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pomt-05204 | A new manufacturing plant is slated to create about 3,000 jobs in central and northeast Georgia and "create about a $3 billion infusion" into the economy. | half-true | /georgia/statements/2012/jun/11/paul-broun/broun-manufacturing-claim-based-weak-proof/ | Primary Election Day is less than two months away, which means U.S. Rep. Paul Broun of Athens is busy burnishing his accomplishments. Broun marked the recent launch of his re-election campaign by saying his proudest achievement is helping to lure the manufacturer Caterpillar to the Athens area, where it will open a plant to make construction equipment, he said in a television interview. Caterpillar’s factory is "going to create about 3,000 jobs here in central Georgia and northeast Georgia. It’s going to be about a $3 billion infusion of cash into our economy," Broun said May 23 on WMGT-TV in Macon. Those numbers make it sound like Broun is doing a heck of a lot for his constituents. But is he padding his resume? Landing the 1 million-square-foot Caterpillar plant was a coup for Georgia. Gov. Nathan Deal announced the victory himself, and both his office and Caterpillar headquarters issued news releases that described the plant’s economic impact. Caterpillar will invest about $200 million to open the plant, and it expects to employ 1,400 people when it opens for business in late 2013, the Governor’s Office announced. In return, the state and its taxpayers are giving the company a $75 million package of incentives. PolitiFact Georgia called and emailed Broun’s office for more than a week but received no replies. So we took to our own research and found that Broun’s figures are problematic. First of all, Broun’s figures don’t match the estimates by Caterpillar. Caterpillar’s news release about the new facility cited economic impact figures from Sharon Younger, who runs a market research firm with headquarters in Jackson, Tenn., that also specializes in public relations. Younger’s research was funded by Caterpillar, although she did not know what firm she was working for when she did her calculations, she told PolitiFact Georgia. Younger told PolitiFact Georgia that she estimated the impact for 12 counties that surround the plant’s site: Banks, Barrow, Clark, DeKalb, Gwinnett, Jackson, Madison, Morgan, Oconee, Oglethorpe, Rockdale and Walton. The Caterpillar plant will create more than 3,600 jobs for this area, and its economic impact will total about $2 billion in a single year when it starts running, Younger said. (In Caterpillar’s news release, she placed the impact at about $2.4 billion.) When compared with Caterpillar’s official estimate, Broun’s job number is about 17 percent too low, while his economic impact number is about a half-billion dollars too high. Also, Broun’s geography is wrong. Caterpillar’s impact figures are for counties in northeast Georgia only. None of the counties Younger considered are in Middle Georgia. Younger released only the bare outlines of her methodology, saying most of the information is proprietary. This means that no one can verify her numbers. Younger defended her estimates by saying that she used a standard method to make them. But that doesn’t mean her estimates are correct. PolitiFact Georgia frequently writes about economic impact studies, and we’ve found that the information she did not release can make the difference between a credible study and one that’s bunk. This is why: Researchers must predict how much a new factory will change economic activity in the local area in order to make an accurate economic impact estimate, according to the manual that outlines the method that Younger used and Bruce Seaman, an economist with Georgia State University. This prediction is crucial, Seaman said. If the Caterpillar plant gets all its parts and materials for its excavators from the Athens area, it’ll have a much bigger impact on the local economy than it would if it uses steel from China and electronics from Germany. Figuring out how much of this activity takes place locally can take a great deal of research. Younger said she did this work but did not detail how. Another impact estimate released by a University of Georgia expert is more conservative. Jeffrey Humphreys, the director of UGA’s Selig Center for Economic Growth, said the economic impact would be $1.4 billion, according to an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For each job at the plant, 2.4 will be created across the state. Caterpillar’s estimate was for a smaller 12-county region. Humphreys was on leave and could not be contacted by deadline. How do we rule? Broun’s jobs figure is lower than those released by Caterpillar, while the amount of economic impact he described is at least a half-billion dollars higher than the one the company gave. Broun also gave an incorrect description for the region covered by Caterpillar’s economic estimate. It’s for northeast Georgia, not northeast and Middle Georgia. Caterpillar’s estimates were not peer-reviewed or conducted by an independent professional. Most importantly, the methodology behind them is not transparent. Broun’s overarching point is this: The new Caterpillar plant will bring a lot of jobs and inject a lot of money into Georgia’s economy. But he strays on some of the finer points, and PolitiFact could not verify the methodology used to come up with some of the numbers. His estimates need a lot of context and clarification, even though his larger point has merit. We therefore rule Broun’s statement Half-True. | null | Paul Broun | null | null | null | 2012-06-11T06:00:00 | 2012-05-23 | ['Georgia_(U.S._state)'] |
pomt-07117 | Says Ocean Spray is moving its Bordentown processing facility to Pennsylvania largely because of costs associated with the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. | false | /new-jersey/statements/2011/jun/20/diane-allen/sen-diane-allen-blames-regional-greenhouse-gas-ini/ | Editor's Note: This Truth-O-Meter ruling is the subject of a story found here. Before Gov. Chris Christie announced plans in late May to withdraw from a cap and trade program, Republicans had added a new ingredient to the ongoing debate: cranberries. In early May, Ocean Spray announced plans to close its Bordentown facility, where the growers' co-op makes beverages, and relocate operations to the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania. On May 9, Republicans held a news conference and issued a press release to call for an end to the state’s involvement in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Under RGGI -- or "Reggie" as it’s called -- energy companies buy allowances to comply with a cap on carbon dioxide emissions. State Sen. Diane Allen (R-Burlington/Camden) cited Ocean Spray's move as an example of how the RGGI was hurting the state's businesses. "As a former president and CEO of a small business, I can attest to the impact rising energy rates have on an employer’s ability to add jobs and expand," she said in a May 9 news release. "Just ask Ocean Spray, which last week announced it will be moving its Bordentown processing facility to Pennsylvania, in large measure due to the costs associated with RGGI." PolitiFact New Jersey dug into her claim and quickly found it didn't have much juice: Five news articles and two TV segments about Ocean Spray's move didn’t mention any connection between the decision and RGGI. We checked with Adam Bauer, a spokesman for the Senate Republicans, who said Allen’s comments were based on information she received from longtime cranberry grower Bill Haines Jr. According to Ocean Spray, Haines served on the Ocean Spray board of directors between 1996 and 1999, and then again in 2002. Haines never called us back, so we asked Ocean Spray. Company spokesman John Isaf said in an email that higher energy rates factored into the decision to leave Bordentown, but "not the RGGI program or its contribution to the rate." The decision, he said, "was based on a variety of factors -- lower energy costs, improved transportation and distribution (warehousing/freight) logistics; proximity to supply chain partners and customers; lower labor costs; other utility cost advantages (water/wastewater/gas); and a more efficient and modern infrastructure and facility," Isaf said in the statement. "While energy costs were one of several considerations that went into our decision, and NJ’s costs are significantly higher than other states, we were looking at the total rate paid, not the RGGI program or its contribution to the rate," Isaf said. That's enough for the Truth-O-Meter, but we thought it was also worth exploring the senator's underlying point, that the cap-and-trade portion is driving up electricity costs. Utility representatives and experts have an answer: not so much. According to Karen Johnson, spokeswoman for Public Service Electric and Gas, which supplies power to the Bordentown area, the cap-and-trade portion doesn’t affect electricity bills very much for a customer in Ocean Spray’s rate class. For the average customer in that rate class, the cap-and-trade portion -- meaning the cost of purchasing allowances -- accounts for 0.4 percent of the annual bill, Johnson said. Judi Greenwald, vice president of Innovative Solutions at the Virginia-based Pew Center on Global Climate Change, said the effects of RGGI on utility costs have been mostly undetectable. "The rate impacts have been miniscule and probably not even perceptible," Greenwald told us. Across the 10-state region within the RGGI, the emissions cap accounted for between 0.24 and 0.61 percent of average residential electricity bills in 2010, according to a fact sheet prepared by RGGI. That impact represents 46 extra cents per month for a typical household’s electricity usage, according to the RGGI. In many cases, electricity prices in New Jersey are based on bids submitted by suppliers in non-RGGI states, according to Peter Shattuck, a carbon markets policy analyst for Environment Northeast. For instance, if a supplier in Pennsylvania, which is not part of RGGI, sets the price, New Jersey utilities are not facing RGGI-related charges, he said. So let’s review: Allen claimed that Ocean Spray was leaving Bordentown "in large measure due to the costs associated with RGGI." Yet Ocean Spray said it did not consider RGGI and its impacts on the energy rate. On top of that, a PSE&G spokeswoman and energy experts said RGGI has had a minimal impact on utility costs. We rate Allen’s statement False. To comment on this ruling, join the conversation at NJ.com. | null | Diane Allen | null | null | null | 2011-06-20T05:15:00 | 2011-05-09 | ['Pennsylvania'] |
