and as with many false claims, it takes a thread of fact and weaves a blanket of misinformation. We specifically looked at whether the vaccinations led to any deaths. First, a little background on human papillomavirus, or HPV. HPV causes genital warts and cervical precancers that can lead to a variety of cancers. In the United States for example, HPV is responsible for over 30,000 cancers each year. Several vaccines to prevent the warts and precancers came on the market in 2006. Since then, about 200 million doses have been administered worldwide. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for the most common virus strains, the vaccines "provide close to 100 percent protection against cervical precancers and genital warts." So, what happened in India? In 2007, the Indian government’s Council of Medical Research and two state governments laid the groundwork for a project to see whether these vaccines could be delivered cost-effectively in lower income communities. An international nonprofit PATH was directly responsible for the work. The vaccinations began in 2009 and by March 2010, they had vaccinated about 24,000 girls between the ages of 10 and 14. The effort was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and in addition to India, it took place in Peru, Uganda and Vietnam. The trouble began when local newspapers reported several deaths linked to the vaccinations. In October 2009, a coalition of community organizations and health activists called for a halt to the project. Their cries grew more insistent. In an April 2007 letter to the Minister of Health, in addition to the deaths, they said over 120 girls had suffered everything from mood swings to epileptic seizures. The government agreed to stop. No deaths The government commissioned a group of physicians and researchers to investigate whether the vaccination program caused any deaths. In February 2011, the group reported there was no connection. One girl drowned. Insecticide poisoning killed two others. Two others had severe malaria. One was bitten by a poisonous snake and one died from a disease that physicians said "can not be linked possibly to HPV." No reputable study has ever tied the vaccine to a death. The vaccines can have side effects, including fever, headache, fainting and nausea. But according to many studies cited by the CDC, these pass quickly. Not guinea pigs The article paints a picture of global pharmaceutical companies experimenting on unsuspecting young, poor girls. In fact, the vaccines have gone through years of testing and have become commonplace in the wealthiest nations. Australia provides it to every girl and boy between 12 and 13 years old in public school. Vaccinations are routine in France, Germany and Holland. The vaccines are on the market in over 100 countries and the World Health Organization recommends it as part of the national immunization program for any nation that can afford it. A problem of process A 2010 article in the British medical journal Lancet assessed what went wrong in India. Its basic conclusion? Officials were too slow to respond when local concerns first emerged. "Reluctance by public health authorities to respond to issues of public distrust for fear that they will exacerbate the problem is dangerous," the authors wrote. The repercussions lasted for some time. In 2013, an Indian parliamentary panel chastised PATH, the international nonprofit, along with its Indian partners for failing to fully inform the parents of the girls of what they were doing and not having a system in place to track any side effects. Our ruling An anti-vaccination blog tied Bill Gates to the deaths of several girls who were part of an HPV vaccination roll out in India. A full medical investigation determined that the girls died from causes completely unrelated to the vaccine. Some were poisoned by insecticide, malaria took others, and one drowned. Many millions of young girls and boys have received the vaccine over the years and while there are some common side effects, they are mild. The blog post is a mash-up of outdated rumors that were disproven years ago. We rate this claim Pants on Fire. (Editor’s note: PolitiFact has received funding from the Poynter Institute as part of a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.) https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/832d43f2-30f0-4ddb-b5d8-036835a20af2 | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2016-12-20T15:50:46 | 2016-10-15 | ['India', 'Bill_Gates'] |
faly-00038 | Claim: Provided for penalties for offences committed against persons with disabilities (PwDs) | true | https://factly.in/rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-act/ | Fact: Chapter 16 of the Rights of persons with disabilities Act, 2016 provides for the penalties. Hence, the claim is TRUE. However,It has to be noted that penalties were also part of the original bill introduced by the UPA government in 2014. | null | null | null | null | Fact Checking Government Claims on the ‘Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act’ | null | null | ['None'] |
pomt-06801 | When Standard & Poor's "dropped our credit rating, what they said is, we don't have an ability to repay our debt. ... I was proved right in my position" that the debt ceiling should not have been raised. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/12/michele-bachmann/bachmann-said-standard-poors-downgrade-proved-she-/ | If you made a list of House Republicans who were the biggest opponents of raising the debt ceiling, Michele Bachmann would be near the top. Bachmann, R-Minn., and a Republican candidate for president, said consistently that she would not vote for an increase in the debt ceiling -- the legal limit on how much money the government can borrow -- regardless of the terms of the deal. She repeated her opposition at a Republican debate in Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 11, 2011, when asked if she was concerned about the United States defaulting and not paying its debts. "If you had your way, the debt ceiling would not have been raised," said Susan Ferrechio, a debate moderator. "What do you say to analysts who insist that Americans' investments, their 401(k)s, their college funds would have been far worse off today?" "I think we just heard from Standard & Poor's," Bachmann said. "When they dropped our credit rating, what they said is, we don't have an ability to repay our debt. That's what the final word was from them. I was proved right in my position. We should not have raised the debt ceiling. And instead, we should have cut government spending, which was not done. And then we needed to get our spending priorities in order." Is that what Standard & Poor's said? And did the report support her position that the debt ceiling should not have been raised? Her statement was a disputed point in the post-debate analysis, so we decided to check it out for ourselves. (We should also note that her claim that the deal did not cut government spending is questionable at best. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that the deal would cut "at least $2.1 trillion" between 2012 and 2021.) A little background: Standard & Poor's is a New York-based ratings agency that studies the financial markets. It issues guidance to investors and rates various investments for financial risk. On Aug. 5, it downgraded its credit rating for the United States one notch, from the top-rated AAA to AA+. (The other two ratings agencies, Moody's and Fitch, did not lower the U.S. rating.) The Obama administration strongly objected to the ratings downgrade and disputed Standard & Poor's analysis. Others criticized the company for its performance in previous years, when it gave high ratings to mortgage securities that subsequently proved worthless. The downgrade didn't seem to have much effect on investors' desire to hold U.S. Treasury bonds and other securities, which are still widely perceived as safe investments. Bachmann said that when Standard & Poor's dropped the rating, "what they said is, we don't have an ability to repay our debt" and she said it supported her position that the ceiling should not have been raised and that spending should have simply been cut. Bachmann also opposed any type of tax increases, including closing loopholes, which Democrats supported. To fact-check Bachmann, we read Standard & Poor's original report on why it issued its downgrade. To put it in simple terms, Standard & Poor's had two main reasons for the downgrade: First, that the size of the U.S. debt is very large and growing, and second, that politicians seem unable to agree on what steps to take to reduce it. It called the political process "contentious and fitful," and said the firm was "pessimistic" that the White House and Congress would be able to agree on measures to significantly reduce the debt anytime soon. "The political brinksmanship of recent months highlights what we see as America's governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable than what we previously believed. The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy," the report said. The report does not say that the debt ceiling should not have been raised. If anything, there's an unstated assumption that increasing the debt ceiling was necessary. "The statutory debt ceiling and the threat of default have become political bargaining chips in the debate over fiscal policy," the report said. And in an interview on Fox News, Standard & Poors' managing director John Chambers seemed to express disapproval that it took so long for Congress to raise the debt ceiling. He said President Barack Obama "characterized the political system as dysfunctional, I think that's a good word. We got to a position where we were within 10 hours of having a major cash flow problem. This is not what happens in other countries," Chambers said on Aug. 8. Another official with Standard & Poor's, director Joydeep Mukherji, told POLITICO that the stability of American political institutions were undermined by the fact that "people in the political arena were even talking about a potential default." He didn't mention who those people were. "That a country even has such voices, albeit a minority, is something notable," he added. "This kind of rhetoric is not common amongst AAA sovereigns." As to which political party was in the right, the ratings agency did not explicitly tip its hand. The report said it took no position on whether taxes should be raised or spending should be cut. In the Fox News interview, Chambers was asked if the tea party movement was responsible for the downgrade as Democrats alleged. He declined to take the bait and assign blame. "I think that there's lots of blame to go around, and what we need to come to in the United States is a way of forging consensus, so that we can take the tough choices that lie ahead, because the fiscal situation in the United States is not sustainable," he said. Bachmann said that when Standard & Poor's "dropped our credit rating, what they said is, we don't have an ability to repay our debt. That's what the final word was from them. I was proved right in my position. I was proved right in my position." In fact, because the debt ceiling was raised, the United States is paying its debts. What Standard & Poor's actually said was that politicians in Washington can't agree on long-term solutions for how to reduce the debt -- not that the country is or was unable to pay its debts. The notion that the report supported her position is wishful thinking. For that, we rate her statement False. | null | Michele Bachmann | null | null | null | 2011-08-12T18:27:11 | 2011-08-11 | ['None'] |
goop-01589 | Robert Downey Jr. Hangs With Family, Paul Rudd Parties With Young Women While Filming ‘Avengers’? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/paul-rudd-robert-downey-jr-avengers-set-family/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Robert Downey Jr. Hangs With Family, Paul Rudd Parties With Young Women While Filming ‘Avengers’? | 11:31 am, February 13, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11335 | A recent stomach virus outbreak at the beleaguered Quincy Veterans’ Home shows Gov. Bruce Rauner "is letting persistent health issues jeopardize the wellbeing of our nation’s heroes." | mostly false | /illinois/statements/2018/apr/10/jb-pritzker/facts-bug-new-pritzker-attack-line-quincy-veterans/ | Gov. Bruce Rauner has faced a barrage of criticism for his administration’s response to deadly outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease at the state’s Quincy Veterans’ Home, which since 2015 have claimed the lives of 13 residents and sickened dozens of others. Now, Rauner’s re-election rival, Democrat J.B. Pritzker, is taking another Quincy-related swing at the governor following disclosure in late March by the Illinois Department of Public Health that 24 individuals at the state-run facility had been sickened by what appeared to be norovirus, a gastrointestinal illness that sometimes causes severe vomiting and diarrhea. "After fatally mismanaging the Quincy Veterans’ Home, @BruceRauner is letting persistent health issues jeopardize the wellbeing of our nation’s heroes," Pritzker said in a March 30 tweet. "This is a shameful display of failed leadership." See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com The Pritzker tweet linked to an article in the Chicago Sun-Times about the stomach bug sweeping through the Quincy facility. The article also included other tweets from Democratic state lawmakers pinning the norovirus outbreak on Rauner. Rauner, a Republican, has been the target of bipartisan criticism for his administration’s handling of Legionnaires’ at Quincy after problems were brought to light by a WBEZ investigation last December. The Chicago public radio station raised questions about how patients were treated upon falling ill and revealed officials delayed informing the public after the disease surfaced. Critics have also blasted the Rauner administration for its delay in executing a long-term solution for eradicating the disease at the facility. But is the recent emergence of an outbreak of gastrointestinal illness at the Quincy home really an example of more of the same? And is there anything Rauner could have done, or should be doing, to prevent or mitigate the impact of the severe stomach bug residents have come down with at the home? Hand to mouth State health officials suspect norovirus is the culprit behind the latest outbreak at the home in downstate Quincy. The virus, which results in acute gastroenteritis, is the most common cause of diarrhea and vomiting both in the United States and globally, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most stricken recover within days, although the illness can pose serious threats to those with compromised immune systems, with the majority of deaths occurring among the elderly. As a viral infection, no antibiotic can treat it. Individuals catch Legionnaires’ disease, on the other hand, by inhaling bacteria that thrives in poorly maintained water systems — something government management and oversight can control. The disease, which produces a severe form of pneumonia, requires treatment with antibiotics. The state health department reported on March 30 that 24 individuals, including both residents and staff, had fallen ill with stomach symptoms at the the veterans’ home, but said none of the cases were serious and that the patients were recovering. But this is general election campaign season, and both the Pritzker and Rauner camps are gearing up for a cutthroat and costly fight in which facts and nuance often take a back seat to any opportunity to raise doubt about an opponent. In that climate, stark distinctions between Legionnaires’ and norovirus can get kicked to the curb. Norovirus afflicts some 20 million people in the U.S. annually, unlike Legionnaires’, which resulted in 6,000 cases being reported to the CDC in 2015. The viral infection is spread through close contact with an infected person or by consuming food or water contaminated by an infected person, according to the CDC. It takes exposure to just a small amount of particles from an infected individual’s stools or vomit to spread the bug. That means enclosed places like nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, such as those at Quincy, as well as schools and cruise ships, are particularly vulnerable. Long-term care facilities play host to the virus more than any other location. They account for between two-thirds and three-quarters of the more than 1,000 norovirus outbreaks that occur annually nationwide, according to Dr. Benjamin Lopman, a professor at Emory University who worked as an epidemiologist with the CDC for seven years. Since 2014, Illinois has experienced 870 norovirus outbreaks, with 540 of them occurring in settings for the elderly such as Quincy, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. "Noroviruses are exclusively human pathogens," Lopman said, explaining that makes the goal to stop transmission from person to person by isolating those who’ve developed symptoms. But because norovirus can also contaminate the environments where people get sick, with particles landing on surfaces that others may later touch, vigilant handwashing is also a must. Beyond that, the response of a care facility is limited. We asked Lopman what, if anything, management at a facility for seniors such as Quincy could do in the way of front-end prevention. "That is very difficult because … it’s very common in the community," he said. "It’s hard to stop someone coming in," between visitors who don’t appear symptomatic and new patient intakes. So we asked the Pritzker campaign to explain how the norovirus outbreak at Quincy could be construed as a blot on Rauner’s leadership. A spokesman for Pritzker responded with an emailed statement that avoided the question and dwelled on the Legionnaires’ issue. "The fact is, Rauner let the Legionnaires’ crisis spiral out of control in Quincy and is now leaving the same residents and staff to contend with both Legionnaires’ and new diseases as he fails to put forward a permanent solution that keeps veterans safe," the Pritzker campaign statement read. A follow-up query to Pritzker spokeswoman Galia Slayen shed no more light on the original question. "We think our statement is pretty clear in that he has failed to do anything to address health crises at the Quincy Veterans’ Home," Slayen said. Our ruling Pritzker’s March 30 tweet held out a recent norovirus outbreak that sickened two dozen individuals at a state-run veterans’ facility in Quincy as evidence of how Rauner had been "letting persistent health issues jeopardize the wellbeing of our nation’s heroes." Rauner has been under fire for his administration’s handling of deadly outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease at the facility. Yet unlike Legionnaires’, which is contracted by inhaling water vapor contaminated with the bacteria, the stomach bug state health officials suspect caused the latest Quincy health problems is spread from person to person, rendering a case for structural mismanagement something of a stretch. Norovirus spreads most frequently in closed environments like nursing homes and assisted living facilities such as Quincy. There is no specific cure for it, meaning the response from care providers is largely limited to isolating patients, casting doubt on what Rauner or his administration could have done to prevent or eliminate it. Asked how Rauner bears blame for the gastroenteritis outbreak, Pritzker’s campaign did not directly respond, instead attempting to characterize it as further evidence after the Legionnaires’ problems at Quincy that the Republican should not be trusted to handle any health issue at the state facility. That conflates two very different epidemiological challenges, and leaves an impression--disputed by experts--that more could have, and should have, been done to stop the spread of norovirus at Quincy. For that, we rate Pritzker’s claim as Mostly False. | null | JB Pritzker | null | null | null | 2018-04-10T07:00:00 | 2018-03-30 | ['None'] |