pomt-02380 | Says Mary Burke's "2007-'09 state budget had a tax hike of $1.8 billion -- costing every man, woman and child in the state an extra $310." | false | /wisconsin/statements/2014/mar/16/republican-party-wisconsin/wisconsin-gop-says-mary-burke-scott-walkers-challe/ | With a page on its website, the Wisconsin Republican Party claims Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke uttered four lies. We’ve already rated a version of one of the claims, about Burke’s service on the Madison School Board. And we rated versions of two claims regarding her time as state commerce secretary under Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s predecessor, Democrat Jim Doyle. We were struck by the final statement -- that Burke "says she’s on the side of the middle class," but that "Burke’s 2007-'09 state budget had a tax hike of $1.8 billion -- costing every man, woman and child in the state an extra $310." Burke’s state budget? Was she governor? Asked for backup to the claim, state GOP spokesman Jesse Dougherty said Burke created the Commerce portion of the 2007-’09 budget; worked with Doyle "on his final product"; and promoted the overall budget. As we found in rating a similar claim by the state party in February 2014, Burke was responsible for and submitted the Commerce portion of Doyle’s overall 2007-’09 budget. We also found that she spoke out enthusiastically in favor of the overall plan, saying it "identifies our priorities for success." But to call it "Burke’s budget" is something different. The GOP might as well have called it Frank Busalacchi’s budget (he was Doyle’s transportation secretary at the time) or Kevin Hayden’s budget (Doyle’s health and family services secretary). For that matter, when Doyle’s 2007-’09 budget proposal was introduced it exceeded $57 billion, with the Commerce Department getting about $413.7 million, or less than 1 percent of the total. In Wisconsin, the state budget is set by elected officials, not appointed Cabinet secretaries. The governor submits a budget. The Legislature, typically after making changes, adopts the budget. Finally, the governor signs the budget into law. As for the rest of the claim, that the budget raised taxes by $1.8 billion, Doyle’s proposed budget did seek a total revenue increase of nearly $1.8 billion -- $1.37 billion in taxes and the rest in fees. Wisconsin's total population was about 5.67 million at the time, so the total increase in taxes and fees would have been about $310 per person. But, while the figures are essentially correct, the thrust of the claim is an attack on Burke. And to say Doyle’s budget was hers goes too far. Our rating The state GOP said "Burke's 2007-'09 state budget had a tax hike of $1.8 billion -- costing every man, woman and child in the state an extra $310." The figures are basically on target, but the real target of the party’s claim was Burke. And to put a governor’s entire state budget on an appointed Cabinet secretary is a misfire. We rate the statement False. To comment on this item, go to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's web page. | null | Republican Party of Wisconsin | null | null | null | 2014-03-16T05:00:00 | 2014-03-13 | ['None'] |
goop-00123 | George Clooney Hiring Seven Nannies For Twins, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/george-clooney-twins-seven-nannies-false/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | George Clooney NOT Hiring Seven Nannies For Twins, Despite Report | 1:30 pm, October 17, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03624 | Sixteen girls were impregnated after a boy ejaculated in a swimming pool. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/girls-impregnated-swimming-in-pool/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Were 16 Girls Impregnated After a Teenager Ejaculated in a Pool? | 12 February 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00414 | I'll put a three-month moratorium on foreclosures so that we give homeowners the breathing room they need to get back on their feet. | compromise | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/434/set-a-three-month-moratorium-on-foreclosures/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Set a three-month moratorium on foreclosures | 2010-01-07T13:26:58 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01924 | Radical Muslims Predicted to Attack Los Angeles | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/la-attack-080513/ | null | humorous | null | null | null | Radical Muslims Predicted to Attack Los Angeles | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01881 | Angelina Jolie “Crushing On” Chris Hemsworth, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/angelina-jolie-chris-hemsworth-crush-golden-globes/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Angelina Jolie NOT “Crushing On” Chris Hemsworth, Despite Report | 10:24 am, January 9, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13914 | Says Donald Trump called pregnant employees "an inconvenience." | true | /ohio/statements/2016/jun/24/hillary-clinton/clinton-trump-called-pregnant-employees-inconvenie/ | Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton uncorked a torrent of criticism on her opponent, Donald Trump, at a rally in Ohio’s capital city. The premise: what America’s economy would look like with Trump in charge. "Over the years, he’s said all kinds of things about women in the workforce," Clinton said. "He once called pregnant employees -- and I quote -- ‘an inconvenience.’ " Clinton went on to say that even she was incredulous that Trump made remarks like the "inconvenience" statement, despite assurances from her researchers and speechwriters. We searched for the clip. Trump’s comment stems from a Dateline NBC interview of Trump from 2004. The segment, "Blonde Ambition," was about Carolyn Kepcher, Trump’s Apprentice sidekick and executive vice president of Trump’s golf properties. Kepcher had just released Carolyn 101, a memoir of her business experience. Kepcher describes herself as a straight-shooter, but as her Dateline interviewer points out, that seems to conflict with an anecdote in the book in which Kepcher recounts waiting six months before telling Trump that she was pregnant. "You were worried that he might feel inconvenienced?" the reporter asked. "Maybe, in my mind, he might think perhaps that this might be a setback," Kepcher answered. When the piece turned to Trump, he answered a question that the viewers don’t get to hear, due to editing. "Well you know, pregnancy is never, um -- it’s a wonderful thing for the woman, it’s a wonderful thing for the husband, it’s certainly an inconvenience for a business. And whether people want to say that or not, the fact is it is an inconvenience for a person that is running a business." Because the viewers don’t hear the question Trump is responding to, and the only other person to use the word "inconvenience" was the Dateline reporter, it’s possible that the term may have been introduced as part of the reporter’s question. Studies have shown that the costs of accommodating pregnant employees is minimal. The National Women’s Law Center published a fact sheet in 2012 that pointed out that the accommodations employers already provide for disabled employees are much the same as what pregnant women require, only temporarily. And the positive gains -- better recruitment and retention of workers, boosts in productivity, reductions in absenteeism, better workplace safety -- far outweigh any costs, according to the fact sheet. Trump’s views on pregnancy didn’t sway Kepcher’s admiration for her former boss. "If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Donald, it’s to make a decision, make it fast, and stick with it," she said. Trump certainly didn’t view his daughter Ivanka’s pregnancy as an inconvenience when she stood beside him, well into her third trimester, stumping in New Hampshire and South Carolina. Trump told crowds in both states that he’d love for his daughter to have her baby there. "You know, she had a baby like five days ago," Trump said of Ivanka at a March rally in New York, about 10 days after Ivanka gave birth. "She did a good job. So I should not say Ivanka, you're fired, right? I promise." We searched but were unable to find any additional comments made by Trump about women employees becoming pregnant. Our ruling Clinton said that Trump called pregnancy "an inconvenience" for business owners. Trump indeed used that word in a 2004 interview with NBC’s Dateline. "The fact is it is an inconvenience for a person that is running a business," Trump said. Clinton’s claim is accurate. We rate it True.https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/f3498750-e3e7-457c-ba24-b6bca90e01ea | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2016-06-24T13:01:28 | 2016-06-21 | ['None'] |
pomt-13329 | Gov. Pence said, inarguably, Vladimir Putin is a better leader than President Obama. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/05/tim-kaine/tim-kaine-recalls-mike-pence-comment-putin-stronge/ | One of the themes of the vice presidential debate in Farmville, Va., involved Tim Kaine pressing Mike Pence on controversial statements made by either Pence or Donald Trump. Kaine, a Democratic U.S. senator from Virginia, tried particularly hard to pin his rival down on favorable statements about Russian leader Vladimir Putin. At one point, Kaine said, "Hillary also has the ability to stand up to Russia in a way that this ticket does not. Donald Trump, again and again, has praised Vladimir Putin. … Gov. Pence made the odd claim — he said, inarguably, Vladimir Putin is a better leader than President Obama. Vladimir Putin has run his economy into the ground. He persecutes LGBT folks and journalists. If you don't know the difference between dictatorship and leadership, then you got to go back to a fifth-grade civics class." Kaine hammered the point again later in the debate. "Well, this is one where we can just kind of go to the tape on it. But Gov. Pence said, inarguably, Vladimir Putin is a better leader than President Obama." Pence, the governor of Indiana, pounced, saying, "That is absolutely inaccurate. … He said he's stronger -- he's been stronger on the world stage." So who was right? A close look at the original comment suggests that both have a point, but neither is fully accurate. Understanding this claim requires going back to exchanges that occurred about a month earlier. On several occasions during the campaign, Trump had spoken admiringly of Putin. For instance, in NBC’s Commander in Chief Forum on Sept. 7, Trump said, "The man has very strong control over a country. It's a very different system and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly, in that system, he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader." The following day, Pence was asked about Trump’s remark in an interview with CNN's Dana Bash at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. Pence supported what his ticket-mate had said. "I think it's inarguable that Vladimir Putin has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country," Pence said. "And that's going to change the day that Donald Trump becomes president." So Kaine has a point that Pence did say something seemingly favorable to Putin’s leadership, saying he’d been "a stronger leader" than Obama. But Kaine related the remark inaccurately, saying Pence had said Putin was "a better leader than President Obama." Pence never used the term "better." As it turns out, Trump himself had used the word "better," at least twice. During a July 27 news conference in Florida, Trump said, "Putin has much better leadership qualities than Obama, but who doesn't know that?" And on the July 28 edition of Fox & Friends, Trump did say Putin is "a better leader than Obama." But during the debate, Kaine didn’t say Trump said these things. He said Pence did. Meanwhile, Pence’s response to Kaine’s jab wasn’t airtight, either. First, Pence’s counterpunch seemed to conflate his own comments on Putin with Trump’s. And second, Trump was never explicit that he was referring to Putin's role on the "world stage." Our ruling In the debate, Kaine said that Pence had "said, inarguably, Vladimir Putin is a better leader than President Obama." Pence did say something very similar -- but not exactly as Kaine said. Pence had said that Putin "has been a stronger leader in his country than Barack Obama has been in this country." However, "stronger" is not identical to "better." We rate the statement Mostly True. | null | Tim Kaine | null | null | null | 2016-10-05T17:01:20 | 2016-10-04 | ['Vladimir_Putin', 'Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-12382 | Rubio: ‘Rape victims should be in custody if there is suspicion that they’re planning abortion.’ | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2017/jun/01/uspoln/blogs-fabricate-marco-rubio-quote-about-putting-ra/ | Bloggers revived an 18-month-old fake news story that greatly distorts Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s position on abortion. "Rubio: ‘Rape victims should be in custody if there is suspicion that they’re planning abortion,’ " reads the headline on USPOLN.com (short for U.S. political news). USPOLN.com, which describes itself as a "hybrid news/satire platform," published the article May 23, 2017. But the story talks about a statement the Florida senator allegedly made at a New Hampshire town hall during his presidential campaign, which ended more than a year ago. As its source, USPOLN.com links to a Nov. 8, 2015, story on politicono.com, also a regular purveyor of fake news. The article was flagged by Facebook users as potentially being fabricated. The article drastically veers away from Rubio’s real position on abortion. USPOLN.com made up this flippant, over-the-top quote and attributed it to Rubio: "I’m just totally against the whole shebang, I won’t deny it. I am appalled by how insensitive and self-centered rape victims can sometimes be. I mean, sure, okay, you were just violated in the most intimate way, and sure, you had to undergo a detailed physical examination afterwards, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to kill an innocent baby regardless of what it’s father has done to you, come on." Reporters and debate moderators asked Rubio about his position on abortion and rape victims on several occasions during his primary campaign. Rubio opposes rape and incest exemptions for abortion. He never said rape victims considering abortion should be jailed. In fact, Rubio has cosponsored legislation that bans abortions but includes exemptions for victims of rape and incest. He said he does not support these exemptions but recognizes that they are necessary to get more support for the legislation. "A rape is an act of violence," he told MSNBC’s Chuck Todd in August 2015. "It's a horrifying thing that happens. And fortunately the number of abortions in this country that are due to rape are very small, less than 1 percent of the cases in the world. But they happen and they're horrifying and they're tragic, and I recognize that." He added, "That being said, I recognize that in order to have a consensus on laws that limit the number of abortions, a lot of people want to see those exceptions and that's why I've supported those laws in the past, as has every pro-life group in America." USPOLN.com’s about page includes a disclaimer, warning readers that its articles "may not be reliable" and that they should consider "any and all quotes attributed to actual people complete and total baloney." Yet a perusal of the comments at the bottom of the article shows that at least some people fell for this explosive fake headline about Rubio. We rate this headline Pants on Fire! See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Uspoln Website | null | null | null | 2017-06-01T09:00:00 | 2017-05-23 | ['None'] |
pomt-09125 | Right now every single one of the (oil) companies here today and dozens of others are drilling for free in the Gulf of Mexico on leases that will cost American taxpayers more than $50 billion in lost royalties. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jun/16/edward-markey/markey-says-oil-companies-pay-nothing-gulf-drillin/ | The ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has focused attention on a wide range of problems with the nation's regulation of how oil and other natural resources are extracted. One of those issues has to do with how much oil companies are paying the federal government for the right to drill offshore. At a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Environment on June 15, 2010, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the subcommittee chairman, took aim at the oil companies whose executives were assembled as witnesses at the hearing. One of the claims Markey made was that "right now, every single one of the companies here today and dozens of others are drilling for free in the Gulf of Mexico on leases that will cost American taxpayers more than $50 billion in lost royalties." We decided to see if Markey was right. At first, we thought Markey was saying that no oil company pays anything for the right to drill in the Gulf. But we knew that was not true. In a previous item we noted that the Minerals Management Service -- the office in the Interior Department charged with regulating natural-resources extraction on federal lands as well as collecting the resulting royalties -- took in just under $10 billion in royalties and other revenues in 2009, placing it in the top 10 government offices for generating federal revenue. According to MMS, Gulf of Mexico revenues for oil alone for 2009 amounted to more than $61 million for Louisiana, $1.4 million for Mississippi and more than $285,000 for Alabama. But when we took a closer look at Markey's words, we realized that he was referring to a dispute over oil lease contracts from the Clinton era. These involve two related issues. One concerns drilling leases signed in 1998 and 1999. The other concerns drilling leases signed in 1996, 1997 and 2000. It gets complicated, so bear with us. In order to promote the extraction of certain kinds of natural resources, the Interior Secretary may exercise powers under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act and the Deep Water Royalty Relief Act of 1995 to grant royalty relief to drillers. In the mid 1990s, when the latter law was passed, fossil fuel prices were low, so certain types of drilling projects seemed uneconomical without government assistance. The subsidies took the form of relieving companies from having to pay federal royalties on the resources they extracted. For 1996, 1997 and 2000, the lease contracts were written in such a way that the royalty relief disappeared once the market price of oil rose above a certain level. When the price reached that level, the companies would have to start paying a royalty. But the contracts for leases agreed to in 1998 and 1999 did not include any provisions for price triggers. So regardless of how high the market price rose, no company holding a lease that was signed in one of those two years would ever owe the government a dime in royalties. During the George W. Bush administration, MMS belatedly tried to persuade leaseholders to agree to pay royalties once a price trigger was reached, and the department had some success renegotiating the contracts. But many oil companies rejected MMS' proposals to insert a price trigger. In 2008, the Government Accountability Office -- the nonpartisan, investigative arm of Congress -- estimated that upwards of $1 billion in revenues had already been foregone from the 1998 and 1999 leases. It also cited a variety of scenarios that would suggest that the loss over 25 years from the 1998 and 1999 leases could total between $4.3 billion and $14.7 billion. But remember those accurately worded contracts from the 1996, 1997 and 1998 leases? Well, it turns out they're not locked down either. In 2006, Kerr-McGee, an energy company later purchased by Anadarko Petroleum Corp., sued the government, arguing that none of the price triggers from 1996, 1997 and 2000 were valid. In 2007, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana sided with Kerr-McGee, and in 2009, a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed. In September 2009, the federal government, in a brief written by Solicitor General Elena Kagan (now a Supreme Court nominee), asked the Supreme Court to take up the case. But it declined, effectively letting the lower court's decision in favor of Kerr-McGee stand. We should mention that it's possible that Congress could legislate a remedy that forces the oil companies to pay royalties despite what the contracts say and what the courts have ruled. In fact, efforts to do just that are under way, and they may get a boost from popular anger over the oil spill. But the chances of such a law being enacted are only speculative at this point, so, in addition to the lost royalties from 1998 and 1999, it seems reasonable for Markey to add in the lost royalties from all five years, as he seems to have done. And how big are those three additional years worth of royalties? When the GAO surveyed the data in 2008, the agency suggested that the government would have to refund more than $1 billion in royalties already collected, in addition to forgoing billions of dollars more that had been expected to materialize over the next 25 years. Reports by the GAO and the Congressional Research Service, Congress' nonpartisan research arm, offered wildly varying estimates, from a low of almost $16 billion to a high $60 billion. The fact is, forecasting the market price of energy -- not to mention the future production from drill sites -- as far as 25 years into the future means that even the best experts can make little more than educated guesses. Oil prices in particular are notoriously volatile even in the short term, much less on the scale of a quarter century. In the report, GAO itself urged the utmost of caution in assessing these various scenarios. The ranges for lost revenue "should not be viewed as probabilistic estimates of what actual forgone royalties will be, or even firm boundaries within which forgone royalties will fall. Rather, the scenarios reflect reasonable possibilities based on recent experience and possible future prices." So where does this leave Markey's comment? It's on the right track, but we do have some quibbles with it. First, he would have been better served if he'd chosen his words more carefully. We think a reasonable person hearing his statement -- but unaware of the controversy over the lease language -- would come away thinking that no oil company pays a dime for anything it pumps out of the Gulf. In reality, the companies pay tens of millions of dollars a year just to extract oil in the Gulf alone. Second, we believe Markey cites the $50 billion figure a little too blithely. He picked a number on the high end of an estimate range that will be subject to lots of cross-cutting influences over the next quarter-century -- first and foremost the volatile price of oil. If he'd said "leases that could cost American taxpayers more than $50 billion in lost royalties" -- rather than "will cost" -- he would have been on much safer ground. In an interview, Markey's office noted that the comment we fact-checked was an opening statement that summarized topics the hearing would address, and that lawmakers and witnesses proceeded to cover the topic of lost royalties in greater detail later in the hearing. They added that in Markey's view, the higher range of the estimate seems more likely based on their reading of oil price trends. But they acknowledged that the estimates are just that -- estimates and overall, we think many listeners would come away with the impression that the federal government was not getting any royalties when, in fact, the companies pay tens of millions of dollars a year just for drilling in the Gulf. In our view, Markey's comment, while broadly accurate, would have benefited from better specificity. So we find the claim Half True. | null | Edward Markey | null | null | null | 2010-06-16T16:24:31 | 2010-06-15 | ['United_States', 'Gulf_of_Mexico'] |