tron-02533 | GPS Explodes After Overheating | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/gps-explodes/ | null | miscellaneous | null | null | null | GPS Explodes After Overheating–Fiction! | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10339 | Obama "voted against funding our troops." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jul/21/john-mccain/mccain-cites-one-protest-vote/ | An ad for Sen. John McCain makes the case that Sen. Barack Obama is a foreign policy lightweight who has voted against funding for troops. "Barack Obama never held a single Senate hearing on Afghanistan," an announcer states. "He hasn't been to Iraq in years. He voted against funding our troops — positions that helped him win his nomination. Now Obama is changing to help himself become president. John McCain has always supported our troops and the surge that's working." See our story for details about the ad's other claims. Here we'll look at Obama's votes on troop funding. The McCain campaign supported its claim that Obama voted against troop funding by citing a May 2007 Senate vote. The campaign is correct that Obama voted against a bill to fund troops, which passed anyway. Obama's vote came after Democrats had sought unsuccessfully to attach a timetable for withdrawing troops. After that language was removed, Obama and several other senators decided to vote against the measure, saying they could not rubber-stamp an open-ended occupation. (See our previous coverage of this issue .) "This country is united in our support for our troops, but we also owe them a plan to relieve them of the burden of policing someone else's civil war," Obama said at the time. "Gov. (Mitt) Romney and Sen. McCain clearly believe the course we are on in Iraq is working, but I do not." The vote came when the primary contest for both the Democratic and Republican nominations was wide open, seven months before the first primaries. Obama and fellow candidates Chris Dodd and Hillary Clinton voted against the bill; Republicans at the time said the vote showed the three failed to support the troops. Clinton, then the Democratic front-runner, was asked whether the vote would prove troubling later, an idea she dismissed. In 2008, Obama voted for a troop funding bill that passed overwhelmingly, 92-6. McCain was absent. Obama's campaign responded to the attack by pointing to Obama's support for bills that would increase benefits to veterans. McCain opposed the bills because he believed the new benefits would encourage active military to leave the service prematurely. The McCain campaign is correct that Obama voted against the 2007 funding measure. But the ad's statement — "he voted against funding our troops" — is phrased with no qualifications or caveats. Actually, Obama has voted for troop funding several times in other measures. So we find the claim in the McCain ad to be Half True. | null | John McCain | null | null | null | 2008-07-21T00:00:00 | 2008-07-18 | ['None'] |
tron-01307 | President Trump Lifts Ban on Importing Elephant Trophies from Africa | outdated! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/trump-lifts-ban-importing-elephant-trophies/ | null | environment | null | null | ['africa', 'barack obama', 'donald trump', 'environment'] | President Trump Lifts Ban on Importing Elephant Trophies from Africa | Nov 17, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07596 | Most Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/24/lawrence-odonnell/msnbcs-lawrence-odonnell-most-americans-live-withi/ | On MSNBC's Last Word on March 22, 2011, host Lawrence O'Donnell argued that evacuation plans for nuclear power plants in the United States are an unrealistic "fantasy" due to the huge population concentrations around them. That's especially the case, he said, if there were a call to evacuate a 50-mile radius -- the distance the U.S. government recently urged Americans to evacuate around an earthquake-damaged Japanese nuclear power plant. "The truth is, most Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant," O'Donnell said. O'Donnell and his guest, Daniel Aldrich, author of Site Fights, used the example of the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York. A 50-mile radius around that plant alone includes almost all of New York City, and large chunks of northern New Jersey -- more than 8 million people. Aldrich said evacuating a 50-mile radius around the Indian Point plant would cause a "tremendous amount of confusion and chaos as people locally flee and try to preserve themselves." Said O'Donnell: "There is no real evacuation plan from a place like Indian Point." The nuclear disaster in Japan naturally causes people to consider how a similar disaster might play out In the United States. So we were curious about O'Donnell's claim that most Americans live within 50 miles of a power plant. We turned first to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees emergency response plans in the event of a nuclear accident. The website includes a map of all the nuclear power reactors in operation in the U.S., so you can see how far away you live from one. According to a Federal Emergency Management Agency analysis using 2000 census data, there were 184 million people who lived within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant in the U.S., the NRC reported. According to the U.S. Census, there were 281 million people living in the U.S. in 2000. So by our math, about 65 percent of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant. "They typically build power plants where there are large populations," said Patricia Milligan, senior technical advisor for emergency preparation and response at the NRC. "Populations need power. They kind of go hand-in-hand." You could put power plants out in the middle of South Dakota, she said, but then the expense to transport the energy would be very high. So O'Donnell's statistic was accurate. But Milligan takes issue with O'Donnell's conclusion that evacuation plans are unrealistic. The decision for the 50-mile evacuation in Japan was based on several unique factors, she said. First, she said, "the communication coming out of Japan was confusing and contradictory." In addition, she said, you had three reactors with significant core damage, and two spent fuel pools "appeared to be significantly compromised." She's "completely confident" the complicating factors that led to the 50-mile evacuation recommendation in Japan wouldn't happen in the U.S. The NRC has "extremely good communication with the licensees." They also have an electronic reporting system, so they get the same information as the power plant operators in live-time. "We're in a much better position to access and evaluate information," she said. Emergency evacuation plans in the U.S. focus on 10-mile zones. Most accidents would not trigger an emergency response outside that 10-mile radius, Milligan said. But states and power plant operators are required to make emergency response plans for areas within 50 miles as well, including such things as protection of the food supply. While it's true that most Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant, those percentages drop off markedly when you consider 10- or 20-mile zones. According to FEMA data, about 8 percent of the American population lives within 20 miles of a nuclear power plant; and about 1.7 percent lives within 10 miles. In other words, while power plants are usually located near large population centers, "they tend to put them in the outer suburbs," Milligan said. Evacuations are an integral part of the emergency response plan, Milligan said. The NRC has done extensive study of emergency evacuations (for everything from floods to wildfires to gas leaks), and the agency is convinced they are feasible and realistic. "Evacuations do save lives," Milligan said. "They happen all the time in the United States, and they work well." But back to O'Donnell's statistic. He said most Americans live within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant. About 65 percent of the population in 2000 lived within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant. That's certainly most. We rate O'Donnell's statement True. | null | Lawrence O'Donnell | null | null | null | 2011-03-24T15:03:37 | 2011-03-22 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-08260 | As mayor, Barrett led efforts to redevelop the Menomonee Valley, "which now supports nearly 4,000 jobs in Wisconsin." | true | /wisconsin/statements/2010/nov/11/tom-barrett/tom-barrett-says-he-helped-create-4000-jobs-menomo/ | Once the industrial heart of the state of Wisconsin, over the decades the Menomonee Valley gradually deteriorated into a high profile eyesore. Polluted, smelly, and ugly ... all were used to describe the stretch of land from roughly the 6th Street viaduct to what is now Miller Park. Though hundreds of people worked there -- at the stockyards, gear manufacturer Falk Corp., railroad switching yards and other industries -- the area was best known for acre upon acre of brownfields. Local historian John Gurda noted the economic importance of the valley but said "its persistent pollution problems and the generalized ugliness of much of its development made the district a civic embarrassment to some Milwaukeeans." Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett put a different spin on it during his unsuccessful campaign for governor against Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker, saying under his leadership the city had turned the area into a job-creating machine. In a video, Barrett compared the jobs created in the valley to the lack of development on county-owned land in the Park East freeway corridor, claiming: "Tom Barrett redeveloped the Menomonee Valley, which now supports nearly 4,000 jobs in Wisconsin." The election is over, but we were still wondering about that claim. Without a doubt, the recession cost the Milwaukee area thousands of jobs. The state Department of Workforce Development says metro area employment is 798,400, down about 65,000 jobs from December 2007, when the recession began. But this claim relates to a different time frame -- since Barrett took office -- and a specific area. So was the city able to add thousands of jobs in the valley? In an word: yes. But the work didn’t start with Barrett, who took office in 2004. There have been several master plans cooked up for the valley over the decades until the current onetook effect in 1998. As far back as 1977, Mayor Henry Maier saw the valley’s potential, saying: "The Menomonee Valley redevelopment project is probably the largest industrial revitalization project in the country, and I am determined that it will also be the best." Maier’s successor , Mayor John O. Norquist, spent years fighting for control of a key piece of valley property -- 134 acres held by CMC Heartland Partners, the parent company of the old Milwaukee Road railroad. The city finally wrested control of that site in 2003 for $6.8 million. That move in particular cleared the way for a city-owned Menomonee Valley Industrial Center. Additionally, moves under Norquist -- such as bringing the 6th Steet Viaduct down to the valley level -- improved access. The bridge previously stretched across the valley. What did Barrett do since taking office? According to Rocky Marcoux, head of the Department of City Development, the city has spent some $48 million in public improvements -- cleaning polluted "brownfields," site preparation and so forth -- and created seven tax incremental financing districts. It also spent $25 million to extend Canal St., which runs down the center of the valley, so it links up with the freeway at Miller Park. That’s important because it gives another easy way for traffic to reach businesses there. Marcoux said the city can offer business owners lots that compare with suburban industrial parks: "We can offer them land at market rates. We don’t have to induce them." A quick tally of the major additions to the valley on Barrett’s watch: Recreation-related: The Harley-Davidson Museum, Iron Horse Hotel, and Potawatomi Casino expansion. Combined, 1,332 jobs. Industrial park: From the first industrial park tenant, pizza maker Palermo Villa Inc., which has grown from 180 to about 500 jobs, to the most recent addition, windmill generator-maker Ingeteam. Combined 1,156 jobs. Others: An assortment of jobs retained (Cargill) and new ones (such as Zimmerman Design Group, Proven Direct). Combined: 1,671 jobs. That tallies out to 4,159 jobs, a figure deemed accurate by Laura Bray, executive director of the Menomonee Valley Partners, a nonprofit group established to promote business development in the area. It also corresponds with coverage in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by commercial real estate reporter Tom Daykin. In all, about 10,000 people work in the valley -- a figure Bray called a rough estimate because there has not been a recent detailed study of total employment. And some 26 companies have moved or expanded in the valley, according to the Menomonee Valley Partners. In some cases, expansion hasn’t gone according to plan. For instance, Harley originally expected to build an office complex with nearly 400 jobs near its museum, but those plans have been on hold since the economy tanked. Nevertheless, there is plenty to look at in assessing Barrett’s claim. As a former candidate for governor, and current civic cheerleader, Mayor Tom Barrett boasts of creating thousands of jobs in the Menomonee Valley. While overall jobs in the city are down, and Barrett came into office with some key assets put in place by his predecessors, our tally puts new jobs in the valley since 2004 at more than 4,000. We rate Barrett’s statement True. | null | Tom Barrett | null | null | null | 2010-11-11T09:00:00 | 2010-11-10 | ['Wisconsin'] |
pomt-11378 | Many March for Our Lives speakers called for "the murder of those who would not turn over their guns to the government." | pants on fire! | /north-carolina/statements/2018/mar/29/beverly-boswell/nc-republican-march-our-lives-speakers-said-they-w/ | Maddie King, who survived a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida that left 17 people dead, called on politicians to care more about their children than their guns. David Hogg, a Stoneman Douglas student and frequent whipping boy of gun rights advocates, said politicians should get their resumes ready. Another Stoneman Douglas student, Cameron Kasky, warned politicians who oppose stricter gun laws. "Either represent the people or get out. Stand for us or beware: The voters are coming," Kasky said. Thousands of Americans gathered in streets around the United States on March 24 to honor victims of gun violence and, generally speaking, to advocate for stricter gun laws. According to a North Carolina legislator, some March For Our Lives speakers also called for a far more nefarious approach. State Rep. Beverly Boswell, a Republican from the coast, suggested on her Facebook page that speakers at the marches expressed violent intentions. "Many of the speakers at these rallies were calling for gun registration, confiscation, Second Amendment repeal and even the murder of those who would not turn over their guns to the government," Boswell wrote on her campaign Facebook page. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com Murder? That seems harsh. Boswell, who’s in her first term representing House DIstrict 6, has been an open critic of efforts to toughen gun laws. She recently referred to students who participated in the national school walkout as "Tide pod" eaters and boasted on Facebook about confronting a school leader who held an assembly on that day — which he says was simply to honor the victims of Parkland shooting. She was also recently scolded by the North Carolina Board of Nursing for misrepresenting herself as a nurse. Boswell’s comments about March For Our Lives were part of a side conversation on her Facebook page after she posted a photo of some students with the caption, "They’re out to take your guns, and our freedoms," at 8:10 p.m. on March 26. On March 27, she posted the comments about the march speakers after someone suggested Boswell’s original post was a "scare tactic" meant to distract people from the message of the march. What the ‘march’ wants The March For Our Lives website doesn’t say anything about forcefully taking guns from gun owners, much less harming them. The organization says it wants universal, comprehensive background checks and a digitized, searchable database of guns at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (known as ATF). It also wants bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as funds for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research gun violence. March For Our Lives has the support of several large, liberal organizing groups that support gun control. And a survey of the Washington marchers found that protesters there were largely liberal, with 79 percent of those who were randomly surveyed identifying as "left-leaning." But the group doesn’t appear to have ties to groups with a history of advocating violence. PolitiFact recently debunked a claim by the National Rifle Association that the March For Our Lives is "backed by radicals with a history of violent threats, language and actions." A story by Variety.com captured some of the marchers’ public disdain for the NRA, but none of the views expressed included calls for violence. "A video during the [Washington] event showed NRA officials, like Wayne LaPierre and Dana Loesch, as well as [the late actor] Charlton Heston, then the president of the organization, saying, ‘From my cold dead hands.’ In the crowd the images drew boos and the bird," Variety reported. In New York City, "Marchers chanted ‘NRA sashay away,’ at the New York rally, holding posters decrying the involvement of the National Rifle Association in government," Variety reported. PolitiFact emailed Boswell and asked if she could provide videos or news clips showing march speakers advocating violence. Luke Stancil, her campaign spokesman, responded by referencing a candidate for sheriff in North Carolina who joked about taking people's guns. Daryl Fisher, a candidate running for sheriff of Buncombe County in western NC, explained his views of people who invite him to pry their gun from their cold, bare hands. Stancil pointed out that Fisher shrugged said, "OK ... Whenever you pass away, we'll come get it." Fisher indeed said those things. But he didn't say them at a March For Our Lives rally. He later apologized. And Boswell said "many" speakers called for the murder of gun owners – and didn't cite any others. So we searched for evidence of violent rhetoric ourselves. What speakers said Alex Jones, a conservative conspiracy theorist who runs InfoWars.com, said on his show that marchers declared they would "kill anyone" who doesn’t turn in their guns. But PolitiFact found no credible evidence of rally speakers calling for violence against gun owners who might refuse to relinquish their guns. Most speakers at the Washington march and other marches across the country spoke about stricter gun laws and warned politicians of forthcoming punishment at the ballot box. Some of those comments, if taken out of context, could be misconstrued as threats. Delaney Tarr, a frequently-interviewed Stoneman Douglas student, said the Washington marchers are "are here to call out every single politician. We will take action where it counts." Those comments were preceded by a specific list of legislative demands that included an assault weapons ban, the "prohibition of high capacity magazines, reinforcement of background checks and closing of loopholes." In that vein, she said: "When they give us that inch, that bump stock ban, we will take a mile." Alex Wind, a junior at Stoneman Douglas, used the words "life" and "death" to describe where politicians stand on gun restrictions. "To all the politicians out there, if you take money from the NRA, you have chosen death," Wind said. "If you have not expressed to your constituents a public stance on this issue, you have chosen death. If you do not stand with us by saying we need to pass common sense gun legislation, you have chosen death. And none of the millions of people marching in this country today will stop until they see those against us out of office, because we choose life." D’Angelo McDade, a student from North Lawndale College Prep in Chicago and members of the student non-violence group the Peace Warriors, specifically called for non-violent action. "When will we as a nation understand that we are not here to fight against one another and we are here to fight for life and peace?" McDade said. "Dr. King once said, ‘Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.’ Which now leads me to say that violence cannot drive out violence, only peace can do that." Speakers at marches in Boswell’s home state of North Carolina were similar. Speakers in Raleigh, Durham, Charlotte, Greensboro and Asheville reportedly focused on gun laws and the NRA. Our ruling Boswell said "many speakers" at the March for Our Lives rallies were calling for "the murder of those who would not turn over their guns to the government." She didn’t provide any evidence to back up her claim, and PolitiFact found no evidence. We rate this claim Pants on Fire. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | Beverly Boswell | null | null | null | 2018-03-29T16:31:17 | 2018-03-27 | ['None'] |