pomt-14950 | Says John Kerry "is the first secretary of state to rely primarily on a government account." | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/23/hillary-clinton/clinton-says-john-kerry-was-first-secretary-state-/ | Members of the House Select Committee on Benghazi peppered Hillary Clinton with questions for about 11 hours on Oct. 22, 2015. As expected, Clinton’s use of a private email account and server was a topic of discussion. At one point, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, R-Ga., pressed Clinton on whether she had told State Department officials about emails on her private server. Westmoreland: If they were gathering emails, you had to tell them that you had a private server when you were there. Clinton: Well, the -- the server is not the point, it's the account. And I made it a practice to send emails that were work-related to people on their government accounts. In fact, you know, Secretary Kerry is the first secretary of state to rely primarily on a government account. This is not the first time that Clinton, her staff or her supporters have talked about how other secretaries of state have used email. Of course, the historical comparison can’t go back very far because the country hasn’t had many secretaries since the advent of email. In fact, beyond Clinton herself -- and Kerry, who has to abide by a requirement to use departmental email -- we only have three secretaries of state to consider. They are Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright. Of those, Powell is the only one who used email very much at all. According to MSNBC, an aide for Albright said she "did not use email while she was in office" from 1997 to 2001. Similarly, Rice, head of the State Department from 2005 to 2009, was not a habitual emailer either, according to multiple reports. As Harf noted in a State Department briefing, "Secretary Rice has repeatedly said that she did not regularly use email," and a spokesperson for Rice told ABC, "She did not use personal email for official communication as secretary." Powell, on the other hand, took it as his personal mission to get the entire department on email. "I arrived at the State Department as secretary with a disastrous information system there," Powell said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sept. 6, 2015. "And I had to fix it. And so what I had to do is bring the State Department to the 21st century." In his book It Worked for Me, Powell tells how he got Congress to pay for 44,000 new computers and put an Internet-connected machine on every desk in every embassy and every office in the department. "To complement the official State Department computer in my office, I installed a laptop computer on a private line," Powell wrote. "My personal email account on the laptop allowed me direct access to anyone online. I started shooting emails to my principal assistants, to individual ambassadors, and increasingly to my foreign-minister colleagues who like me were trying to bring their ministries in the 186,000 miles per second world." An aide to Powell confirmed his use of this personal email account in a statement to Politico. "He sent emails to his staff generally via their State Department email addresses," the statement said. "These emails should be on the State Department computers." So, Powell was on email, but it was through a private, not government email account. Our ruling Clinton said Kerry was the first secretary to rely mainly on a government email account. This statement is accurate, but it glosses over a bit of context -- that only one secretary before Clinton herself, Colin Powell, used email much at all while secretary of state. This undercuts the implication of Clinton’s claim, that there was a tradition of sorts of secretaries of state using private email accounts. It was a tradition of one. We rate the claim Mostly True. | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2015-10-23T17:12:47 | 2015-10-22 | ['None'] |
pomt-10047 | You and I know that in the history of mankind and womankind, government — federal, state, local, or otherwise — has never created one job. | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/feb/10/michael-steele/steele-government-never-created-job-opposite/ | Michael Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland, recently won a contest to lead the Republican National Committee. He also made history as the first African-American to lead the party. One of Steele's first appearances was before a retreat for House Republicans on Jan. 31, 2009. Steele praised the House Republicans for voting as a block against the stimulus package promoted by Democrats and President Barack Obama. Then he said that the stimulus was pointless, because government can't create jobs. "You and I know that in the history of mankind and womankind, government — federal, state, local, or otherwise — has never created one job. It's destroyed a lot of them. It's hampered a lot of them," Steele said. He went on to praise the diligence of the small business owners who "build prosperity, to realize the American dream." Listen to an audio recording of his remarks . This seemed a little strange to us: Many people work and retire from the federal government. The U.S. Postal Service rivals Wal-Mart as the nation's largest employer . Local governments tend to be the biggest employers in their communities when you count public school teachers and other school employees. A week after talking to the House Republicans, Steele appeared on This Week with George Stephanopoulos . Stephanopoulos showed Steele video of Republican Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida praising the stimulus bill. Steele didn't seem to back off the spirit of his previous comment. The exchange, which is a little long, went down like this : Crist (recorded earlier): "This program will help us with education, with health care, Medicaid specifically, infrastructure. These are the kinds of things that produce jobs. It could mean $13 billion to the Sunshine State. It comes at a time when we need it. People need jobs. It's about jobs, jobs, jobs." Stephanopolous (to Steele): "He suggests that you and Republican Party leaders here in Washington are on the wrong side of the biggest issue, jobs." Steele: "Well, no — you know, with all due respect to the governor, I understand where he's coming from. Having been a state official, I know what it means to get those dollars when you're in tight times. But you've got to look at the entire package. You've got to look at what's going to create sustainable jobs. What this administration is talking about is making work. It is creating work." Stephanopoulos: "But that's a job." Steele: "No, it's not a job. A job is something that a business owner creates. It's going to be long term." Stephanopoulos: "So a job doesn't count if it's a government job?" Steele: "Hold on. No, let me finish. That is a contract. It ends at a certain point, George. You know that. These road projects that we're talking about have an end point. As a small-business owner, I'm looking to grow my business, expand my business. I want to reach further. I want to be international. I want to be national. It's a whole different perspective on how you create a job versus how you create work." Stephanopoulos: "I guess I don't really understand that distinction." So we started looking for evidence that the government creates jobs. It wasn't hard to find. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the federal government is the nation's largest employer, with more than 1.8 million employees, excluding the post office. "Competition is expected for many federal positions, especially during times of economic uncertainty, when workers seek the stability of federal employment," says a report posted on the Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site. "In general, federal employment is considered to be relatively stable because it is not affected by cyclical fluctuations in the economy, as are employment levels in many private sector industries." At USAJobs.com, you can look for a job with the federal government. On the day we looked, the Web site said, "There are 37,409 U.S. government job opportunities worldwide," and invited applicants to seek by job title, keyword, city, state or zip code. We looked at lists of largest employers published by local chambers of commerce and found many local government entities listed. We randomly selected Durham, N.C., for example, and found that the chamber in 2007 listed the public schools as the third largest employer with 5,489 workers. The city of Durham was seventh largest employer with 2,336 jobs. The Veterans Administration Medical Center as ninth with 2,162 jobs, and ... well, we'll stop there. Perhaps in his mind Steele was trying to make a point that private sector jobs are superior to public sector jobs. But that's not what he said. He said that "government — federal, state or local — has never created one job." Then, in the interview with Stephanopoulos, he implied that only businesses can create jobs, not government. Steele may not like government jobs, but he can't wish them away. For trying to pretend that government jobs don't exist, we rate his statement Pants on Fire! | null | Michael Steele | null | null | null | 2009-02-10T16:27:48 | 2009-01-31 | ['None'] |
snes-05673 | Caitlyn Jenner regrets transitioning to female and wishes to de-transition. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/false-jenners-gender/ | null | Media Matters | null | David Mikkelson | null | Caitlyn Jenner to De-Transition | 4 June 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12677 | Experts estimate that 40 percent of gun sales occur in no-questions-asked transactions that often take place at gun shows or on the Internet. | false | /florida/statements/2017/mar/16/hannah-willard/do-40-gun-sales-lack-background-checks-new-data-sa/ | Sometimes even a zombie statistic faces its moment of reckoning. Today is one of those days. Several advocates of gun control addressed supporters and reporters at a Florida Capitol press conference to promote two bills that would tighten background checks for firearms (SB 1334 and HB 1113), including the Senate bill’s sponsor, Gary Farmer, D-Lighthouse Point. Several of the speakers offered statistics on gun violence and public opinion about gun-related policies. One of those was Hannah Willard, the public policy director of Equality Florida. She said, "Experts estimate that 40 percent of gun sales occur in no-questions-asked transactions that often take place at gun shows or on the Internet." Willard pointed us to her source -- a briefing page about background checks published by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The page offers essentially identical language to what Willard said at the news conference: To us, this was a familiar -- and imperfect -- talking point often raised by supporters of stricter gun laws. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe earned a Mostly False when he used it, as the statistic stems from survey data undertaken in 1994 and that included firearms given as gifts or inheritances, not just sold. When the authors of the study -- Jens Ludwig of the University of Chicago and Philip Cook of Duke University -- adjusted the results to include only the guns sold, the number sold without background checks declined to between 14 percent and 22 percent. In 2015, Cook told PolitiFact that he and his co-author didn’t know whether their findings were relevant any longer, and added that no current national study had been published. We decided to check in again with the co-authors regarding Willard’s statement. Cook responded with some urgent news. "We finally have an up-to-date survey that provides a good answer to the question of what percentage of gun transactions do not involve a background check," Cook said. Researchers Matthew Miller, Lisa Hepburn, and Deborah Azrael published a study in the January 2017 edition of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine that was specifically undertaken to update the 1994 data. The researchers asked 1,613 adult gun owners where and when they acquired their last firearm, including whether it was purchased, and whether they had either a background check or were asked to show a firearm license or permit. The answer: 22 percent obtained their gun without a background check. That’s barely half of the 40 percent figure that has gained wide currency for more than two decades. The 22 percent figure "represents a smaller proportion of gun owners obtaining firearms without background checks than in the past," the authors wrote, though they emphasized that despite the smaller figure, "millions of U.S. adults continue to acquire guns without background checks, especially in states that do not regulate private firearm sales." When we asked Cook whether the new paper represented the definitive "stake in the heart" for this zombie statistic, he replied: "Exactly." In fact, Cook wrote an accompanying editorial in the journal, headlined, "At Last, a Good Estimate of the Magnitude of the Private-Sale Loophole for Firearms." In it, he wrote, "Even though I bear some credit (or blame) for the earlier estimate, I could not be more pleased to be done with it, given that it is based on data from a survey done more than 20 years ago and that, in any event, never directly asked participants about background checks." We will update with comment from the Brady Campaign if we get it. Our ruling Willard said, "Experts estimate that 40 percent of gun sales occur in no-questions asked transactions that often take place at gun shows or on the Internet." That statistic was already questionable, but by now it’s been definitively overtaken by a new study. The author of the old paper points to the paper published in January as the best estimate available, and it came up with a figure of 22 percent — just over half the percentage in the long-standing talking point. We rate the statement False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Hannah Willard | null | null | null | 2017-03-16T18:45:59 | 2017-03-16 | ['None'] |
snes-04253 | In the 1950s, a Las Vegas hotel completely drained their pool because black entertainer Dorothy Dandridge stuck her toe in the water. | legend | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dandridge-drained-pool/ | null | Entertainment | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Definitely Not Friends of Dorothy | 13 August 2016 | null | ['Las_Vegas'] |
pomt-04616 | Says U.S. Rep. John Barrow "left taxpayers on the hook for $950k study on genetic makeup of ants." | half-true | /georgia/statements/2012/sep/18/national-republican-congressional-committee/barrow-gets-flak-vote-funded-study-ants/ | Could Congressman John Barrow’s re-election chances come down to, of all things, ants? The Georgia Democrat recently released a television commercial portraying himself as a fighter against out-of-control spending in Washington. The National Republican Congressional Committee attempted to undercut Barrow’s efforts with a claim it says proves he’s no fiscal watchdog. "Barrow left taxpayers on the hook for $950k study on genetic makeup of ants," read the headline of an article on the NRCC’s website. The article claimed Barrow voted for legislation in 2009 that included sending $500,000 to Arizona State University to study the genetic makeup of ants to determine distinctive roles in ant colonies; $450,000 went to the University of Arizona to study the division of labor in ant colonies. "Georgia families know that in order to get rid of wasteful spending they need to get rid of John Barrow," NRCC spokeswoman Andrea Bozek wrote. The Republicans’ larger point about this is they want to link Barrow with President Barack Obama, who is portrayed by the GOP as a big-spending liberal. "Congressman John Barrow has supported [Obama’s] liberal spending agenda every step of the way," Bozek told PolitiFact Georgia. "His claims [otherwise] don’t pass the smell test." Republicans believe they have a good opportunity to defeat the four-term incumbent in November after the lines in the east Georgia congressional district he represents were redrawn. The new 12th Congressional District no longer includes Savannah, a traditional stronghold for Democrats. A 2011 Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis found the district shifted from a 2 percent Democratic advantage to a 20-point Republican lean. Barrow is the only white Democrat in the House who represents a congressional district in the Deep South. Barrow has tried to portray himself as a moderate Democrat. His congressional website includes an email address for people to send ideas to "fix Washington," saying, for example, that the federal government spends billions of dollars on vehicles it doesn’t need. Barrow did not attend the recent Democratic National Convention. He claims to have voted 54 percent of the time with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Republican from Virginia. In a recent TV ad, Barrow said he voted against funding for a lobster institute, holding one of the sea creatures for effect. So why would a congressman from Georgia vote to spend federal funds for researchers from Arizona to study ants? The answer lies in one of the largest government spending measures in U.S. history. Shortly after Obama became president in 2009, House Democrats took up legislation aimed at stabilizing the U.S. economy. The bill was called the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. It was commonly known as the economic stimulus. It entailed $787 billion in federal spending on infrastructure projects, unemployment benefits, expanded medical benefits and other government programs. The bill passed the then-Democratic-led House of Representatives by a 246-183 vote. Barrow voted in favor of the program. Not one Republican voted for the bill. Months later, Republicans began blasting the stimulus. U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who voted against the stimulus, complained about money funded for the ant research in his home state. "I had no idea that so much expertise concerning ants resided in the major universities of my state," McCain quipped at a news conference. "I must say, I say that with an element of pride -- but I'm not sure that it is deserving of these taxpayer dollars." Arizona State officials said the research helps further knowledge of evolution and societal behavior, which sheds light on understanding humans. A University of Arizona official said the research would help scientists learn more about how ants share scarce resources. "You don't think of it every day, but ants are really good at division of labor," Leslie Tolbert, the UA vice president for research, said in The Arizona Daily Star. Barrow spokesman Richard Carbo defended the congressman’s vote on the stimulus. He said the 407-page bill did not include references to ants or research to study the insects. The money came from $2.5 billion through the National Science Foundation to be spent on research that was unspecified in the bill. Carbo said it is disingenuous for the NRCC to say Barrow supported that amount of money for the research. "To say [Barrow] voted for it is inaccurate and false," Carbo told us. "If you look at the entire bill, there’s no mention of ants." Carbo said some Republicans from the Georgia Legislature have credited the package with helping the economy in this state. Bozek countered that Barrow’s support for the bill disappeared after the NRCC publicized the money for ant research. She cited a Sept. 11 report in The Savannah Morning News that Barrow recently removed a sentence from his campaign biography that he stood with Obama in support of the stimulus act. But is it fair to bash Barrow for voting in favor of the stimulus when it didn’t include any information that some funds would ultimately be spent on ant colony research? Bozek said the congressman should have known the stimulus would result in "wasteful spending." "John Barrow continues to try to and pass the buck for his failed leadership that cost Georgia taxpayers dearly," Bozek said. "While Barrow tries to hide the facts by deleting mentions of the failed stimulus from his website, Georgia taxpayers are left footing the bill for his wasteful stimulus plan." OK, so where does this leave us? Barrow did vote for the stimulus bill. It did not mention anything, however, about ant research, but some of the funds were used for such purposes. The NRCC headline is technically accurate, but it omits some important information to fully understand this issue. We rate this claim Half True. | null | National Republican Congressional Committee | null | null | null | 2012-09-18T06:00:00 | 2012-09-18 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-10143 | McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators... that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/oct/06/barack-obama/obama-revives-an-80s-scandal/ | Days after Sen. John McCain's campaign started attacking Sen. Barack Obama's past association with the 1970s radical William Ayers, Obama's campaign countered with a 13-minute Web video on McCain's history with convicted banker Charles Keating, Jr. The documentary burrows deep into the details of McCain's role in the Keating Five, a quintet of senators investigated for pressuring regulators on Keating's behalf prior to his notoriety as a villain in the late 1980's savings-and-loan crisis. This sentence, from a blurb introducing the video on a Web site set up by the Obama campaign on Oct. 6, 2008, best encapsulates their attack: "McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry – actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers." Let's check the evidence. Keating and McCain, both former Navy fliers, met at a Navy League dinner in 1981, and became friends and mutual supporters. Keating, a prominent Arizona banker, organized fundraisers for McCain's campaigns for the House and later the Senate, and donated $112,000 to McCain by 1987. He also hosted the McCain family at least nine times at his lavish vacation home in Cat Cay, Bahamas. "I genuinely liked him and enjoyed being around him, especially on those occasions when Cindy and I and our oldest child, Meghan, were invited to his family's vacation home in the Bahamas," McCain wrote in his 2002 book Worth the Fighting For: A Memoir . Keating complained frequently to McCain about regulations – and regulators – that he said threatened the success of the Lincoln Savings and Loan, a subsidiary of Keating's American Continental Corp. McCain was persuaded to act. On two occasions in 1987, he and fellow Sens. Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, John Glenn of Ohio and – in the second meeting – Don Riegle of Michigan, (all Democrats aside from McCain), met with federal regulators at Keating's request and asked them to back off Lincoln. During the second meeting, the regulators told the senators they suspected Lincoln of criminal misconduct, and intended to refer the matter to the Department of Justice. That took the senators aback – McCain, in particular, did nothing more on the matter after the regulators mentioned criminality, a Senate investigation later found. The regulators went on to recommend a criminal investigation of Lincoln, but little came of the recommendation until the government seized the failing institution in 1989. Different players in the drama have different interpretations of whether the senators' involvement delayed the investigation. But it is clear that indeed McCain "intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud," as the Obama campaign claimed. In fact, McCain had intervened on Keating's behalf before. Having "heard frequently from Charlie" about a proposed savings-and-loan regulation called the "direct investment rule," Mcain tried to fight the regulation or get an exemption for Lincoln, he wrote in his book. "I sent or cosigned as many as five letters to (Federal Home Loan Bank Board Chair) Ed Gray and White House officials, and in January 1985, I cosponsored a House resolution calling for the promulgation of the regulation to be postponed," McCain wrote. "All such efforts came to naught, however. The rule was promulgated on schedule, and Lincoln's application for an exemption was rejected." So yes, McCain also "championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry," the second component of the Obama campaign's claim. But here we have a quibble with the Obama campaign. It's hard to see how McCain's championing of the legislation "allowed Keating to continue his fraud," since the legislation failed. The Obama campaign did not respond to our requests to defend its claim. It's also important to note that the Senate Ethics Committee, after a 14-month investigation into the Keating Five, largely exonerated McCain, citing him only for "poor judgment." "The Committee concludes that Senator McCain exercised poor judgment in intervening with the regulators," the committee said in a statement at the conclusion of its investigation in 1991. "Senator McCain has violated no law of the United States or specific Rule of the United States Senate."' Nevertheless, revelations about his relationship to Keating tarred McCain. He did not reimburse Keating for $13,433 worth of airfare to Keating's home in the Bahamas until the trips were exposed years later by reporters in Arizona. And reporters also discovered that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a shopping center with Keating in 1986. Keating was convicted in 1993 of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud, and served 50 months before the conviction was overturned because the jury had been told of his conviction in state court. In 1999 he pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud and was sentenced to time served. The government seizure of Lincoln cost taxpayers more than $2 billion, a sum that many would find "incredible," as the Obama campaign claimed. So it's clear that McCain did "intervene on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators" – language lifted almost directly from the Senate committee report. And McCain also "championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry" – as he acknowledged in his own book. It's debatable whether the first of those actions "allowed Keating to continue his fraud," and the second certainly didn't, since the legislation didn't pass. But yes, Keating's fraud did exact a huge cost from taxpayers. We find this claim Mostly True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2008-10-06T00:00:00 | 2008-10-06 | ['Charles_Keating', 'John_McCain'] |