pomt-13971 | Never mind that no red light camera, no speed camera, nor any radar gun has ever stopped one accident from occurring. | pants on fire! | /pennsylvania/statements/2016/jun/14/tom-mccarey/radar-guns-and-cameras-dont-stop-accidents-huh/ | Last week in Harrisburg, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia met with members of the legislature to lobby for what it considers safer streets after the April hit-and-run death of cyclist Jamal Morris. The group wants an extension of the state’s red light camera program, a pilot program for speeding cameras on Roosevelt Boulevard and the use of radar detection by police. Before the meetings in Harrisburg happened, Penn Live published an editorial authored by Tom McCarey criticizing the Bicycle Coalition’s desire to push for radar use, the red light camera program and the speeding camera program. McCarey is a member of the drivers’ advocacy group the National Motorists Association and lives on the Main Line. He wrote, "Never mind that no red light camera, no speed camera, nor any radar gun has ever stopped one accident from occurring." The editorial itself felt a little out of place. A member of one lobbying organization was writing critically about an opposing lobbying organization. But was McCarey’s claim that these types of technology have prevented a single accident from occurring legitimate? The short answer is no. While the exact pros and cons of these technologies are up for debate, multiple studies show they have prevented accidents in numerous cities and certainly at least one accident. McCarey said he got his information from National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) statistics and did not respond when asked to provide the specific data. The answer to whether such data to backup his claim exists is also no. "NHTSA has never made this untrue statement at all," said NHTSA spokesman Jose Ucles. "Neither does it agree with it." The organization has released a compendium of 13 studies looking at red light cameras and speed cameras, among other things. The studies the NHTSA regarded as the best showed a 20-to-25 percent reduction in injury crashes at sites with speed cameras. For red light camera studies, which the NHTSA did not regard as highly as the speed camera studies, there were reductions in overall crashes from 9-to-18 percent and 21-to-51 percent for injury crashes. Dominique Lord, a professor at Texas A&M, was commissioned by the Chicago Tribune to study the efficacy of red light cameras installed throughout the city. The study found no significant reduction in crashes at intersections where five or fewer crashes had been occurring annually but at intersections with five or more annual crashes there had been a reduction. It found certain types of injury accidents, such as right angle T-bone crashes, had declined while rear-end injury crashes had increased. "Has it at least saved one crash, a red light camera?" Lord said. "There’s no doubt about that." Lord added red light cameras should only one tool among many that can be utilized to cut down on accidents. "Red light cameras and speed cameras change the behavior of people," he said. "By changing the behavior of people you (decrease) risk." Our ruling Tom McCarey wrote in a Penn Live editorial the technologies being pushed for by the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia -- an extension of the state’s red light camera program, a pilot program for speeding cameras on Roosevelt Boulevard and the use of radar detection by police -- would make highways more dangerous and not stop a cyclist from being hit. At one point, he wrote Never mind that no red light camera, no speed camera, nor any radar gun has ever stopped one accident from occurring." But multiple studies have shown crashes have been reduced in areas where red light cameras and speed cameras are used. Dominique Lord, who completed a study that questioned the efficacy of red light cameras, said the cameras have prevented at least one crash. We rate the claim Pants On Fire. | null | Tom McCarey | null | null | null | 2016-06-14T09:33:56 | 2016-06-06 | ['None'] |
goop-00791 | Did Kim Kardashian, Khloe Help Kris Jenner Write Tell-All About Caitlyn? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kim-kardashian-khloe-kris-jenner-caitlyn-book-tell-all/ | null | null | null | Alejandro Rosa | null | Did Kim Kardashian, Khloe Help Kris Jenner Write Tell-All About Caitlyn? | 1:26 pm, June 19, 2018 | null | ['Kim_Kardashian', 'Kris_Jenner', 'Khloé_Kardashian'] |
pomt-02642 | The (New England) Patriots were led by an explosive offense that scored the second most points in the NFL. | mostly true | /rhode-island/statements/2014/jan/17/rhode-island-senate/rhode-island-senate-says-new-england-patriots-rank/ | There are plenty of reasons for praising the New England Patriots, a team vying for a Super Bowl berth Sunday when they take on the Denver Broncos. But the Rhode Island Senate may have gone just a bit out of bounds on Jan. 15 when, without dissent, it passed a resolution lauding the team for its accomplishments and wishing them well against the Broncos. The resolution, sponsored by Paul Jabour, D-Providence, and Roger Picard, D-Woonsocket, states that, "The Patriots were led by an explosive offense that scored the second most points in the NFL and a tough and stingy defense." The resolution was read aloud. We won't get into the debate over how tough and stingy New England's defense is, especially during recent games. But the point total claim raised the hackles of one of our sports gurus, who said the Senate had made a rookie mistake. When another reader started raising questions about the Senate resolution on Twitter, we went to the official statistics page at NFL.com. According to the site, New England scored 444 points during the regular season. That put the team in third place, one point behind the Chicago Bears (with 445 points) and the Broncos (with a whopping 606). Third place isn't second place, so the claim seems to be False. But the resolution doesn't specify regular season. If you include postseason play, which purists are loath to do when comparing all the teams in the NFL, New England does rank second. (The Bears didn't make the playoffs.) By that measure, the resolution is correct. Denver has logged 630 points, New England 487 points, and Kansas City 474 points. (If you want to look at the postseason alone, New England ranks fifth out of 12 teams on point totals. San Francisco and San Diego have scored more points, but each team has played two games, while the Patriots have played just one.) In sum, the claim can be accurate, but only if you combine regular-season and postseason play, which means comparing teams that competed in 16 games with those that have played 17 games (or in a few cases, 18 games). That's a sizable caveat. Because the statement needs clarification or additional information to be correct, we rate it Mostly True. (With research by Michael McDermott, sports editor of The Providence Journal. If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, email us at politifact@providencejournal.com. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | null | Rhode Island Senate | null | null | null | 2014-01-17T00:01:00 | 2014-01-15 | ['National_Football_League', 'New_England'] |
pomt-06798 | Statistically, law-enforcement officers die 10 years earlier than the general population. | false | /rhode-island/statements/2011/aug/14/robert-barber/retired-police-captain-says-law-enforcement-office/ | Government pensions and other retirement benefits have provoked bitter debate between public employees, who have planned their retirements on the promise of a pension, and taxpayers who say the increasing costs of the benefits are more than they can afford. Retirement packages for police officers and firefighters often come under scrutiny because, in recognition of the extra stress and physical requirements of the job, they often permit workers to retire earlier. The threat of a pension cut in Cranston prompted Robert Barber, a 58-year-old retired captain in the city's Police Department, to argue that any reduction in benefits would be unfair. "The City of Cranston entered into a contract with me. The agreement was that I would serve my community and risk my life so that, at the end of my career, if I reached it, I would be able to live the rest of my life with some dignity," he wrote in a commentary in The Journal. And, he wrote, that life is not likely to be as long as most retirees’. "Statistically," he said, "law-enforcement officers die 10 years earlier than the general population." We were intrigued by that statistic. Police officers certainly experience a lot of stress in their jobs, but in some cases their level of physical fitness is higher. When we emailed Barber, who retired at age 50, he said he first heard the statistic in a Bryant University psychology class. He directed us to two documents. The first didn’t deal directly with longevity. It was a Reuters Health account of a 2009 study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, which compared 312 Buffalo, N.Y., police officers with 318 residents. Ultrasound showed that the officers tended to have thicker walls in their neck arteries, which might be an early sign of heart disease. The second was a 24-page report from 2002 on "Fitness in Law Enforcement" written by a member of the Pittsfield Township Police Department in Michigan. It promotes more fitness among officers and states, "Solid research has shown the life expectancy, after retirement, of a police officer is much shorter than that of the general population." But no research is cited. We were hoping for some harder evidence. So we went looking for some actuarial data on our own. When we called MetLife, the spokeswoman referred us to the Society of Actuaries. But the society didn't have any data either. "Unfortunately, we do not keep this type of data regarding life expectancy for various careers," spokeswoman Kim McKeown told us in an email. We examined two websites that calculate life expectancy, but they were more interested in income, education, smoking, drinking, exercise and seatbelt habits, and whether a person was in a manual or non-manual occupation. Being a law-enforcement officer wasn't a factor in the calculation. The creator of one of the sites, statistician Dean P. Foster of The Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania pointed us to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that fishermen, loggers, pilots, farmers, roofers and even garbage men face a higher risk of death on the job than police officers. A Google search helped us locate Steven Greenhut, director of the journalism center at the right-leaning Pacific Research Institute in California and author of "Plunder! How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives And Bankrupting The Nation." He sent us a copy of an April 2010 study by the California Public Employees' Retirement System, which covers 1.6 million public employees. It compared life expectancies for male police officers with male workers and retirees who were not in the public safety field. Whether a person was age 50, 55, 60 or 65, the life expectancies of the police officers were slightly higher than for other workers. For example, men age 60 who had taken regular retirement were projected to live to age 82.7, versus age 81.9 for workers who were not in the public safety field. (Firefighter rates were close to those for police officers.) Even when CalPERS added in all the men who had retired as a result of work-related injuries, the life expectancies of the police officers were essentially identical to other public employees. The life expectancy for someone age 60, regardless of why they stopped working, was 81.8 years, just a tenth of a year lower than for regular workers. In 2006, Oregon's Public Employees Retirement System did an analysis comparing the life expectancies of members who were age 60. Police officers and firefighters were expected to live to age 82.6. The ages were 84.3 for school workers and 83.4 for other public employees. Women in the police and fire departments, and workers outside the school districts were expected to live to age 85.7. Among women working in the schools, the life expectancy was 87.0 years. Where does that leave us? Barber said police officers die 10 years earlier than the general population. But the actuarial studies we found showed little difference in life expectancy. In the latest California study, police officers were actually expected to live a bit longer than other state employees. In Oregon, the combined life expectancy for police and fire was only slightly less than average. We rate Barber's statement as False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/05f4727a-cefc-4920-9053-8afbc9fe496e | null | Robert Barber | null | null | null | 2011-08-14T08:00:00 | 2011-07-24 | ['None'] |
snes-06373 | Breaking a mirror brings seven years of bad luck. | legend | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/breaking-a-mirror/ | null | Superstition | null | David Mikkelson | null | Breaking a Mirror | 17 January 2009 | null | ['None'] |
abbc-00352 | Before the 2013 federal election Tony Abbott pledged to create a million jobs in five years and two million in a decade. | in-between | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/one-million-new-jobs-promise-check/5408632 | null | ['work', 'federal-government', 'abbott-tony', 'business-economics-and-finance', 'liberals', 'industry', 'australia'] | null | null | ['work', 'federal-government', 'abbott-tony', 'business-economics-and-finance', 'liberals', 'industry', 'australia'] | Promise check: Generate 1 million new jobs in five years | Sun 8 May 2016, 7:37am | null | ['Tony_Abbott'] |
vogo-00469 | Statement: The District Attorney’s Office “reviewed more than 6,000 domestic violence-related cases during 2009,” wrote District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and Dawn Griffin, president of the San Diego Domestic Violence Council, in a Union-Tribune op-ed published Dec. 2. | determination: true | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/fact-check-prosecuting-domestic-violence/ | Analysis: Dumanis and Griffin’s editorial reminded San Diegans to watch out for signs of domestic violence and explained how law enforcement and social service agencies are addressing it locally. To measure the problem, they highlighted these statistics: | null | null | null | null | Fact Check: Prosecuting Domestic Violence | December 14, 2010 | null | ['Bonnie_Dumanis', 'U-T_San_Diego'] |
pomt-12197 | Amazon has a "no-tax monopoly." | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jul/26/donald-trump/amazon-no-tax-monopoly-donald-trump-said/ | President Donald Trump took to Twitter to launch his latest salvo at Amazon, accusing the company of being a monopolistic tax cheat. "Is Fake News Washington Post being used as a lobbyist weapon against Congress to keep Politicians from looking into Amazon no-tax monopoly?" Trump tweeted. This is not the first time Trump has feuded with the online retail giant led by Jeff Bezos, who also owns the Washington Post, which has published a number of news stories that have angered Trump. The president’s description of Amazon struck us as questionable. So we decided to look into it. Amazon is not a monopoly With more than $136 billion in sales last year, there’s no doubt about Amazon’s status as an online shopping empire. But Amazon is not a monopoly, said Herbert Hovenkamp, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert on antitrust law. A monopoly exists when a company so dominates a market that it can reduce output and cause a rise in prices over a substantial period of time. This level of market control is outlawed by antitrust statutes designed to promote competition for the benefit of consumers. "We measure an antitrust violation by looking at consumer harm -- not harm to competitors," Hovenkamp said. "Most complaints about Amazon come from competitors. By and large, Amazon is pretty good with customers, so you don’t usually hear consumers squawking about this." Monopoly law typically kicks in when a company controls about 75 percent of a given market, Hovenkamp said. He noted that in 2000, Microsoft was deemed to be a monopoly because of its control of over 90 percent of the market for Windows-based computers. But no U.S. tribunal ― whether federal or state court, or the Federal Trade Commission ― has ever found Amazon to be a monopoly, Hovenkamp said. Amazon pays taxes Trump is wrong to say Amazon is not subject to tax. Like other businesses, Amazon pays taxes on corporate income, property, payroll and unemployment insurance, said Joseph Henchman, the executive vice president of the business-backed Tax Foundation. Amazon has also recently changed its policy on state sales tax, he added. According to regulatory filings, Amazon paid a combined total of $412 million in federal, state, local and foreign taxes last year. In 2015 it paid $273 million in combined taxes, and $177 million the previous year. But Amazon has faced criticism for taking advantage of tax breaks and loopholes. Only 13 percent of Amazon’s profits went to federal, state, local and foreign taxes from 2007 through 2015, according to an analysis by S&P Global Market Intelligence. For the sake of comparison, that’s about half the average amount S&P 500 companies paid over the same period. Amazon’s combined tax burden also falls well below the official U.S. corporate tax rate of 35 percent. In fact, one study found Amazon paid just a 9.3 percent effective federal income tax between 2008 and 2012. Nonetheless, Trump is wrong to say they’ve avoided tax collectors altogether. At the state level, Amazon, which launched online in 1995, long resisted charging a sales tax. But by 2012, it was collecting and paying sales tax in California, Texas and Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. Today, the company collects taxes in all states where state sales taxes exist, plus Washington, D.C. (all states except Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire and Oregon collect sales tax). Henchman noted that taxes apply to all of Amazon’s own sales, but not the large percentage of sales by other sellers using the Amazon platform. The digital retail giant’s decision to collect state sales tax is mostly voluntary. That’s because a 1992 Supreme Court ruling effectively restricts states from forcing online retailers to pay state and local sales taxes if the company has no brick-and-mortar property or employees in the state. The court’s ruling left the door open for Congress to override its decision through legislation -- and Amazon has lobbied Congress to do so by passing the Marketplace Fairness Act, which would subject online retailers to state sales tax. "We support a federal law that would allow states to require sales tax collection by remote sellers under a nationwide system," Amazon wrote in its 2016 regulatory filing. Currently, Amazon does not have physical buildings or employ workers in all the states where it charges taxes, though its footprint has grown in recent years and may grow larger still if its plan to acquire Whole Foods comes to fruition. Our ruling Trump said Amazon has a "no-tax monopoly." Amazon is an industry giant, but it does not exert enough market control to be considered a monopoly, and no U.S. tribunal has ever deemed it as such. While Amazon takes advantage of tax breaks and loopholes, it pays federal corporate tax, and charges sales taxes in 46 U.S. jurisdictions. It also supports federal legislation that would require other online retailers to pay state tax on internet sales. Trump’s statement is inaccurate and ridiculous. We rate it Pants on Fire! See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2017-07-26T14:26:34 | 2017-07-24 | ['None'] |
snes-02576 | Due to a recent court ruling, It is now legal for women in the U.S. to display their breasts in public. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/breasts-in-public/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Did a U.S. Federal Court Rule That Women are Free to Display Their Breasts in Public? | 19 April 2017 | null | ['United_States'] |
pomt-09454 | Texas has installed more wind power than any other state, and all but four countries. | true | /texas/statements/2010/mar/05/rick-perry/perry-says-texas-has-installed-more-wind-power-all/ | Federal regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions? "Don't tread on us" sums up the reaction of GOP Gov. Rick Perry, who's running for reelection. In February, the state filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency to prevent the regulation of carbon dioxide. Perry has resisted the EPA's finding last year that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health — a verdict that sets the stage for federal regulation. State officials say such curbs could jeopardize jobs and threaten businesses in Texas, which leads the nation in carbon emissions. As evidence that Texas is doing just fine protecting natural resources, thanks, Perry says Texas also leads the nation in wind power. From a press release the governor issued Feb. 16 announcing the state's lawsuit: "Texas has installed more wind power than any other state, and all but four countries." Does Perry have it right? Let's start with those other states. According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), a trade group that tracks development in the industry, Texas has the largest installed wind capacity in the country. That means its wind projects are producing more power than any other state. As of 2009, Texas boasted 9,410 megawatts of it — enough to power about two million-some homes here. Iowa has the second-largest installed wind capacity with 3,670 megawatts of power, followed by California, Washington state, and Minnesota. In 2009, Texas installed the largest amount of new capacity with 2,292 megawatts of wind power, trailed this time by Indiana, Iowa, Oregon and Illinois. So Texas is — sorry — blowing the competition out of U.S. waters. How does the state fare worldwide? The Global Wind Energy Council, of which the AWEA is a member, reports the United States had an installed wind power capacity of 35,159 megawatts as of 2009. Germany had 25,777 megawatts, China had 25,104 megawatts, Spain had 19,149 megawatts and India had 10,926 megawatts. Italy was the country with the sixth largest installed wind power capacity (4,850 megawatts) — just over half of Texas' capacity. Not including the U.S., Texas had installed more wind power than any all but four countries. And more than any other state. We rate Perry's statement as True. | null | Rick Perry | null | null | null | 2010-03-05T21:26:42 | 2010-02-16 | ['None'] |
pomt-06580 | If we had been on 'Obamacare' and a bureaucrat was trying to tell me when I could get that CAT scan, that would have delayed my treatment. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/27/herman-cain/herman-cain-said-government-bureaucrats-will-deter/ | Herman Cain said at a Republican presidential candidates' debate last week that he would be dead if his cancer had occurred while "Obamacare" was in effect. Cain had made the statement previously, so Chris Wallace of Fox News asked him about it at the debate sponsored by Fox News and Google in Orlando, Fla. Wallace: "Mr. Cain, you are a survivor of Stage 4 colon and liver cancer. And you say if 'Obamacare' had been -- (Here Wallace was interrupted by sustained cheers and applause) and we all share in the happiness about your situation, but you say if 'Obamacare' had been in effect when you were first being treated, you'd be dead now. Why?" Cain: "The reason I said that I would be dead on 'Obamacare' is because my cancer was detected in March of 2006. And from March 2006 all the way to the end of 2006, for that number of months, I was able to get the necessary CAT scan tests, go to the necessary doctors, get a second opinion, get chemotherapy, go to get surgery, recuperate from surgery, get more chemotherapy in a span of nine months. "If we had been on 'Obamacare' and a bureaucrat was trying to tell me when I could get that CAT scan, that would have delayed my treatment. My surgeons and doctors have told me that because I was able to get the treatment as fast as I could, based upon my timetable, and not the government's timetable, that's what saved my life, because I only had a 30 percent chance of survival. And now I'm here five years cancer-free because I could do it on my timetable and not on a bureaucrat's timetable. This is one of the reasons I believe a lot of people are objecting to 'Obamacare,' because we need to get bureaucrats out of the business of trying to micromanage health care in this nation." "Obamacare," in case you haven't figured it out yet, is the Republicans' often mocking name for the health care law that President Barack Obama signed into law in 2010. Some of the changes resulting from the law have already taken effect, including sons and daughters under 26 being allowed to be covered by their parents' health insurance. But many major provisions don't begin until 2014. Here's the general way the new law works: The major health insurance systems are left in place, especially the health insurance coverage people get through work and Medicare. For people who have to buy insurance on their own, the government adds new regulations for health insurance companies to follow. States will create "exchanges," which are virtual marketplaces where people will be able to comparison shop for insurance. The law says that everyone must have insurance or pay a tax penalty. (That's called the individual mandate, and it's being challenged in federal courts.) People who make modest incomes will qualify for tax breaks to help them buy insurance, and very poor people will be eligible for Medicaid. What the law is not is a single-payer system, as in Canada, where the government picks up the bills; nor is it a nationalized system like Great Britain's where the government owns hospitals and employs doctors. So if those are the systems Cain had in mind, that's not what the new health care law is. (We asked Cain's campaign what the basis was for his statement, but we didn't hear back.) Even for people over age 65 in Medicare -- the part of the health care system that most resembles a single-payer plan -- private physicians would still make decisions about scans and treatments. Still, opponents of the health care law have argued that it will eventually result in bureaucrats making decisions that affect treatment, particularly for Medicare recipients. But those claims have been rated False on our Truth-O-Meter when they have asserted that bureaucrats will make decisions about individual cases. For example, PolitiFact Georgia looked at a statement from Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-Ga., who said that under the health care law, "a bunch of bureaucrats decide whether you get care, such as continuing on dialysis or cancer chemotherapy." Gingrey said the bureaucrats are part of the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB. The board is a new part of the health care law, and it was created in response to criticism that Congress has been unable to make the politically risky and technically complex decisions needed to slow the growth of costs for Medicare. Under the health care law, if Medicare spending growth is projected to exceed certain targets, the IPAB must come up with plans to slow the increase. If Congress does not act on the recommendation within a set time frame, the IPAB's plans are automatically implemented. Both sides of the aisle have problems with the board. Some worry it will be too hard for Congress to overrule IPAB recommendations or that the board will stifle innovation. In recent months, several members of Congress from both parties have signed on to repeal the board. But saying that the IPAB will determine the course of treatment for individual cases is an entirely different matter -- and it's factually incorrect. Even people who oppose the IPAB agree that it will not intervene in the cases of individual patients but will rather determine how much the government pays health care providers for various services. It can also reduce payments to hospitals with very high rates of readmission or recommend innovations that cut wasteful spending. (See PolitiFact Georgia's fact-check for more details on the IPAB.) But we should point out here that the IPAB applies to Medicare. Medicare is a government-run health insurance program for those over age 65. When Cain was diagnosed with cancer in March 2006, he would have been 60 -- too young for Medicare. So the IPAB wouldn't even have applied, even if it had been in effect at the time. We don't know the personal details of Cain's health status or how he is insured. But it's impossible for us to see how a government bureaucrat could have delayed Cain's care. Cain said at the debate that, "If we had been on 'Obamacare' and a bureaucrat was trying to tell me when I could get that CAT scan, that would have delayed my treatment." But there is no part of the health care law that allows a government bureaucrat to weigh in on an individual's course of treatment -- not Cain's nor anyone else's. We rate his statement False. | null | Herman Cain | null | null | null | 2011-09-27T18:08:33 | 2011-09-22 | ['None'] |
goop-01962 | Brad Pitt Did “Reunite” With Jennifer Aniston For Christmas In Aspen After Being “Banned” By Angelina Joli | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/brad-pitt-not-reunite-jennifer-aniston-christmas-aspen-angelina-jolie-banned/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Brad Pitt Did NOT “Reunite” With Jennifer Aniston For Christmas In Aspen After Being “Banned” By Angelina Jolie | 10:29 am, December 26, 2017 | null | ['Aspen,_Colorado'] |
snes-05402 | Eric Holder participated in the armed occupation of a Columbia University ROTC office in 1970. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/eric-holder-participated-in-armed-siege-of-rotc-office/ | null | Crime | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Eric Holder Participated in an Armed Takeover of an ROTC Office | 6 January 2016 | null | ['Eric_Holder'] |
snes-02724 | A recent invasion of New Guinea Flatworms in Florida poses a significant risk to human health and a sighting of this non-native animal should be reported to authorities by calling 911. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/call-police-new-guinea-flatworm/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Should People Call the Police if They See a New Guinea Flatworm? | 27 March 2017 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02617 | Jennifer Aniston Getting “Revenge” On Angelina Jolie With TV Comeback? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-revenge-angelina-jolie-tv-comeback/ | null | null | null | Holly Nicol | null | Jennifer Aniston Getting “Revenge” On Angelina Jolie With TV Comeback? | 4:56 am, August 2, 2017 | null | ['Angelina_Jolie', 'Jennifer_Aniston'] |
pomt-07625 | Says the majority of Americans support gay marriage. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/18/anne-hathaway/anne-hathaway-and-other-celebs-sign/ | Actor Anne Hathaway and other Hollywood celebrities recently wrote to President Barack Obama urging him to support gay marriage. The letter said a majority of Americans now support it. Indeed, public opinion on gay marriage is shifting quickly. How quickly? Let's just say we're glad we waited a day to publish our item. The letter came on the heels of the White House announcement that it would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. The act defines marriage as a legal union between one man and one woman. The letter, sponsored by Freedom to Marry, a group that advocates for marriage for same-sex couples, called the DOMA decision "a powerful statement about the law" and an "important step toward equal protection under the law for all Americans." The letter urged the president "to complete your journey and join us, and the majority of Americans, who support the freedom to marry." It was signed by a group of actors, musicians, business executives and pro athletes including entertainers Ellen DeGeneres and Martin Sheen; musicians Rufus Wainwright and Melissa Etheridge; and football players Scott Fujita and Brendon Ayanbadejo. Obama's position to date has been support for "strong civil unions," but he allowed in December that, "my feelings are constantly evolving," and that he will "continue to wrestle" with the issue. The American public has long been deeply divided over the question of same-sex marriage, and so we wondered if the letter is accurate that a majority of Americans now support it. Jackie Yodashkin, a spokeswoman for Freedom to Marry, backed up the claim by pointing us toward two polls. The first was a poll conducted by the Associated Press in August 2010 that asked the question, "Should the Federal Government give legal recognition to marriages between couples of the same sex, or not?" It was supported by 52 percent and opposed by 46 percent. The percentages were nearly the reverse in a poll the year before. The second was a CNN poll, also in August 2010, in which 52 percent responded "yes" to the question, "Do you think gays and lesbians should have a constitutional right to get married and have their marriage recognized by law as valid?" But the results differed slightly depending how the question was asked. Half got a question that read "should have" right to marry and the other half was asked if gay people "have" a right to marry. The "should" version produced a 52-46 majority in favor of gay marriage, while the "have a right" question produced a 49-51 majority against. Charles Franklin, co-founder of Pollster.com and professor of political science at University of Wisconsin at Madison, said the results show people understand "it isn't a settled constitutional right, though a majority think it should be one." Other polls show growing support for gay marriage, but less than a majority. For example, a Pew Research Center poll released on March 3, 2011, found that while the clear trend is heading in favor of gay marriage, the American public remains about equally divided. According to a Pew news release on its study, "The new poll finds that about as many adults now favor (45 percent) as oppose (46 percent) allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally. Last year opponents outnumbered supporters 48 percent to 42 percent. Opposition to same-sex marriage has declined by 19 percentage points since 1996, when 65 percent opposed gay marriage and only 27 percent were in favor." A review of the totality of recent polls suggests that, "opinion has moved, but it is not a majority sentiment yet," said Karlyn Bowman, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "I'd rate it 'not true yet,'" Franklin said. "There are some individual polls that have shown support larger than opposition but the overall trend isn't quite there yet." But it's likely to be true soon, he said. "The consistency of the trends since 2005 all but guarantee support will exceed opposition within the year," said Franklin, who wrote about the trend in a recent Huffington Post story. Then, on March 18, 2011, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that a slim majority now supports gay marriage. According to the Post story about it, "The results underscore the nation’s increasingly tolerant views about homosexuals, and parallel a string of recent legal and legislative victories for gay rights advocates." "Five years ago, at 36 percent, support for gay marriage barely topped a third of all Americans," the story states. "Now, 53 percent say gay marriage should be legal, marking the first time in Post-ABC polling that a majority has said so." The story notes that opponents of same-sex marriage took issue with the wording in the poll: "Do you think it should be legal or illegal for gay and lesbian couples to get married?" According to the story, "Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, argued that the term 'illegal' could be inferred to mean that violators could be imprisoned, which most Americans would consider harsh." It is the same language used in Post-ABC News polls since 2003. "The only poll that counts is a free and fair vote on the part of the people," Brown told the Washington Post. "We’ve seen these biased polls time and time again -- right before votes in which same-sex marriage is rejected. It’s absurd. The people of this country have not changed their opinion about marriage." A couple of other caveats. When the option of civil unions (short of marriage) is added to the mix, the numbers change. In several recent polls that asked which of three options best describes their preference -- legalizing same-sex marriage, civil unions or none -- the top-rated option was legalizing marriage, with about 37 to 40 percent support. "I would not rate that as evidence of majority support for gay marriage, though it is an interesting change from the early 2000s when no legal recognition was the largest category," Franklin said. One other factor to consider: Public opinion sometimes shifts when the issue of gay marriage really heats up. "We saw movement away from gay marriage in 2004-05, showing that despite the long-term trend there is a possibility of reaction against expansion of gay marriage when the issue is made especially salient," Franklin said. "But that said, it is hard to imagine the lines don't cross in the next 12 months or so, given how much the gap closed in each of the last five years." Bottom line, most of the polls taken in 2010 and 2011 show that while there is a clear trend in recent years toward support for gay marriage, but it is not quite yet a majority. But there are some polls that have found the tipping point has been reached, and that a slim majority now support gay marriage. And that includes the newest poll, from the Washington Post-ABC News. And so we rate the claim Mostly True. | null | Anne Hathaway | null | null | null | 