pomt-05976 | We have 25 million Americans out of work. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jan/23/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-there-are-25-million-americans-ou/ | During the Jan. 23, 2012, Republican presidential debate in Tampa, Fla., Mitt Romney said that "we have 25 million Americans out of work." But he’s not correct. Officially, there were about 13.1 million unemployed Americans in December 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal government’s official source of employment statistics. This is the number that’s used to calculate the official unemployment rate, which during that month was 8.5 percent. But 13.1 million is only about half of what Romney claimed. What’s going on? Here’s the explanation. Some critics have long argued that the BLS definition of unemployment is too limiting, since it doesn’t count people who have stopped looking for work or who are working part time, even though they’d prefer a full-time job. So BLS also offers an alternative measure (known to economists as "U-6") that factors in both groups. Using this measure, BLS in December 2011 found an additional 2.6 million Americans who are "marginally attached" to the labor force, meaning they’d be ready to work if a job became available, and another 8.1 million Americans who are working part time but who would prefer a full-time job. Together, these three categories added up to 23.8 million people in September 2011, for a total "U-6" rate of 15.2 percent, or well above the official unemployment rate. So Romney is a little high for the broader statistic -- 25 million as opposed to 23.8 million -- but he’s in the ballpark. The question is whether it’s fair to describe these roughly 25 million people as "out of work." To make the definition work, you have to include the 8.1 million Americans who are "working only part-time for economic reasons." These people would certainly rather have a full-time job. However, we don’t think it’s accurate to describe them as "out of work." Our ruling While the U-6 measurement is not the official gauge of unemployment in the United States, it’s a valid statistic to consider in conjunction with others. However, Romney’s use of the term "out of work" seems to be a stretch when about one-third of the "25 million Americans out of work" are actually working part-time. On balance, we rate the statement Half True. | null | Mitt Romney | null | null | null | 2012-01-23T23:54:33 | 2012-01-23 | ['United_States'] |
pose-01072 | I will not sign a budget in Virginia unless the Medicaid expansion is included in the budget. | promise broken | https://www.politifact.com/virginia/promises/macker-meter/promise/1155/insist-medicaid-expansion/ | null | macker-meter | Terry McAuliffe | null | null | Insist budgets include Medicaid expansion | 2014-01-17T12:40:18 | null | ['Virginia'] |
pomt-12559 | Here are some of the things that are more popular than Congress: hemorrhoids, Nickelback, traffic jams, cockroaches, root canals, colonoscopies, herpes. Even herpes, they couldn’t beat herpes in the polls. | mostly true | /california/statements/2017/apr/14/arnold-schwarzenegger/congress-really-less-popular-hemorrhoids-and-herpe/ | Do voters really have a higher opinion of hemorrhoids -- hemorrhoids! -- than Congress? Do they really prefer root canals, traffic jams and colonoscopies over this branch of government? Really? That’s Arnold Schwarzenegger’s colorful claim from a February 2017 video that went viral. He repeated the allegations in an April 12, 2017 post on Facebook. In the video, he points out the deep disdain for Congress but also notes that nearly all members are re-elected due to what Schwarzenegger calls a rigged political redistricting system, or gerrymandering. Here’s his claim in its raw form: "Here are some of the things that are more popular than Congress: hemorrhoids, Nickelback, traffic jams, cockroaches, root canals, colonoscopies, herpes. Even herpes, they couldn’t beat herpes in the polls." The former California governor and movie star has vowed to raise awareness about gerrymandering now that’s he’s finished as host of The New Celebrity Apprentice and squashed rumors he might run for U.S. Senate. While we know approval ratings for Congress are low, we wondered if they’re really as pathetic as Schwarzenegger wants us to believe. We set out on a fact check. Our research This isn’t the first time we’ve checked Schwarzenegger’s claims on Congress and gerrymandering. In February, we rated as True his assertion that, "The average margin of victory in the House of Representatives was 37%." He was referring to the average percentage point victory for both Democrats and Republicans in the 2016 election. We asked Schwarzenegger’s spokesman for evidence backing up his claim about Congress’ pitiful popularity. He pointed to results from surveys conducted by Public Policy Polling in January 2013 and October 2013. The polling company is known for conducting some tongue-in-cheek surveys and works with liberal clients. In the polls on Congress’ popularity, it asked hundreds of registered voters if they have a higher opinion of either Congress or a series of unpleasant or disliked things. Before we tackle those results, let’s look at Congress’ overall approval ratings in these recent PPP polls: -- January 2013: Congress’s overall favorability rating among voters was just 9 percent favorable and 85 percent unfavorable. -- October 2013: Congress’ overall favorability rating dipped slightly to 8 percent favorable with the same 85 percent unfavorable. -- March 2017: Congress’ overall favorability rating nudged up to 11 percent with only 68 percent of voters disapproving of it. Now, let’s tackle those head-to-head results: Hemorrhoids -- 53 percent of voters said they had a higher opinion of hemorrhoids than Congress, which was favored by only 31 percent in this matchup, according to the October 2013 survey Nickelback -- 39 percent of voters said they had a higher opinion of the rock band Nickelback than Congress, which was favored by only 32 percent Traffic jams -- 56 percent of voters said they had a higher opinion of traffic jams, than Congress, which was favored by only 34 percent Root canals -- 56 percent of voters said they had a higher opinion of this dental procedure than Congress, which was favored by only 32 percent Colonoscopies -- 58 percent of voters said they had a higher opinion of this invasive procedure than Congress, which was favored by only 31 percent Herpes The PPP surveys didn’t ask about herpes. It did ask, however, about gonorrhea. And Congress was still less popular than that venereal disease. A spokesman for the company that produced Schwarzenegger’s video pointed to a 2011 CNN op-ed where comedian and radio show host Dean Obeidallah claimed Congress was less popular than herpes, without citing evidence. Our ruling Arnold Schwarzenegger recently claimed: "Here are some of the things that are more popular than Congress: hemorrhoids, Nickelback, traffic jams, root canals, colonoscopies, herpes. Even herpes, they couldn’t beat herpes in the polls." Surveys by the Public Policy Polling mostly back-up Schwarzenegger’s dramatic claim. It should be noted, however, that the polls were conducted about four years ago and don’t include a comparison of Congress to herpes. Congress’ overall approval rating has remained in the dumps since that time, rising only slightly from 8 percent to 11 percent. It’s disapproval rating has, however, shrunk somewhat from 85 percent to 68 percent. We rate Schwarzenegger’s claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Arnold Schwarzenegger | null | null | null | 2017-04-14T11:06:11 | 2017-02-14 | ['United_States_Congress'] |
pomt-01985 | Says Hillary Clinton’s approval rating went from 70 percent to 52 percent in 18 months. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/15/reince-priebus/reince-priebus-says-hillary-clintons-poll-numbers-/ | Two huge political news stories collided this week on CBS’ Face the Nation — the release of Hillary Clinton’s new memoir and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s head-scratching Republican primary loss to a poorly funded novice candidate. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus was on set to answer how the GOP, still waging an internal war, would come together to defeat Clinton in 2016, assuming she runs. Priebus, though, said Republicans have a much deeper bench of heavyweights, adding that Clinton’s star is fading. "We're now running with a lot of great people that have a vision for this country like Bobby Jindal, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Rand Paul, and others, in my own state of Wisconsin, that are very dynamic," Priebus said. "And it looks like Hillary Clinton is getting ready. She went from a 70-percent approval rating down to ... 52 in 18 months." (Priebus stumbled slightly over the final approval number but corrected himself to say 52.) Has the shine really worn off that much since Clinton left office in January 2013? We asked Priebus to back up his numbers. GOP spokesman Sean Spicer pointed us to new data from a Bloomberg National Poll. In December 2012, Clinton received very high marks from Bloomberg’s respondents. At the time, 70 percent of those surveyed had either a very favorable or mostly favorable view of the Secretary of State. And how did she do in Bloomberg’s recent poll? On June 12, 2014, Clinton had a net favorable rating of just 52 percent, a drop of 18 points. So, Priebus is right, right? Not entirely. The Bloomberg poll released in 2012 is pretty far off the average for polls taken around that time, making it a bit of an outlier. While a couple of other polls in late 2012 and early 2013 put Clinton's favorability at 67 percent, other polls (like CBS) had it around 55 percent. The Huffington Post Pollster, which aggregates and averages most credible polls, put Clinton’s favorability rating at 58.2 percent on Dec. 9, 2012. Where is it at now? It’s at 52.6 percent. That’s definitely lower than where it was just 18 months ago, but it’s not nearly as drastic of a drop as Bloomberg found. It’s also up from where it was in December 2013, when Clinton bottomed out at 49.3 percent favorable, suggesting perhaps that Clinton is on the rebound, instead of a downward spiral. (The high point for Clinton since 2009 was actually January 2011, when about 62 percent viewed her favorably.) Here’s Clinton’s favorability over time. "If we look at individual polls, then one can find results close to those cited (by Priebus), but only by ignoring other polls," said Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette Law School Poll. "The trend, which doesn’t cherry-pick polls but averages across all of them, finds a move from 56.1 (when she left office) to 52.6." For PolitiFact, Franklin analyzed polls that have asked Clinton-specific questions at multiple times and found an average decline in those polls of about 8 points in the last 12-20 months. This won’t weigh into our rating, but since Priebus singled out a few names, we thought it would be interesting to compare Clinton’s performance against them in a hypothetical election. We used Pollster’s average (which didn’t have enough data on Clinton vs. Jindal to for us include the Louisiana governor). Opponent January 2013 June 2014 Clinton vs. Jeb Bush 55.7 to 35.8 53.5 to 39.8 Clinton vs. Chris Christie 49.1 to 40.0 51.9 to 39.9 Clinton vs. Rand Paul 52.2 to 41.6* 52.9 to 40.3 Clinton vs. Paul Ryan 55.7 to 37.2 52.0 to 37.9 *Earliest polling data was March 2013 So, while Priebus makes the case that the GOP has a handful of candidates well suited to take on a diminishing Clinton brand, actually, despite a drop in favorability, she continues to do relatively well against the Republicans he mentioned. She would beat all four we looked at if the election were held today, and has only seen her lead shrink slightly against Bush and Ryan. (It’s gone up against Christie and Paul.) Our ruling Priebus said Clinton "went from a 70-percent approval rating" down to "about 52" in 18 months. Her favorability dropped 18 points in one poll from Bloomberg during that time. But Bloomberg’s poll from December 2012 had Clinton’s favorability 12 points higher than the average poll taken around the same period. It’s true Clinton’s numbers are down overall since the end of 2012, so we’ll give Priebus credit for identifying the trend and accurately citing one recent poll, but we’ll also knock him a few points for cherry-picking his findings to exaggerate her fall. On balance, we rate his statement Half True. | null | Reince Priebus | null | null | null | 2014-06-15T18:11:08 | 2014-06-15 | ['None'] |