2011-03-18T16:56:16 | 2011-03-15 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-02246 | The Capitol rotunda was actually made to invite the people in and to accommodate protests. | true | /wisconsin/statements/2014/apr/14/chris-taylor/rep-chris-taylor-says-state-capitol-rotunda-was-de/ | Members of the the Russian punk band Pussy Riot helped breathe new fire into longstanding controversy surrounding the arrests of hundreds of protesters at the Wisconsin State Capitol. Band members Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alyokhina, who served time in a Russian prison after criticizing President Vladimir Putin in a 2012 performance, declared "Solidarity with Wisconsin!" in a video that argues for the dismissal of tickets issued to those who participated in noon hour singalongs at the Capitol. The daily singalongs are an outgrowth of the massive protests that engulfed the Capitol in early 2011 after Gov. Scott Walker unveiled his plan to curtail collective bargaining for most public employees. In the summer of 2013, Capitol Police began arresting protesters in large numbers. Some protesters were arrested dozens of times, and hundreds of tickets -- mostly civil rather than criminal forfeitures -- were written. State officials said the singers had gathered illegally without a permit. Two protesters, with help from the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, sued Gov. Scott Walker’s administration, claiming the arrests violated the singers’ right to free speech. In July 2013, U.S. District Judge William Conley issued a preliminary injunction blocking two parts of the restrictions on demonstrations, but left in place the rules requiring permits for larger gatherings. The singing and the arrests continued. With the free speech case heading for a trial, the state and the singers reached an agreement in October 2013. The state agreed to pay more than $88,000 in attorneys fees and drop its requirement that larger groups receive a permit before staging protests in the Capitol. The agreement said protesters could stage five days of demonstrations if they gave the state two days’ advance notice. At the time, Larry Dupuis, legal director of the ACLU of Wisconsin said: "Giving notice is very informal. The state can't deny use of the Capitol to anyone giving notice, unless someone else has reserved the entire space by obtaining a permit for the same time." A total of 504 tickets were written. Of those, 192 have been dismissed, 11 found guilty, 28 were settled through deferred prosecution and two were declined by prosecutors, and two settled with a default judgment, according to Dana Brueck, spokeswoman for Attorney Gen. J.B. Van Hollen. That leaves 269 tickets to be settled. And that was the purpose behind the six-minute video, released March 11, 2014. It argues that the protesters were simply exercising their right to free speech by singing. State Rep. Chris Taylor (D-Madison) leads off with this statement: "The Capitol rotunda was actually made to invite the people in and to accommodate protests." Is Taylor right? About the building While Taylor argues the Capitol was actually designed for protests and gatherings, the state has argued it is primarily a place of business. That’s the approach Van Hollen took in 2012 brief filed in a Dane County Circuit Court case. "The prime use of the State Capitol is as an office building and a place for orderly legislative and judicial hearings on the most important issues of the day — not as an open public square," Van Hollen argued. He cited this comment from Secretary of Administration Michael Huebsch from an earlier case: "It is primarily the facility by which the Legislature, the Judicial, and the Executive Branches are able to conduct their business and do what they have been duly elected to carry out." In an email, DOA spokesman Stephanie Marquis cited the state’s Administrative Code, which says state buildings are available for a variety of uses, including "public meetings for the free discussion of public questions" providing the use doesn’t interfere with the prime uses of the building, doesn’t create a management problem, involve damages and is appropriate to the physical context of the building or facility." She also cited the history of the Capitol, including various moves and expansions made to handle the growth of state government: "The history talks about the purpose of the building is to conduct State and legislative business." Taylor’s case But Taylor’s argument is that the building was designed with a broader purpose in mind. Aide Craig Trost said she based her comments about the Capitol on part of Conley’s ruling. In his ruling, Conley described the Capitol, and especially the soaring rotunda, as a special place. He cited the June 10, 2000 nomination of the building for inclusion on the National Registry of Historic Places. The nomination, which was successful, was prepared by architectural historian Anne Biebel, who was part of the team that worked on a major restoration project that had been completed. The nomination noted that there is a "clear demarcation between public and private spaces, (that) is central to the development of (Capitol architect George Browne) Post’s scheme for the Capitol interior. The public spaces, such as the rotunda, chambers and major corridors, are monumental in scale and are characterized by ornate decoration, rich materials and lavish details. The private offices, designed with the goal of making them adaptable to changing needs, are constructed at a smaller and more intimate scale." Conley noted: "Whereas some statehouses are maintained apart from the urban fabric, the Wisconsin Capitol Rotunda functions, both literally and symbolically, as a city center and is fully utilized as a public space to which all have claim." Later in his ruling, the judge noted: "The Capitol rotunda is closer to an out-of-doors, traditional public forum in that it is a capacious gathering space with a unique history as a place for government and public discourse, which admits for (indeed, was designed for) a certain level of disturbance that would not be proper in a typical state office building or even a typical state capitol." Conley’s ruling also noted that the rotunda is the location of the state’s holiday tree, and the setting for numerous events and ceremonies. Our rating In the video, Taylor said the building was designed for such public gatherings. While it is a place of business, the building’s nomination for National Historic Landmark makes clear that it was designed to be open to the public for various gatherings. We rate Taylor’s statement True. | null | Chris Taylor | null | null | null | 2014-04-14T05:00:00 | 2014-03-11 | ['None'] |
snes-01845 | Did Congress Designate Confederate Soldiers as United States Veterans? | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/confederate-soldiers-veterans/ | null | Politics | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Did Congress Designate Confederate Soldiers as United States Veterans? | 24 August 2017 | null | ['None'] |
chct-00349 | FACT CHECK: Has The US Paid Pakistan 'Billions And Billions' While It Harbored Terrorists? | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2017/08/24/fact-check-has-the-us-paid-pakistan-billions-and-billions-while-it-harbored-terrorists/ | null | null | null | Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 12:12 PM 08/24/2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01745 | Says a $12.5 million incentive deal she approved for Abbott Laboratories contained "strong protections for taxpayers if job creation goals were not met." | false | /wisconsin/statements/2014/aug/03/mary-burke/mary-burke-abbott-deal-had-strong-protections-taxp/ | Gov. Scott Walker alleges that former state Commerce Secretary Mary Burke "wasted" nearly $25 million in the so-far failed attempt to attract a major Abbott Laboratories expansion in Wisconsin. But Burke, Walker’s main Democratic challenger in the 2014 governor’s race, says her agency built tough failsafes into the deal. "Everyone from local officials to the local chamber of commerce to Walker's own administration agrees that this was and is a good deal from an economic development standpoint," Burke’s campaign said on July 9, 2014. "The grant," she continued, "contained strong protections for taxpayers if job creation goals were not met or infrastructure was not developed for economic development." On July 31, 2014, we rated Walker’s $25 million claim False, noting that Walker double-counted the $12.3 million cost of the deal. In the jousting over the strength or weakness of the deal’s protections, the two campaigns cite the same sections of the complicated Abbott aid agreement as evidence for their side’s view. Let’s start there. The 2006 deal passed $12.5 million in federal block grant funds through the Village of Pleasant Prairie and the Kenosha Area Business Alliance to purchase 40 acres of land to hold for Abbott, which already had amassed 500 acres for a potential Kenosha County corporate campus. If the pharmaceutical giant’s Wisconsin expansion proceeds, Abbott could buy the land for $1. State officials wanted a so-called "clawback" provision that would require Abbott to pay back the money if the company did not create at least 2,400 jobs, but Abbott declined to sign one, according to Michael Pollocoff, Pleasant Prairie’s administrator. Burke and then-Gov. Jim Doyle pushed forward without such a provision. It’s common for Commerce Department grants and loans to businesses to be tied to performance measures mandating partial or full return of such aid if jobs are not added, according to a 2006 state audit. Often the state’s contracts call for personal loan guarantees and financial penalties in case of non-repayment. Such conditions vary depending on the situation, but in the Abbott case, the state’s approach meant that the party the state was hoping to come through with jobs was not directly on the hook. It was subject only to indirect financial pressure to do so -- the loss of a "free" piece of land. Land sale envisioned The plan, however, did not leave the state without any recourse. Under the agreement, the business alliance, known as KABA, is responsible for returning some funds to the state if the Abbott jobs don’t emerge by 2016. That refund, though, was tied to what the 40-acre property could bring in a sale, and the plan came with some terms that weakened the possibility the full amount could be recovered. At this point, the land’s assessed value is about 55 percent of what KABA paid for it -- nearly $5 million lower than the $12.3 million purchase price (a pre-recession price paid to a truck stop developer who had leverage in the negotiation.) So at least as things stand now, far less than the full $12.3 million seems recoverable. The deal called for KABA and Pleasant Prairie to recoup their own costs related to holding and preparing the Abbott site for development. Those costs are nearly $4 million, said Pollocoff. So if the state were to immediately sell the property, the leftover funds might total only $2 million to $3 million. There’s nothing in the deal that would block the state from holding the land in hopes that its value in a busy corporate corridor would increase. "This is a unique piece of collateral with significant growth potential," Burke spokesman Joe Zepecki argued in an email to PolitiFact Wisconsin, "40 acres of land along a busy highway, next to up-and-coming businesses like Amazon and Uline." Todd Battle, president of the KABA group, didn’t respond to interview requests for this story, but in 2006 he described the land as "some of the most valuable real estate along the (Interstate 94) corridor." But there’s one more, major point here. Because federal officials in 2013 declared the deal ineligible for federal money in the first place, and the promise of jobs was so vague, the state is being forced -- now -- to pay back HUD from state tax revenue. Federal officials say the project was overly speculative and has not paid off over eight years. That’s something no one contemplated as a possibility, and one that a stronger and more properly drawn deal would have prevented as a matter of course. Mike Huebsch, state Department of Administration secretary and a top member of the Walker administration, is not impressed by predictions of money coming back to the state. "The deal was constructed in a way that put us at a disadvantage every step of the way," he told us. "The state’s position was not strong." We sought an outsider’s opinion and turned to Ronald D Berkebile. He’s a founder of Dominion Scientific Analytics, a financial analyst with the city of Virginia Beach, Virginia, and an author of articles on the financial impact of economic development projects. Berkebile didn’t fault the general structure of the deal, and said there’s an element of hindsight in the criticisms. If the economy had not soured, Abbott might have met the agreement’s expectations, and "no one would have asked about this situation," he said. "The economy (in 2006) likely supported the promise of a large pharmaceutical company developing the land. A promise of this nature is very enticing." But he said more performance milestones should have been built in to protect the investment, and there should have been better monitoring to avoid violating state and federal rules. If Abbott couldn’t produce by a date certain, "then KABA should have had the ability to exercise alternative property rights to develop the land in accordance with (block grant) standards," he said. Our rating Burke’s campaign said the $12.5 million incentive deal she approved for Abbott Laboratories contained "strong protections for taxpayers if job creation goals were not met." While the land provides some collateral, the deal’s protections and structure fell short of those used in many such cases, leaving the state vulnerable to picking up some or most of the pieces if Abbott doesn’t deliver. And it’s hard to reconcile how "strong protections" could have allowed the scenario now unfolding in which the state is paying cash to HUD. We rate the claim False. | null | Mary Burke | null | null | null | 2014-08-03T05:00:00 | 2014-07-09 | ['Abbott_Laboratories'] |
pomt-02049 | Says a "liberal" immigration reform group endorsed his GOP primary opponent, Dave Brat. | false | /virginia/statements/2014/may/30/eric-cantor/eric-cantor-says-liberal-immigration-group-backs-h/ | U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-7th, is portraying himself as a bastion against illegal immigration in fending off a June 10 primary challenge from Dave Brat, a professor at Randolph-Macon College. "Just yesterday, a liberal pro-amnesty group held a rally and encouraged their supporters to vote in our election for our opponent because Congressman Cantor is standing up to Obama on illegal immigration," Cantor’s campaign said in a May 29 email to supporters. The statement caught PolitiFact’s attention because we attended the May 28 rally at the state Capitol held by Casa de Virginia, a group that supports immigration reform. The speakers certainly needled Cantor, the House majority leader, for not scheduling a vote on a bill to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws. They held signs saying "Eric Cantor: the one man blocking immigration reform," and "Eric Cantor Give us a vote!" But we didn’t hear anyone endorse Brat, who accuses Cantor of being soft on immigration. To the contrary, U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., brushed off speculation that the primary was tied to the timing of the rally. "Some people think we’re here because there’s a primary next week, nothing could be further from the truth," Gutierrez said in the keynote speech. "The primary is really irrelevant to us. We’re here because the majority leader, Eric Cantor, controls the agenda of the Congress of the United States. And we have come here to say … Stop being an obstacle. Stop being in the way." Gutierrez said at another point that the primary might be impeding passage of immigration reform. "Here is the good news, they are going to finally have a primary here in Virginia," Gutierrez said. "Maybe after all the partisan politics are over, we can finally get back to the business of the people of the United States." We asked Ray Allen Jr., Cantor’s political adviser, for evidence that rally organizers urged those in attendance to support Brat. He pointed to a flier handed out at the event that said, "Vote *ABC* June 10 -- Anybody But Cantor." Allen sent us a photo of the flier in a red packet of immigration information that was handed out by organizers of the rally. "While the flier says vote for anybody but Cantor, Brat is the only anybody on the ballot," Allen emailed. "The intent of the flyer is obvious to all." But the "Anybody But Cantor" flier was not included in the packet the rally organizers gave to the media. A man disseminated the orange sheet before the rally, but his affiliation was unclear. A disclaimer on the bottom of the page provided no clues, saying, "This message is not authorized by any candidate." The same man also passed out the flier at news conference Brat held in the Capitol shortly before the rally. Brat used the occasion to question Cantor’s toughness on immigration reform. Zachary Werrell, Brat’s campaign manager said his campaign didn’t pass out the flier and he had no idea who did. Lindolfo Carballo, coordinator of Casa de Virginia, said his group is not connected to the flier. "It was someone who came to the event before we even started and was passing the flier around," he said. "We asked him to stop. He wasn’t part of our group and the flier wasn’t part of our package." Carballo said, "We’re not endorsing anyone. We are just asking Eric Cantor to allow a vote on immigration reform." As to Cantor’s claim that the group is backing Brat, Carballo said, "He is going to play this game of his. We are not here to play." Cantor has declined to schedule a House vote on a comprehensive immigration reform bill that passed the Senate last year. The legislation would spend billions on border control and establish a lengthy path to citizenship for many immigrants who entered the country illegally. Cantor says rather than pass a comprehensive bill, Congress should take a piece-by-piece approach to immigration. The majority leader says he supports a path to citizenship for children who were brought into the country illegally by their parents. On May 16, Cantor announced that he would not allow an amendment to the defense authorization bill that would allow children of illegal immigrants to join the military and receive legal status once they’ve served. Cantor said he supports the concept of the measure, but did not want to attach it to the authorization bill. The majority leader has declined to say when or if he would set up a separate vote for the Enlist Act. Our ruling Cantor says Casa de Virginia, a group supporting immigration reform, endorsed his Republican primary opponent during a May 28 rally in Richmond. Seeking to shore up his conservative support, Cantor cited the action as proof that that he is "standing up to Obama on illegal immigration." The problem is that no speaker at the rally issued an endorsement of Dave Brat, Cantor’s opponent. To the contrary, the keynoter stressed that the group was not taking sides in the primary; it was simply calling on Cantor to allow a House vote on immigration reform. Cantor’s campaign points to a flier passed out at the event urging voters to support "anyone but Cantor" in the primary. Casa denies any connection to the flier. The missive was not part of an information package Casa distributed at the rally. We know this because we were there. Cantor’s statement is False. | null | Eric Cantor | null | null | null | 2014-05-30T17:36:31 | 2014-05-29 | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
goop-00810 | Kim Kardashian Ready To Divorce Kanye West? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-divorce-split-billion-dollar/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Kim Kardashian Ready To Divorce Kanye West? | 1:15 pm, June 16, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05056 | Toothpaste contains "the poison substance of fluoride." | mostly false | /wisconsin/statements/2012/jul/09/jim-bohl/milwaukee-alderman-says-fluoride-toothpaste-poison/ | The debate over the use of fluoride in Milwaukee’s water supply was pretty much a one day affair. Led by Ald. Jim Bohl, in that short time frame, the public heard a barrage of unusual claims about their water, rat poison, and even their toothpaste. Indeed, we thought the debate over fluoridation of water had long been settled. Since 1953, the Milwaukee Water Works has added a tiny amount of fluoride to the drinking water. Many cities have done this for years to boost dental hygiene and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers it one of the most important public health efforts of the past 50 years. Some, including Bohl, have criticized the practice. They raise a variety of arguments including that the government is introducing poison into the water supply. Bohl tried unsuccessfully to get the Common Council to end water fluoridation in Milwaukee, arguing the money saved -- about $540,000 a year -- would be better used for dental programs in the central city. Bohl said that fluoride was a dangerous chemical, originally created for use as rat poison. Now, not only is it in the water, but also consumer products including toothpaste, he said. "We all know that we do not have children or anyone swallow toothpaste," Bohl said at a City Hall news conference May 29, cited in this report on WUWM. "And the reason we don’t do that is because of the poison substance of fluoride. If fluoride was such an effective and non-harmful substance, why would we not encourage everyone to swallow their toothpaste?" Bohl elaborated in a May 30 interview with the Journal Sentinel editorial board: "We’re talking about a substance that’s rated as more toxic than lead." That got our attention. Poison in our toothpaste? Are folks putting themselves in danger when they polish their pearly whites? Some -- but not all -- toothpaste contains fluoride, a substance known to prevent cavities. If it’s ingested alone, fluoride can cause serious illness in humans. So, toothpaste is regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which limits the amount of fluoride allowed in the product. That’s why tubes of toothpaste with fluoride carry this warning label: "If you accidentally swallow more than used for brushing, seek professional assistance or contact a Poison Control Center immediately." Apparently Bohl is not the only one who reads the fine print on their toothpaste tubes. Flouride calls are relatively common at the Wisconsin Poison Center, in part because of the warning label, said manager Cathy Smith. The agency, part of Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, handles calls from around the state. Experts who field the calls determine the brand and type of toothpaste used and consult database to determine the concentration of fluoride in that particular product, Smith said. They then factor in the age and weight of the human and see if there’s a problem. And here’s where the scary talk from Bohl meets reality: Toothpaste doesn’t make people sick. "We have never, ever had a person who has ingested toothpaste, even a child, who has been referred to the emergency room," Smith said. How much toothpaste would you have to swallow before you’d be considered in any sort of trouble? A 30-pound child would have to ingest an entire six-ounce tube, according to the Poison Center. "Kids, number one, don’t eat that much," Smith said. " And, number two, they’d be puking it up if they did." In part, that’s because the product includes cleansers, detergents and other substances that would disagree with your stomach. By the Poison Center’s calculations, an adult would have to swallow about four tubes of toothpaste before they’d be a candidate for the E.R. We checked with Froedtert Hospital, which has one of the busiest emergency rooms in the state. Spokeswoman Kathleen Sieja said that the hospital didn’t track toothpaste-related ailments, but said she’d check with a long-time doctor there to see if he had heard of anything. Said Sieja: "The emergency dept physician responded that in his 17 years, he has never taken care of a fluoride overdose." We also checked with a few other sources, including toothpaste manufacturers, and found there’s little for people to worry about. "The amount of fluoride found in toothpaste is usually not swallowed in large enough amounts to cause harm," said an article on the New York Times Health section about how people should handle a possible fluoride overdose. And here’s what Proctor and Gamble, the maker of Crest, says about toothpaste dangers: "Occasionally swallowing a small amount of toothpaste is not a safety risk for adults or children. Our label cautions against swallowing because eating a large amount of toothpaste would be expected to cause nausea, vomiting or diarrhea. Certain ingredients that are common in toothpastes have the potential to cause stomach irritation if enough is swallowed." Finally, there’s the question of what is a poison. Here’s what a couple of dictionaries say: -- A substance with an inherent property that tends to destroy life or impair health. Dictionary.com -- A substance that causes injury, illness, or death, especially by chemical means. The Free Dictionary.com -- A substance that through its chemical action usually kills, injures, or impairs an organism. Merriam-Webster.com A tube of toothpaste doesn’t seem to fit any of these definitions. We asked Bohl why he called fluoride a poison, and he sent us an email with links to more than a dozen websites that "spell out the toxic nature of the substance." Some are from government sources, such as the Environmental Protection Agency. Others were from groups opposed to fluoride, even one by a blogger who writes about "Energy healing program to boost the human aura, increase athletic performance and life extension." Bohl turned to the dictionary as well -- to define the word toxic: 1) poisonous. 2. manifesting the symptoms of severe poisoning. The FreeDictionary.com. Finally, we asked the Poison Center: Is fluoride a poison? Smith’s answer: "It can be toxic in certain situations." So, with this item adequately scrubbed, let’s put it to bed. In raising a slew of concerns about the use of fluoride in Milwaukee’s drinking water, Bohl said the public was being exposed to a dangerous chemical -- he called it a poison -- that is regulated by the feds. Many brands of toothpaste do contain fluoride, which is regulated by the feds. But saying toothpaste contains a poison, Bohl overstates his case and the alarm to the public. People generally don’t eat and swallow toothpaste. And if they did, it would take a massive amount to be at risk from fluoride poisoning. In fact, experts say a kid would vomit out the toothpaste long before that point. We rate Bohl’s claim Mostly False. | null | Jim Bohl | null | null | null | 2012-07-09T09:00:00 | 2012-05-30 | ['None'] |
pomt-14344 | Out of 67 counties (in Florida), I won 66, which is unprecedented. It's never happened before. | pants on fire! | /florida/statements/2016/mar/24/donald-trump/no-donald-trump-winning-66-67-florida-counties-not/ | Billionaire Donald Trump won an easy victory in Florida’s 2016 Republican presidential primary — so easy, he said, that he garnered an unparalleled amount of support in the process. "Out of 67 counties (in Florida), I won 66, which is unprecedented. It's never happened before," Trump said March 21. It is true that he won 66 counties (Sen. Marco Rubio won his birthplace of Miami-Dade before dropping out of the race), but Trump’s nearly unanimous win is hardly unprecedented. We looked at county-by-county election results from the state’s Division of Elections website. Big wins aren’t altogether unusual in Florida, if you go back just a few years. Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich split the state in the 2012 Republican primary, and both the GOP and Democrats split their primaries three ways in 2008. But in 2004, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry won all 67 counties for the Democrats. That feat was repeated by both parties in 2000, when Vice President Al Gore won all 67 for the Democrats and Texas Gov. George W. Bush won all 67 for Republicans. In 1996, Bob Dole took 66 of 67 counties for the GOP primary — but really, the 67th was a tie at 190 votes each for Dole and Pat Buchanan in Washington County. Bill Clinton took 63 counties in 1992’s Democratic primary. Paul Tsongas won Alachua, Martin, Seminole and Palm Beach counties. Pat Buchanan mounted a primary challenge to incumbent president George H.W. Bush that year and won Hardee County. Bush nabbed the other 66. In 1988, George H.W. Bush won 64 counties, losing three to Pat Robertson in the GOP race. Counties were split over their Democratic candidate, but Michael Dukakis won the state. Walter Mondale and Gary Hart divided the state for Democrats in 1984, with Jesse Jackson winning one county and John Glenn two. The state’s online data only goes back to 1978, but there were enough examples to prove Trump wrong in this case. In 1980, Jimmy Carter won 100 percent of Florida counties for the Democrats. But Trump can lay claim to beating the primary record of Republican hero Ronald Reagan. The actor defeated his eventual vice presidential running mate George H.W. Bush by 64 counties to 3. In addition to Alachua County, Bush took Dixie and Union counties by a single vote. Our ruling Trump said, "Out of 67 counties (in Florida), I won 66, which is unprecedented. It's never happened before." Trump won 66 counties, but it’s far from unprecedented for Florida primary winners to win by a huge margin. Going back even just a few decades, there are several instances of candidates winning all 67 counties. We rate Trump’s statement Pants On Fire! https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/43a5741d-ee96-45f6-b652-4af511639b68 | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-03-24T10:50:48 | 2016-03-21 | ['None'] |
tron-02838 | The Ku Klux Klan has endorsed Barack Obama for president | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/kkk-obama/ | null | obama | null | null | null | The Ku Klux Klan has endorsed Barack Obama for president | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Barack_Obama', 'Ku_Klux_Klan'] |
hoer-00276 | 'Major Hack' Facebook Virus Warning Message | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/major-hack-facebook-pictures-warning.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | 'Major Hack' Facebook Virus Warning Message | February 7, 2014 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03669 | Queen Elizabeth II has offered to restore British rule over the United States of America. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/queen-offers-to-restore-british-rule-over-united-states/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | Queen Offers to Restore British Rule Over United States | 30 October 2016 | null | ['United_States', 'United_Kingdom', 'Elizabeth_II'] |
tron-00560 | Aldi Giving Away $75 Coupon | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/aldi-giving-away-75-coupon-fiction/ | null | business | null | null | null | Aldi Giving Away $75 Coupon | Apr 22, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
farg-00423 | “TRUMP SENDS IN THE FEDS – Sanctuary City Leaders Arrested" | false | https://www.factcheck.org/2018/05/no-arrests-of-sanctuary-city-leaders/ | null | fake-news | FactCheck.org | Angelo Fichera | ['Illegal immigration'] | No Arrests of ‘Sanctuary City’ Leaders | May 17, 2018 | 2018-05-17 20:50:42 UTC | ['None'] |
snes-03986 | Actor Brad Pitt authored "A Secret of Love" about his wife. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/a-secret-of-love/ | null | Glurge Gallery | null | David Mikkelson | null | A Secret of Love — Brad Pitt | 28 June 2013 | null | ['Brad_Pitt'] |
snes-02449 | The Taco Bell fast food chain is closing all of their locations. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/taco-bell-closing/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Taco Bell Announcing Bankruptcy, All Stores Closing by 2018? | 1 June 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00519 | Donald Trump once refused to allow a marine engineer on board his yacht because the man was black. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-yacht-boarding/ | null | Politics | null | David Mikkelson | null | Did Donald Trump Prevent a Black Man from Boarding His Yacht? | 2 June 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10428 | McCain sought the political support of minister John Hagee, "who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church 'the Antichrist' and a 'false cult.'" | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/may/15/moveon/true-but-hagee-has-since-recanted/ | Note to readers: An update was posted to this item on May 23, 2008, to reflect new information. See note at the end of this story. In an e-mail to supporters, the liberal group MoveOn.org listed reasons people should not support Sen. John McCain for president. "McCain has sought closer ties to the extreme religious right in recent years," the e-mail said. "McCain sought the political support of right-wing preacher John Hagee, who believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights and called the Catholic Church 'the Antichrist' and a 'false cult.'" Some of MoveOn's points are correct. McCain has accepted an endorsement from Hagee, an evangelical minister with a national following. Since MoveOn's e-mail went out, however, Hagee has renounced his previous controversial statements. Hagee heads the Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, with 17,000 members. He has a nationally syndicated television show, John Hagee Today, a sprawling Web site and numerous books. His dominant issue is the defense of Israel: He founded the advocacy group Christians United for Israel in 2006, and his book Jerusalem Countdown takes grim satisfaction in predicting a nuclear confrontation in the Middle East with the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other. Hagee's endorsement of McCain on Feb. 27, 2008, set off several rounds of controversy. The day after the endorsement, the Catholic League called Hagee an anti-Catholic bigot and lamented McCain's connection to him. The Catholic League monitors anti-Catholic bias and emphasizes Catholic teaching on abortion and other moral issues. It pointed to a video of Hagee in which Hagee discusses the Book of Revelation and the Catholic Church. Hagee clearly uses the words "Antichrist" and "false cult" as he discusses the Catholic Church, the Crusades and the Holocaust. (His statements are a little confusing; watch the video here.) Hagee said he was only criticizing historical acts of anti-Semitism by the Catholic Church, not expressing anti-Catholic hatred. But Catholic League president Bill Donahue said Hagee's excuses weren't credible and continued calls for McCain to distance himself. During an interview with George Stephanopoulos on April 20, McCain said he still welcomed Hagee's endorsement but strongly condemned "any comments that he made about the Catholic church." The Catholic League was satisfied with McCain's comments but continued to criticize Hagee. On May 13, Hagee released a letter sent directly to Donahue in which Hagee expressed regret for his previous statements about the Catholic Church. Donahue accepted the apology. "The tone of Hagee's letter is sincere," Donahue said in a statement. "He wants reconciliation and he has achieved it. Indeed, the Catholic League welcomes his apology." While the back-and-forth was going on about the Catholic Church, Hagee also retracted his previous comments about Hurricane Katrina. Hagee had said in an interview on Sept 16, 2006: "The newspaper carried the story in our local area that was not carried nationally that there was to be a homosexual parade on the Monday that the Katrina came, and the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades. So I believe that the judgment of God is a very real thing. I know that there are people who demure from that, but I believe that the Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment, and I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans." A publicist for Hagee sent us this statement dated April 25, 2008: "As a believing Christian, I see the hand of God in everything that happens here on earth, both the blessings and the curses. But ultimately neither I nor any other person can know the mind of God concerning Hurricane Katrina. I should not have suggested otherwise." Hagee's modest backtracking isn't that surprising, said John C. Green, a senior fellow in religion and politics at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, a nonpartisan research group that does not take positions in policy debates. Hard-charging rhetoric against the Catholic Church and other religions such as Judaism or Islam used to be more common among evangelical leaders, but it's now falling out of favor, Green said. "Most evangelicals today don't use that kind of harsh language, because they've discovered it has negative effects," Green said. "It's hard to make converts when you use that harsh language with them, and they've also realized it's not appropriate." Of course, we can't definitively rule on whether Hagee's new statements represent a true change of heart or just a political repositioning. MoveOn's attack was true when the group sent out the e-mail; it was only later that Hagee retracted his comments. With that significant caveat, we rate MoveOn's statement True. UPDATE: On May 22, 2008, McCain rejected the pastor's endorsement, after audio of Hagee preaching, reportedly during the 1990s, was posted to the Internet. In the recording, Hagee implied that Hilter and the Holocaust were part of God's plan to create the state of Israel. (Listen to the audio here .) McCain said Hagee's comments were "deeply offensive and indefensible," and "I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well." Hagee, meanwhile, issued a statement saying that he was withdrawing his endorsement and that critics were distorting his views. "I am tired of these baseless attacks and fear that they have become a distraction in what should be a national debate about important issues," Hagee said on May 22, 2008. "I have therefore decided to withdraw my endorsement of Sen. McCain for president effective today, and to remove myself from any active role in the 2008 campaign." | null | MoveOn.org | null | null | null | 2008-05-15T00:00:00 | 2008-04-05 | ['John_Hagee', 'God', 'John_McCain', 'Hurricane_Katrina'] |
pomt-14924 | Among manufacturers with fewer than 50 employees, "the average cost in terms of regulations is $34,000 per employee." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/30/ben-carson/cnbc-debate-ben-carson-cites-high-cost-regulations/ | Presidential candidate Ben Carson called for fewer government regulations at the Oct. 28 Republican debate. Responding to a question posed about whether the government should regulate pharmaceutical prices, the former neurosurgeon pivoted to talk about federal regulation more generally, saying more government involvement means more problems. "Well, the average small manufacturer, whatever they're manufacturing, drugs or anything, if they have less than 50 employees, the average cost in terms of regulations is $34,000 per employee," Carson said. "Makes it a whole lot easier for them to want to go somewhere else. So what we're going to have to start doing instead of, you know, picking on this group or this group, is we're going to have to have a major reduction in the regulatory influence that is going on." We wondered if Carson’s claim that regulations cost $34,000 a year per employee at small manufacturing firms was correct. We found that Carson got the figure from a report, but the figure itself is not bulletproof. The figure comes from a 2014 report commissioned by the National Association of Manufacturers -- a group that advocates for regulatory reform -- which concluded that smaller manufacturers bear a bigger regulatory burden than medium and large firms. The study found that manufacturing businesses with fewer than 50 employees face on average $34,671 per employee per year in regulatory costs. The average among manufacturing companies of all sizes, conversely, is $19,564, and the average among all U.S. businesses is $9,991. The researchers were W. Mark Crain and Nicole V. Crain, economists at Lafayette College. In short, the Crains calculated a figure for the total cost of regulations in the United States, estimated what proportion of that cost various economic sectors bear, and then calculated the per-employee cost within each sector using payroll data. Their 2014 manufacturing study largely builds off of one they produced for the Small Business Administration, a government agency, in 2010. Many critics viewed the 2010 study as flawed because of the imprecise way the Crains calculated the primary figure: how much regulations cost in total, which came out to about $1.7 trillion. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service questioned the results in its own report. The gist is that they based it on the extent of regulation within the United States and economic growth, rather than the literal costs associated with particular regulatory policies. (For a detailed overview of the criticisms of the 2010 report, read this New York Times blog.) In an email to PolitiFact, Nicole Crain said they "took criticisms seriously" and adjusted the 2014 report as a result. One major change is that the researchers also surveyed manufacturers. They inquired about actual costs incurred by these firms, such as purchasing special equipment to meet regulations and the cost of hiring employees to monitor compliance. Crain said the survey results support the findings from the regulatory index analysis. "The results obtained from these two distinctly different approaches were quite similar," she said. We couldn’t find any other quality studies that calculated a similar figure with which we could compare the Crains’ data, and the experts we asked weren’t aware of any either. The Crains’ methodology is on the right track, but the problem is that they don’t have good data to back it up, said Richard Williams, an economist at the Mercatus Institute at George Mason University, who reviewed the 2010 study. The federal government publishes thousands of rules every year, but there is reliable cost data about very few of them. While it’s uncertain what the actual costs are, the $34,000 figure that Carson cited might not be totally off-base for manufacturers with fewer than 50 employees, Williams said. "This might be in the ballpark, but it might be a lot higher, but it might be a little lower," Williams said. This figure is so vague that it’s meaningless, said Brookings Institution senior fellow and economist Clifford Winston, noting that his work is generally critical of government regulation. There are so many rules and types of costs -- everything from the direct cost of hiring special employees to the indirect cost of lost efficiency -- that it’s difficult to develop a comprehensive number for how many dollars firms lose to federal regulations generally. Most researchers look at regulations much more narrowly, such as examining a specific regulation or business sector, he said. Further, the study doesn’t fully take into account the benefits of regulations, Winston said, adding that in some cases, the absence of regulations could be more expensive than the costs of compliance. Looking through the report, Winston said the figure cited by Carson is in no way a reliable snapshot of how much the average small manufacturer spends on regulatory compliance. Our ruling Carson said that among manufacturers with fewer than 50 employees, "the average cost in terms of regulations is $34,000 per employee." Carson cited a figure from a 2014 report out of the National Association of Manufacturers. However, the methodology behind the report has some significant shortfalls, so it’s not necessarily reliable. We rate the claim Half True. | null | Ben Carson | null | null | null | 2015-10-30T13:30:14 | 2015-10-29 | ['None'] |
pomt-01622 | Rick Scott took $200,000 from a family that leased land for drilling "and now he is trying to hide from it." | half-true | /florida/statements/2014/aug/28/nextgen-climate/nextgen-ad-says-rick-scott-trying-hide-donation-re/ | NextGen Climate has unleashed another attack on Gov. Rick Scott as it relates to a drilling project that the state ultimately shut down. "The Collier family, owners of the company that leased their land for oil exploration to the drillers that threatened drinking water for seven million Floridians," stated the narrator in the TV ad. "Rick Scott took $200,000 from them and now he is trying to hide from it. Sound familiar?" At that point, the screen shows a photo of Scott while the text states, "He took the 5th 75 times." The ad then replays video footage of Scott at a 1995 legal deposition saying, "I don’t recall. I have no idea. What’s your question?" PolitiFact Florida previously fact-checked a NextGen ad about that $200,000 donation, rating it Half True. And we have fact-checked a Florida Democratic Party ad about Scott taking the 5th 75 times and rated it Mostly True. Scott's pleading the 5th was related to a Medicare case, though, not oil drilling. But this new ad tacked on another allegation that we will fact-check here: Is Scott trying to hide from this donation? The Colliers’ land and their donation Checking whether Scott is trying to "hide from" a donation requires a bit of backstory. In 2012, Collier Resources Co. leased about 120,000 acres of mineral rights in Collier County to Dan A. Hughes. Collier County is in Southwest Florida and includes Naples, where Scott lives. But despite residents’ protests -- including in front of Scott’s home -- the state Department of Environmental Protection in September 2013 granted Hughes a permit to inject acid deep underground to fracture the limestone. But Hughes wanted to try a procedure that hadn’t been allowed in Florida in the past. In December 2013, Hughes went ahead and used that procedure even though DEP had asked it to hold off. That led the department to fine Hughes and later file a lawsuit, which Hughes is fighting. The Collier family is not a party to the lawsuit. Nor is Scott in his personal capacity. Why does this all matter for the ad? Because four members of the Collier family -- Barron, Miles, Parker and Thomas -- each gave $50,000 to Scott’s Let’s Get to Work Committee in January 2013. This led NextGen’s to allege in its previous ad that Scott was too cozy with oil interests: "A dangerous new type of oil drilling near the Everglades threatened drinking water for 7 million Floridians," part of the ad states. "But one Floridian is benefitting. Rick Scott drank from a fountain of campaign cash from the company that profited off pollution." The text on the screen states: "Rick Scott $200,000 from oil interests." The ad didn’t mention Hughes, the oil drilling company, or the Colliers, the landowners who gave the donations, by name. Because the ad lacked those specifics, and because no pollution has been found so far, we rated it Half True. The newest NextGen ad takes this dispute a step further, saying Scott not only took the money but that "he is trying to hide from it." That’s a reference to an argument by the Scott campaign that it didn’t take donations from Hughes. The Miami Herald reported that Scott’s campaign spokesman, Matt Moon, strongly denied NextGen’s suggestion that Scott had taken campaign cash from Hughes, the driller. "In fact, no political entity associated with Gov. Scott has ever received contributions from the company – in this election or 2010," Moon said. The Republican Party of Florida took a similar strategy in an ad, saying "Crist’s team says Gov. Scott took contributions from this polluter. It’s total fiction. Scott didn’t take a nickel. Scott held the polluter accountable. Shut down the wells." In fact, both sides are throwing up some fog here. The GOP is correct that Scott didn’t take a nickel from Hughes, but NextGen’s ad didn’t say he did. In the meantime, the Republicans are omitting a key point -- that Scott did take money from the Colliers, who are connected to the project referenced in the ad because they leased the land for the drilling. In the new ad, NextGen’s attack is somewhat careful in its wording. It didn’t say that Scott "is trying to hide it." That would have been more misleading -- these donations are a public record and Scott hasn’t done anything to restrict access to those records. Quite the contrary -- those donations have been reported by many media outlets, beginning in January 2013 when the Colliers first donated the money. But instead, NextGen said that Scott is trying to "hide from" the donations. There’s some truth there: When attacked over the donations, Scott’s camp released a statement that was essentially a misdirection. Scott’s statement failed to acknowledge that the landowners gave Scott’s campaign money, even though Hughes didn’t. Our ruling A NextGen ad says Rick Scott took $200,000 from the Collier family who leased their land for oil drilling "and now he is trying to hide from it." Actually, both sides are presenting self-interested portrayals of the truth. Scott called out NextGen for saying he had received Hughes’ money, but the group hadn’t explicitly claimed that he had, and the Scott campaign’s statement glossed over the fact that the campaign had indeed received money from Collier, a party who was integral to the drilling plan. For its part, NextGen’s charge that Scott is trying to "hide from" the Collier donations is exaggerated. The transaction was reported publicly per standard procedure, and there is no evidence that Scott has tried to restrict access to that information. Quite the contrary -- it has been discussed widely in media reports. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details. So we rate this claim Half True. | null | NextGen Climate | null | null | null | 2014-08-28T15:20:32 | 2014-08-22 | ['None'] |
snes-01707 | The United States Secret Service arrested Alec Baldwin for threatening President Donald Trump at the 2017 Emmy Awards. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/alec-baldwin-arrested-trump/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Was Alec Baldwin Arrested at the 2017 Emmys for Threatening President Donald Trump? | 18 September 2017 | null | ['Alec_Baldwin', 'United_States_Secret_Service', 'Emmy_Award', 'Donald_Trump'] |
snes-02782 | A photograph shows a man who was mugged while delivering comic books to his sick daughter. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/comic-book-mugging/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Was This Man Mugged While Delivering Comic Books to His Sick Daughter? | 14 March 2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01603 | Obscene Salaries of Elected Politicians | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/obscene-salaries-elected/ | null | government | null | null | null | Obscene Salaries of Elected Politicians | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Salaries_of_members_of_the_United_States_Congress'] |
pomt-13340 | When Donald Trump spoke in Phoenix, he looked the audience in the eye and he said ‘no, we're building a wall and we're deporting everybody.’ He said, quote, ‘they will all be gone. They will all be gone.’ This is one of the ones where you can go to the tape on it and see what Donald Trump has said. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/04/tim-kaine/Kaine-Trump-said-undocumented-immigrants-will-al/ | Vice presidential nominees Tim Kaine and Mike Pence used their only debate to attack the other candidate’s platform on immigration. Pence, the Republican governor of Indiana, criticized the Democratic ticket for an "open borders" policy (which is False), while Kaine, a Virginia senator, fired back on Donald Trump’s deportation plans. "When Donald Trump spoke in Phoenix, he looked the audience in the eye and he said ‘no, we're building a wall, and we're deporting everybody.’ He said, quote, ‘They will all be gone. They will all be gone,’ " Kaine said during the Oct. 4 debate in Farmville, Va. "This is one of the ones where you can go to the tape on it and see what Donald Trump has said." Trump has offered contradicting plans for deportations. He has said he would have a deportation force to round up people here illegally, and that while he wants families to stay together, "they have to go," but that there can be a "softening because we're not looking to hurt people, we want people." Kaine referenced Trump’s speech in Arizona on Aug. 31, where he outlined a 10-point immigration plan. We revisited Trump’s immigration speech to see if, in fact, Trump said immigrants in the country illegally will all be gone and that he plans to deport everybody. Trump has been steadfast on his plans to build a wall along the southwest border. But Kaine is oversimplifying Trump’s most-recent deportation priorities. When Trump got to point No. 3 of his immigration plan, he said there would be "zero tolerance for criminal aliens." He said that according to federal data, there are at least 2 million criminal aliens inside the United States. Trump, talking specifically about criminal immigrants in the country illegally, said his administration would begin moving them out "day one," working especially with police and law enforcement who "know who these people are." "They live with these people. They get mocked by these people. They can't do anything about these people, and they want to. They know who these people are. Day one, my first hour in office, those people are gone. "And you can call it deported if you want. The press doesn't like that term. You can call it whatever the hell you want. They're gone. "Beyond the 2 million, and there are vast numbers of additional criminal illegal immigrants who have fled, but their days have run out in this country. The crime will stop. They're going to be gone. It will be over. They're going out. They're going out fast." Trump did not say, as Kaine quoted, "they will all be gone," in reference to all people in the country illegally. However, in other parts of the speech, Trump stressed that non-criminal immigrants living in the United States illegally would also eventually have to return to their home countries and apply for re-entry. "Those here illegally today, who are seeking legal status, they will have one route and one route only: To return home and apply for re-entry like everybody else, under the rules of the new legal immigration system that I have outlined," Trump said. Trump’s campaign pointed to part of Trump’s speech in which he said after accomplishing his enforcement and deportation goals, including the construction of the wall, "then and only then will we be in a position to consider the appropriate disposition of those individuals who remain." But Clinton’s team pointed us to other parts of that speech where Trump said, "Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation." Trump went on to emphasize his priorities, including criminals, gang members and security threats. Our ruling Kaine said, "When Donald Trump spoke in Phoenix, he looked the audience in the eye and he said ‘no, we're building a wall and we're deporting everybody.’ He said, quote, ‘They will all be gone. They will all be gone.’ This is one of the ones where you can go to the tape on it and see what Donald Trump has said." Trump has not always been consistent about his deportation plans. But in Phoenix, he did not literally say of the entire undocumented immigrant population, "they will all be gone." He used that kind of language to describe his plans for immigrants who had committed crimes, saying they would be the first to go. However, Trump did say in the same speech that people here illegally today and who want to be legalized "have one route and one route only, to return home and apply for reentry like everybody else." Trump’s language in the Phoenix speech for the non-criminal pool of undocumented immigrants was more tamped-down than Kaine presented. We rate Kaine’s statement Half True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/795768d7-688c-4bda-a0cd-56adfa602533 | null | Tim Kaine | null | null | null | 2016-10-04T23:51:27 | 2016-10-04 | ['Donald_Trump', 'Phoenix,_Arizona'] |
pomt-13737 | Says Hillary Clinton and Ralph Northam "label police as racists." | mostly false | /virginia/statements/2016/jul/26/corey-stewart/corey-stewart-wrongly-says-hillary-clinton-ralph-n/ | Corey Stewart, Donald Trump’s Virginia campaign chairman, recently laid blame on Democrats for the July 7 sniper shootings that left five Dallas police officers dead and nine wounded. "Liberal politicians who label police as racists - specifically Hillary Clinton and Virginia Lt. Governor Ralph Northam - are to blame for essentially encouraging the murder of these police officers tonight," Stewart, chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors, wrote in a Facebook post shortly after midnight on July 8. We’re not fact-checking Stewart’s opinion that comments from "liberal politicians" triggered the Dallas shootings by a man who was upset by recent police killings of blacks in other cities. Our focus is investigating Stewart’s claim that Clinton and Northam have labeled police as racists. Stewart has rivalries with both Democrats. As Trump’s state chairman, he has a major role in trying to defeat Clinton this fall in Virginia. Next year, Stewart plans to seek the GOP gubernatorial nomination. That puts him at cross-purposes with Northam, who is the only announced Democratic gubernatorial candidate. Stewart doubled down on his statement in a follow-up Facebook post that said: "Va. Lt. Governor Ralph Northam and Hillary Clinton are pitting minorities against the police. Whenever there is a police shooting involving a minority, their knee jerk reaction is to allege racism." Trump’s campaign quickly distanced itself from Stewart’s statement that "liberal politicians" caused the Dallas shooting. "Corey does not speak for the campaign, and this is not something we agree with," Hope Hicks, Trump’s campaign spokeswoman, told The New York Times. Stewart’s social media posts don’t cite any comments by Clinton or Northam. So we asked Stewart to point us to specific statements by the two Democrats that prove both "label police as racists." He declined our request. We also reached out to the Republican Party of Virginia, to see if it’s aware of any comments that would back Stewart’s claim. The party didn’t provide any. "Not our statement," David D’Onofrio, a party spokesman, wrote in an email. So we looked on our own. Clinton After police fatally shot two black men this month - Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minn. - Clinton tweeted, "Alton Sterling Matters, Philando Castile Matters. Black Lives Matter." She attached a statement to her tweet: "Something is profoundly wrong when so many Americans have reason to believe that our country doesn’t consider them as precious as others because of the color of their skin." In a Jan. 16 primary debate, NBC News anchor Lester Holt asked Clinton about the 2015 fatal shooting of Walter Scott, a black man who was running away from a police officer in North Charleston, S.C. "We understand that a jury will decide whether that police officer was justified. But it played straight to the fears of many African-American men that their lives are cheap. Is that perception, or in your view is it reality?" Holt asked. Clinton said that, sadly, that is a reality. "There needs to be a concerted effort to address the systemic racism in our criminal justice system," she said. "And that requires a very clear agenda for retraining police officers, looking at ways to end racial profiling, finding more ways to really bring the disparities that stalk our country into high relief." On the eve of South Carolina’s Democratic Primary in February, Clinton released a TV ad in which she lamented a "fundamentally broken" system where "African-Americans are more likely to be arrested by police and sentenced to longer prison terms for doing the same thing that whites do." Clinton said in the ad, "We have to face up to the hard truth of injustice and systemic racism." We asked Clinton’s campaign if it sees a distinction between her comments about "systemic racism" and Stewart’s claim that she labels police as racists. Sarah Peck, a Virginia spokeswoman for the campaign, sent us a series of Clinton statements this year voicing broad support for police officers. Here are a few: "I think the vast majority of police officers in our country are serving honorably and bravely, and that’s why it’s very important we support their work. That we respect their service," Clinton said during a July 8 interview with "ABC World News Tonight." "I think that most law enforcement is doing an excellent job. They are honorable, they’re working hard. But we don’t want to taint everybody with the problems that some have," she said during a Feb. 12 interview with WSPA-TV in Spartanburg, S.C. "Now I think you know, because I sure believe, there are many police officers out there every day inspiring trust and confidence, putting themselves on the line to save lives. So let's learn from those who are doing it right and apply those lessons across the country," she said during a Feb. 16 speech in Harlem, N.Y. Clinton has called for improved police training to combat "implicit bias." She also wants to create federal matching grants to help police forces buy body cameras to protect officers from unfair accusations and suspects from mistreatment. Northam Contrary to Stewart’s claim, we couldn’t find any comments by the lieutenant governor that even remotely accused police of racism. We searched the archives of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Washington Post, The Virginian-Pilot, The Roanoke Times and the Daily Press. We also combed through Northam’s website, his Facebook page and Twitter pages for the lieutenant governor’s office and Northam’s gubernatorial campaign. The only Northam statement we found on the violence was released shortly after the Dallas shootings and expressed grief felt by the lieutenant governor and his wife. "Pam and I are heartbroken over the horrific violence against the police in Dallas," Northam said in the written statement. "With so much violence and tragedy in Dallas, Minneapolis, and Baton Rouge, this is a time for our nation to come together and heal. Having cared for those who are wounded in service of our country, I know the sacrifice these officers make and my prayers are with the victims, their families, all first responders and all communities affected by violence." Alexsis Rodgers, Northam’s policy director and spokeswoman, told us the lieutenant governor’s office is perplexed by Stewart’s claim. Our ruling Stewart said that Hillary Clinton and Ralph Northam "label police as racists." He declined to offer any statements by the two Democrats that would back his claim. Clinton has said racial profiling needs to end and that law enforcement needs to confront "systemic racism" in the criminal justice system. That lends an element of truth to Stewart’s statement, but it’s a far cry from Clinton labeling all police as racists. Clinton has said repeatedly that the actions of a few officers shouldn’t taint all law enforcement officers. With Northam, we can’t find any statement that supports Stewart’s incendiary claim, and Stewart dodges his burden of proof. All told, we rate Stewart’s statement Mostly False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/6eabf830-e0ae-41a5-9009-62513628fbe5 | null | Corey Stewart | null | null | null | 2016-07-26T10:08:52 | 2016-07-08 | ['None'] |
hoer-00312 | 'All Facebook Companies' Donations to Help 9 Year Old Girl' | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/all-facebook-companies-help-girl-hoax.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Disgraceful Hoax 'All Facebook Companies' Donations to Help 9 Year Old Girl' | July 23, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-15231 | Says Scott Walker's defunding of Planned Parenthood "left women across the state stranded with nowhere else to turn" for cancer screenings, breast exams and birth control. | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2015/aug/07/hillary-clinton/scott-walker-left-women-stranded-defunding-planned/ | Well before the release of videos that ignited debate about the sale of fetal body parts, Republican Gov. Scott Walker boasted about defunding Planned Parenthood in Wisconsin. In a video of her own released Aug. 3, 2015, Hillary Clinton attacked Walker’s move. "When politicians talk about defunding Planned Parenthood, they're talking about blocking millions of women, men and young people from life-saving, preventive care, cancer screenings, breast exams, birth control. They're talking about cutting people off from the health care provider they know and trust," Clinton said. "Unfortunately, these attacks aren't new; they're more of the same. We've seen them in Wisconsin, where Governor Walker defunded Planned Parenthood and left women across the state stranded with nowhere else to turn." The claim by the leading Democratic contender for the White House runs counter to statements made by Walker, who has said during his presidential campaign that he simply transferred money from Planned Parenthood to other organizations. What we found is that when it comes to cancer screenings, breast exams and birth control, women in some parts of the state -- particularly those with lower incomes -- lost their local health care provider and might have to travel much farther for services. That’s because Planned Parenthood shut down five facilities after losing the state funding. At the same time, the closures were done in only certain parts of the state. And it goes too far to say the former Planned Parenthood patients have "nowhere else to turn," given that they were referred to other providers -- albeit, in some cases, providers outside their home community. Defunding in Wisconsin Clinton’s campaign cited a number of news articles that detailed the defunding as well as the fallout. We went to a Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin leader to fill us in further. Nicole Safar told us the group was getting public funding for family planning services (but none for abortion services) from three sources: a direct federal grant and from Medicaid, both of which continue; and from the state, in the form of an annual grant. Walker "defunded" Planned Parenthood by taking aim at the only source he controlled. In his first state budget, for 2011-’13, Walker proposed eliminating $1.9 million per year in state grants for family planning activities such as contraceptive services and supplies, pregnancy testing and cervical cancer screening. About $1 million of that had been going to nine Planned Parenthood clinics, with the rest given primarily to other private organizations and county health departments. In analyzing Walker’s proposal, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau, the state’s nonpartisan budget scorekeeper, said the potential effects were unclear. The clinics losing the state funding would have to replace those dollars or change their operations. On the other hand, most of the revenues generated for the services that those clinics provided came from sources other than the state. Before adopting the 2011-’13 budget, the Legislature rejected Walker’s proposal to eliminate the $1.9 million in grants. Instead, it reduced the amount to $1.7 million. But it also changed state law so that any agency that provides abortion services could not receive the money. That meant Planned Parenthood lost its $1 million-per-year allocation. Over roughly the next three years, Planned Parenthood closed five of the nine clinics that had been receiving the state money -- in Fond du Lac, Beaver Dam, Johnson Creek, Chippewa Falls and Shawano. (Currently, Planned Parenthood has a total of 22 health facilities in Wisconsin.) Safar told us that some 3,000 patients who had used the clinics that were shut down were referred to other facilities, but those women typically had to travel farther to get services. For example, women using the Planned Parenthood clinic in Shawano, which had been open for 34 years, were referred to a facility in Green Bay -- nearly 40 miles away. Most of the patients received discounted services because of their income. "There just aren’t providers on every corner willing to take low-income patients," Safar said. Kim Mueller, director of the Fond du Lac County Health Department, told us that lower-income women seeking birth control or treatment for sexually transmitted diseases were particularly affected by the closure of the Planned Parenthood clinic in Fond du Lac. "Planned Parenthood was amazing -- you could walk in and get care right away," she said. Though there still are Planned Parenthood facilities in neighboring counties, and some local physicians accept low-income patients, some women are less likely to get birth control or STD treatment if they have to travel longer distances and start relationships with new providers, Mueller said. It’s important to note that the reduced amount of state funding for family planning services -- $1.7 million -- was still allocated for family planning and the other services Clinton cited. And Walker’s campaign pointed out that the state has continued to fund another program that pays for mammograms, Pap tests and other health screenings. Our rating Clinton said Walker's defunding of Planned Parenthood "left women across the state stranded with nowhere else to turn" for cancer screenings, breast exams and birth control. Walker in 2011 eliminated all state funding to Planned Parenthood, which in turn closed five clinics over the next three years. The loss of those clinics meant women were referred to other facilities, in some cases a considerable distance away, in order to continue getting services. But Clinton’s statement goes too far in that Walker’s move affected only some parts of the state and it’s wrong to say women in those areas have "nowhere else to turn." For a statement that is partially accurate, we give Clinton a Half True. | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2015-08-07T05:00:00 | 2015-08-03 | ['None'] |
snes-04373 | An image shows a vintage Budweiser beer ad bearing the tagline "when you need to get her drunk." | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/budweiser-get-her-drunk/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | ‘When You Need to Get Her Drunk’ | 26 July 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11279 | Our campaign staff was the first to unionize in the history of politics. | mostly true | /wisconsin/statements/2018/apr/25/randy-bryce/campaign-staff-randy-bryce-whos-running-paul-ryans/ | A first-time-ever claim will almost always get our attention. One was made by Randy Bryce, a Democrat who is running for the southern Wisconsin U.S. House seat being vacated by Republican Paul Ryan, the House speaker. Bryce, a union ironworker, was interviewed by CNN talk show host Don Lemon on March 14, 2018. Asked about the surprise win that night by Democrat Conor Lamb in a special House election in Pennsylvania, Bryce said: Well, he ran a very pro-union campaign. Being a union member, that’s something that’s been very important for me, standing up for working people. I mean, our campaign staff was the first to unionize in the history of politics. So, that’s something I’m very proud of. First ever? Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter: @PolitiFactWisc Bryce's evidence Bryce’s campaign spokeswoman, noting it’s hard to prove something has never occurred before, told us she was not aware of any previous campaign staffs that unionized before Bryce’s campaign workers joined the Campaign Workers Guild and forged a contract with Bryce in December 2017. The deal was announced three months later. The union itself is new, having started organizing in early 2017. So we sought out experts in labor history. Asking the experts Of the 12 labor history experts we contacted (see the list of sources accompanying this article), none said they were aware of any previous campaign staffs that had been unionized. But none could say for sure that it had never happened. More fact checks on unions: Scott Walker: Did FDR oppose collective bargaining for government workers? Alberta Darling: Wisconsin lawmaker voted to allow using tax money to pay for Viagra for public school employees? Here are some of their responses: I suspect there have been staff who joined unions, but he (Bryce) may be the first to recognize and bargain with them. I don’t know of anyone who’s studied this question. -- University of Minnesota history professor William Jones I think we can say it’s true for contemporary politics. I am not going to vouch for anything prior to the National Labor Relations Act (signed in 1935) because I’m not sure we would know. -- Kate Bronfenbrenner, labor education research director at Cornell University I don’t know for sure, but it seems unlikely that in 200+ years no one did this before. -- Ruth Milkman, sociologist of labor and labor movements at City University of New York Graduate Center I don’t know of any, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist. There is no central database for local unions, and many do not affiliate with a national union. Campaign staffs could have been unionized and we would never know. -- Rutgers University labor studies professor Dorothy Sue Cobble We also checked with the National Labor Relations Board, which also does not keep such records. The Office and Professional Employees International Union wasn’t able to help us and we didn’t hear back from the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Our rating Bryce says: "Our campaign staff was the first to unionize in the history of politics." The dozen experts we consulted said they were not aware of any previous campaign staff unionizing, though they could not state flatly that it had never occurred. If new information surfaces, we’ll reconsider this rating. For now, we rate it Mostly True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Randy Bryce | null | null | null | 2018-04-25T06:00:00 | 2018-03-14 | ['None'] |
pomt-05966 | When I was fighting against cap and trade, the speaker was sitting down with Nancy Pelosi on a sofa encouraging it. | half-true | /florida/statements/2012/jan/24/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-fought-cap-and-trade-newt-gingrich/ | Mitt Romney fought back against surging rival Newt Gingrich, fresh off a South Carolina primary win, during the Jan. 23 debate in Tampa. To emphasize his credibility as a conservative leader, Romney brought up how Gingrich resigned as speaker of the House "in disgrace," and that he's been "working as an influence peddler in Washington" in the years since. And another thing... "When I was fighting against cap and trade, the speaker was sitting down with Nancy Pelosi on a sofa encouraging it," Romney said. Ouch. If you're a GOP presidential contender, it'd be hard to think of a more toxic couch-fellow than Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives and a former speaker herself. But the bipartisan canoodling happened. We know because we've examined this line in some form twice this campaign season. It's been used by super PACs supporting Romney and departed candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Back in 2008 in a television ad, Pelosi and Gingrich sat on a couch and had a smiley chat about climate change: "We don’t always see eye to eye, do we, Newt?" Pelosi says. "No," Gingrich answers, "but we do agree: Our country must take action to address climate change." Pelosi: "We need cleaner forms of energy, and we need them fast." Gingrich: "If enough of us demand action from our leaders, we can spark the innovation we need." The ad directs viewers to the website WeCanSolveIt.org, with the final words from Pelosi, "Together, we can do this." The commercial was created by a climate-change awareness organization now known as the Climate Reality Project, which former vice president Al Gore founded. (WeCanSolveIt.org is the old name of the site now called ClimateRealityProject.org.) Gingrich and Pelosi were asked to do the bit as part of a larger campaign featuring unlikely pairs who can agree on the need to act on climate change, Gore said in an interview with The Young Turks, an online news show, in December 2011. Gingrich has since renounced the collaboration, saying in a Fox News interview in November that it was "probably the dumbest single thing I've ever done." A section of his website called "Answering the Attacks" says, "Newt absolutely opposes 'cap and trade' as well as any system of taxing carbon emissions." What is cap and trade? The idea is that the government sets a limit (the cap) on how much carbon different companies can emit. The government then issues permits to businesses - typically electric utilities and manufacturers - and allows them to buy and sell the permits as needed (the trade). If the policy works as planned, overall emissions decline, companies determine for themselves the best way to lower emissions, and the free market rewards those that lower emissions most effectively. The Gingrich and Pelosi ad didn't specifically mention cap and trade, but our previous research has shown Gingrich supported cap and trade as recently as 2007. Romney said that Gingrich was sitting on the couch encouraging cap and trade, but Gingrich didn't specifically mention the policy in that ad. This brings us to the second part of the claim, that while Gingrich was couch sitting, Romney was "fighting against cap and trade." Like Gingrich, Romney has changed his public statements on cap and trade. As Massachusetts governor in 2003, Romney joined in support of a compact among several northeastern states to reduce carbon emissions from power plants. In a letter to then-New York Gov. George Pataki, he said, "I concur that climate change is beginning to affect our natural resources and that now is the time to take action toward climate protection." The Economist named him a "Climate-Friendly" Republican in 2004. But in 2005, the same day he announced he would not seek re-election, Romney abruptly pulled out of the regional cap-and-trade agreement. He told the New York Times the pact did not protect businesses and consumers from increased energy costs. Environmental advocates fumed. Let's recap: Gingrich certainly appeared in a 2008 video with Pelosi and said "we must take action to address climate change." He didn't specifically promote cap and trade, though he had supported it in the past. It's also true that Romney rejected what was hailed as a landmark regional cap-and-trade agreement among several northeastern states in 2005 -- although it came after two years of him touting its merit. Both facets of Romney's claim are factual, though they did not occur simultaneously, as his use "while" would suggest. They actually were three years apart. We rate Romney's claim Half True. | null | Mitt Romney | null | null | null | 2012-01-24T16:35:20 | 2012-01-23 | ['Nancy_Pelosi'] |
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.