pomt-07023 | U.S. Reps. John Barrow and Sanford Bishop and their fellow Democrats "went on a spending spree and now their credit card is maxed out." | false | /georgia/statements/2011/jul/05/national-republican-congressional-committee/republicans-blame-blue-dog-democrats-federal-spend/ | Members of Congress are bickering over the debt ceiling, which means they’re also arguing over who’s to blame for the national debt. Recently, nearly identical news releases from the National Republican Congressional Committee targeted two moderate Georgia Democrats. "John Barrow and his fellow Democrats went on a spending spree and now their credit card is maxed out," read one. "Sanford Bishop and his fellow Democrats went on a spending spree and now their credit card is maxed out," read the other. Are Congressmen Barrow, Bishop and their fellow Democrats really responsible for maxing out the federal credit card? Fortunately for Georgia’s Truth-O-Meter, our sister site PolitiFact Ohio has already looked into an NRCC news release about Democrat U.S. Rep. Betty Sutton. It was also sent May 18. "Betty Sutton and her fellow Democrats went on a spending spree and now their credit card is maxed out," it read. Sound familiar? The NRCC sent about five dozen news releases just like it May 18, each targeting a different member of Congress. Even though the U.S. House of Representatives voted to reject the debt ceiling increase May 31, the blame game is likely to continue. Lawmakers are trying to broker a deal before Aug. 2, when the U.S. Department of Treasury says it will be unable to pay the bills unless it borrows more money. Now back to the NRCC. PolitiFact Ohio decided its accusation against Sutton was Barely True. Republicans and Democrats share the blame. Tax cuts on higher-income earners passed under President George W. Bush and backed by Republicans played a substantial role in the nation’s annual deficits, according to the Congressional Research Service, which provides nonpartisan policy and legal analysis to Congress. Some argued the cuts can actually pay for themselves by stimulating economic growth. But PolitiFact has previously found that the Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury Department, the Joint Committee on Taxation and the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers say that tax cuts led to revenue totals that are lower than they otherwise would have been -- even if they spur some economic growth. Extending all of them permanently, as many in the GOP would like, would cost $3.3 trillion over 10 years and increase deficits. The recession hurt federal tax revenue as well. Add in the cost of the wars that began under Bush and continue under President Barack Obama, and you’ve got a good-sized debt, the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities argues. Just two policies dating from the Bush administration -- tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- accounted for more than $500 billion of the deficit in 2009 "and will account for $7 trillion in deficits in 2009 through 2019, including the associated debt-service costs," the center said. A federal budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation begs to differ. He said the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities cherry-picked spending and tax policies that liberals dislike and blamed them for the entire problem. They could have easily scapegoated Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare or any number of other programs with bipartisan appeal. We think it’s safe to say that both Republicans and Democrats are cherry-picking their data. Expenditures backed by both parties have helped put the federal government in the red. And now we focus on Barrow, who hails from Savannah, and Bishop, who is from Albany. Both are congressional veterans. Both are Blue Dog Democrats, or a group of moderates in Congress who pride themselves on fiscal conservatism. Both faced tougher-than-expected re-election races in 2010. Both voted against raising the debt ceiling in the May 31 vote. And they both represent districts that Republicans think they can win. An NRCC spokeswoman cited various votes they made as evidence that Barrow and Bishop are spendthrifts. Both voted for the 2009 stimulus package, for instance. They also voted to raise the debt limit in December 2009 and February 2010. But as Blue Dog Democrats, Barrow and Bishop supported efforts to cut the deficit by $4 trillion over the next 10 years and eliminate programs that are out of date, inefficient or duplicate the efforts of another program, according to statements by the group. Barrow is chairman of the Blue Dog policy committee, which hammered out the group’s initiatives on balancing the budget and cutting spending. Barrow spokesman Christopher Cashman argued that the NRCC cherry-picked from the congressman’s record when it argued he was on a spending spree. Those votes are only a tiny portion of the ballots he has cast during his congressional career. Cashman brought up more than a dozen other votes and initiatives as proof that his boss is no big spender. They included three 2011 votes for spending cuts. Bishop voted with Barrow in all of them. Also, Barrow and Bishop co-sponsored a bill that calls for amending the Constitution to require a balanced budget. Barrow and Bishop have voted for spending bills, but members of Congress of all stripes vote to spend money. That’s part of their job. Once again, the NRCC is guilty of cherry-picking. Whether you agree with their individual votes, the records of these Blue Dog Democrats show it’s unfair to say they’re on a "spending spree." Since these Georgians are keeping an eye on the nation’s credit card statement, we rule the NRCC’s statement False. | null | National Republican Congressional Committee | null | null | null | 2011-07-05T06:00:00 | 2011-05-18 | ['United_States', 'Democratic_Party_(United_States)'] |
farg-00019 | “Under no circumstances was any disaster relief funding transferred from [FEMA] to immigration enforcement efforts.” | none | https://www.factcheck.org/2018/09/were-funds-shifted-away-from-hurricane-relief/ | null | the-factcheck-wire | Tyler Q. Houlton | Robert Farley | ['Department of Homesland Security'] | Were Funds Shifted Away from Hurricane Relief? | September 12, 2018 | [' Twitter – Wednesday, September 12, 2018 '] | ['None'] |
goop-01281 | Scott Disick Saying Sofia Richie Is Better With Kids Than Kourtney Kardashian, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/scott-disick-sofia-richie-better-kids-kourtney-kardashian-untrue/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Scott Disick NOT Saying Sofia Richie Is Better With Kids Than Kourtney Kardashian, Despite Report | 1:46 pm, March 30, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02613 | Sarah Palin Claims Jesus Celebrated Easter? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/false-sarah-palin-claims-jesus-celebrated-easter/ | null | Uncategorized | null | David Mikkelson | null | Sarah Palin Claims Jesus Celebrated Easter? | 24 October 2013 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10009 | Obama nominee Dawn Johnsen "called motherhood 'involuntary servitude.'" | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/mar/24/house-republicans/Republicans-accuse-White-House-nominee-Johnsen-of-/ | Republicans have made it clear they're opposed to the nomination of Dawn Johnsen to head the White House Office of Legal Counsel. They're unhappy with her support of abortion rights, but a recent blog posting made a surprising allegation: That she said motherhood was "involuntary servitude." We wondered if she was really was so impolitic as to attack motherhood. And if so, does she have it in for apple pie as well? The allegation came from the Web site of the House Republican Conference: "At least 45 House Republicans have co-signed a letter to President Barack Obama in opposition to his nomination of Dawn Johnson [sic] for the head of the Office of Legal Counsel," the site says in a blog post . The post continued: "Her brazen pro-abortion stances [include] a Supreme Court amicus brief where she called motherhood 'involuntary servitude.'" The Republicans are referring to a 1989 brief in Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, a case that tested whether states could prohibit abortions in public health institutions. Johnsen was then legal director of the National Abortion Rights Action League, one of 77 organizations to sign the brief. Footnote 23, part of the brief that Johnsen said in a Senate hearing that she wrote, said the following: "While a woman might choose to bear children gladly and voluntarily, statutes that curtail her abortion choice are disturbingly suggestive of involuntary servitude, prohibited by the Thirteenth Amendment, in that forced pregnancy requires a woman to provide continuous physical service to the fetus in order to further the state's asserted interest. Indeed, the actual process of delivery demands work of the most intense and physical kind: labor of 12 or more grueling hours of contractions is not uncommon." So Johnsen compared "forced pregnancy" — not motherhood — to involuntary servitude. After we asked the Republican Conference about the claim, staffer Ericka Andersen acknowledged it was wrong. "You are correct that the post was written inaccurately," she told us in an e-mail. She corrected the post to say Johnsen "equated forced pregnancy with 'involuntary servitude.'" Kudos to the conference for acknowledging the error. But we still find the original claim False. | null | House Republican Conference | null | null | null | 2009-03-24T16:02:57 | 2009-03-23 | ['Dawn_Johnsen', 'Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-02690 | The No. 2 owner of Fox News is Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who said, "A strong American Government is not good for us." | mostly false | /punditfact/statements/2014/jan/06/facebook-posts/facebook-group-no-2-owner-fox-news-prince-alwaleed/ | The Facebook post with the man in traditional Arab dress and a herd of camels purports to be a public service announcement. The meme identifies the man as "Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal" and quotes him as saying, "A strong American Government is not good for us." The twist: "#2 Owner of Fox News. Just thought you should know." The post by Americans Against the Republican Party was shared and liked thousands of times, generating a ton of discussion. A reader asked us to weigh in. The royal billionaire We reached out to the group, linked to liberal site Addicting Info, but did not hear back. We also had no luck reaching spokespeople for Fox News or the prince. A trail of public records and flashy news stories helped fill in some of the blanks. Not all. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud, 58, whose grandfather was the founding king of modern Saudi Arabia, is no stranger to the United States or Western media. He considers himself a "great friend" of America and the "world’s foremost value investor." He’s really rich: Like, flowers flown in from Holland on a weekly basis to his palace rich; Private zoo at his country estate rich; First person in the world to order an Airbus A380, a double-decker jet with space for luxury vehicles, horses and a pivoting prayer space that always points to Mecca, rich. The American-educated multibillionaire has made investments around the world, including many in Western entities such as CitiGroup, the George V hotel in Paris, the Plaza hotel in New York, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Apple, TimeWarner, Saks, Twitter (here’s his account) and yes, News Corp. In July 2013, Bloomberg rated him the 16th richest man in the world, with a net worth of $26.6 billion. Forbes ranked him No. 26 earlier at $20 billion and followed up with a story about his wealth that infuriated Alwaleed, who threatened to sue for libel and said the magazine undervalued his net worth. Forbes defended its work. Best we can tell, the picture is of Prince Alwaleed. Fox financials Alwaleed’s interest in News Corp., the media conglomerate of Rupert Murdoch and once-parent company to Fox News, started in 1997 with a $400 million investment, according to a description of the investment on Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding Co.’s website. That was 3 percent of News Corp.’s worth. In 2005, he increased his holding to 5.5 percent, the site states. The picture is a little different now because News Corp. split into two companies in June 2013 amid fallout from the company’s phone-hacking controversy with its British newspapers. The move spawned a new News Corp., housing publications such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post and Vogue. A second company, 21st Century Fox, oversees movies and TV programming, including the Fox News Channel. Murdoch is chairman of both companies and controls just under 80 percent of the voting stock in each (between himself and his family trust). Who’s next in line? According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, it’s Alwaleed. Alwaleed owns 7 percent of Class B voting stock with 21st Century Fox, second only to Murdoch, as of Aug. 19. The filing notes, in compliance with federal securities law, 40 percent of Alwaleed’s voting rights are suspended because he is not an American citizen. He is the third largest stockholder in the new News Corp., trailing Murdoch and an investment firm, with a 6.6 percent stake. The relationship with Murdoch is reciprocal. News Corp. has a sizable stake in Rotana, a broadcasting company that airs Arabic and English programming in the Middle East. Alwaleed owns an 80 percent stake of Rotana, according to Bloomberg. So Alwaleed has a sizable interest in Fox News, second in one aspect only to Murdoch. Experts told us that translates to being the No. 2 owner of Fox News. It’s accurate to say he’s the No. 2 owner, but he’s more of a passive major shareholder, said Jay Ritter, University of Florida finance professor, pointing out Alwaleed does not have a seat on the company’s board of directors. His investment resembles other stocks held in major companies by mutual funds and investment firms, who invest big in public companies but do not intend to take over. What about the quote? In many ways, the crux of this fact-check is whether Alwaleed said, "A strong American Government is not good for us." Who the "us" is in the meme is not clear -- it could mean Fox News. Or it could mean Saudis or Muslims. We searched for the quote in the meme in full and in part using Lexis Nexis and Google, with the assistance of a news researcher. It did not come up. A Google search of the full quote reveals few results, mainly linking to message boards or Facebook comments about the meme. The closest thing to the supposed quote we found came from a June 2013 Wall Street Journal article about U.S. shale-oil production. Alwaleed was quoted in a letter saying the rise in U.S. oil production would be a threat to Saudi Arabia. "We see that rising North American shale gas production is an inevitable threat," he wrote. It’s possible the meme wildly conflated those comments. But even if so, the context is wildly misleading. Our ruling Internet memes sometimes make us laugh. This one is frustrating. The post is correct that Prince Alwaleed is the No. 2 owner of Fox News (technically, 21st Century Fox, the giant movie and TV corporation that owns the network). It’s one of his many Western investments. But we found no evidence the frequent guest of American media actually said, "A strong American government is bad for us." We especially could not find it uttered under the context in which the meme may intend for you to understand it: that a strong American government is bad for Fox News. We rate this claim Mostly False. | null | Facebook posts | null | null | null | 2014-01-06T10:44:36 | 2013-12-29 | ['Fox_News_Channel', 'Al-Waleed_bin_Talal'] |
pomt-06582 | At nearly 19 million people, the population of Florida is larger than all the earlier primary and caucus states combined. | true | /florida/statements/2011/sep/27/rick-scott/gov-rick-scotts-primary-math-florida-has-more-peop/ | Gov. Rick Scott rallied Republican activists at Florida's Presidency 5 straw poll with an argument for the state's supremacy in choosing the party's presidential contender. "None will have a greater impact on the selection of the nominee than our own primary in the Sunshine State," Scott told a crowd of 3,500 on Sept. 24, 2011. While other primaries or caucuses might be earlier, he said, Florida's population and diversity set it apart. "At nearly 19 million people, the population of Florida is larger than all the earlier primary and caucus states combined," he said. The Republican National Committee allows just Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada to vote in February 2012 without penalty. Florida has yet to choose its primary date. But state lawmakers would like to see it as early as possible, saying it better reflects the country than the four "early" states and should play an agenda-setting role. As Scott made his plea, we wondered: Is the population of Florida larger than Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada combined? We turned to the U.S. Census Bureau: 2010 population Iowa: 3 million New Hampshire: 1.3 million South Carolina: 4.6 million Nevada: 2.7 million Total: 11.7 million Florida: 18.8 million So, Scott's right on. Florida's "nearly 19 million people" does eclipse the early states' nearly 12 million. (Now, that doesn't tell us who actually votes there — but he didn't say voters, so we won't quibble.) Meanwhile, in case you were interested, the state's diversity does indeed better track the nation than those states. Iowa and New Hampshire are more than 90 percent white, while the nation is closer to 70 percent. South Carolina and Nevada are less white than the rest of the country, around 66 percent, with a heavier black population in the South and Hispanic and Latino population in the West. Here's how Florida compares to the nation: Florida Nation White 75% 72.4% Black 16% 12.6% American Indian/Alaska native 0.4% 0.9% Asian 2.4% 4.8% Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander 0.1% 0.2% Reporting two or more races 2.5% 2.9% Hispanic/Latino 22.5% 16.3 Scott said "the population of Florida is larger than all the earlier primary and caucus states combined." U.S. Census Bureau numbers bear him out. We rate his claim True. | null | Rick Scott | null | null | null | 2011-09-27T12:20:22 | 2011-09-24 | ['None'] |
snes-02196 | The officer who saved Steve Scalise, Crystal Griner, is a lesbian (and the congressman anti-gay rights). | mostly true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/crystal-griner-steve-scalise/ | null | Politics | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Crystal Griner and Steve Scalise | 16 June 2017 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00839 | Photos of Big Gator With a Deer in its Mouth | true messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/gator-with-deer.html | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Photos of Big Gator With a Deer in its Mouth | August 2006 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00740 | Kawhi Leonard said that he refused to play for the San Antonio Spurs because of coach Gregg Popovich's anti-Trump comments. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-leonard-refuse-play-anti-trump-comments/ | null | Entertainment | null | Dan Evon | null | Did Kawhi Leonard Refuse to Play Because His Coach Made Anti-Trump Comments? | 19 April 2018 | null | ['Gregg_Popovich', 'San_Antonio_Spurs'] |
pomt-03962 | The 12 hottest years on record have come in the last 15 years. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/feb/15/barack-obama/barack-obama-says-12-hottest-years-record-have-com/ | During his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama touted the country’s progress in reducing carbon pollution emissions but added that recent advances in fuel efficiency and renewable energy have not done enough to curb climate change. "For the sake of our children and our future, we must do more to combat climate change," Obama said. "Now, it’s true that no single event makes a trend. But the fact is, the 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15. Heat waves, droughts, wildfires, floods – all are now more frequent and more intense." In 2012, the country experienced severe weather threats including drought, a devastating Hurricane Sandy and severe thunderstorms. We decided to fact-check whether the 12 hottest years on record have all come since 1998. The White House directed us to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which tracks global surface temperatures. The institute concluded that 2012 was the ninth-warmest year on record, with 2010 and 2005 being the all-time highs. For the contiguous United States, 2012 was the country’s warmest year yet. It beat the previous record by one degree Fahrenheit. (Science nerds can read more about how these temperatures are calculated here and here.) Reto Ruedy, a program manager at the Goddard Institute, told PolitiFact that the institute’s data produces the following ranking of hottest years. Items on the same line are statistically tied. 1-2: 2010, 2005 3-8: 2007, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2009 9-12: 2012, 2011, 2001, 2004 13: 2008 14: 1997 15: 1995 This analysis shows that 13 of the warmest years have occurred in the past 15 years. Alternately, one could say that 12 of the warmest years came in the last 13. We see a few other issues to note. • The NASA data set isn’t the only one available. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also analyzes global surface temperatures using its own methodology. The two measurements diverge somewhat -- NOAA considers 2012 the 10th-warmest year on record since records began in 1880, rather than the ninth. However, NOAA’s data for land and ocean temperature anomalies shows that 14 of the past 15 years were the hottest on record. • There are other ways one could measure "hottest years." Kevin Trenberth, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, agreed with the 13-of-15 calculation. But he added that the NASA and NOAA values refer to global mean surface temperature. "One could define ‘hottest’ in other ways, such as by how much Arctic sea ice there is," he said. Our ruling Obama said, "The 12 hottest years on record have all come in the last 15." Data from NASA shows 13 of the hottest years on record have come in the last 15, and by a different data set produced by NOAA, 14 of the hottest years on record have come in the last 15. Obama was actually over-cautious in his statement, so we rate his statement True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2013-02-15T11:25:23 | 2013-02-12 | ['None'] |
tron-00695 | Robin Williams’ peace plan | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/robinwilliamspeaceplan/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Robin Williams’ peace plan | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
vogo-00571 | Statement: “Top 10 most searched homes in the nation this week – San Diego County makes it on the list twice,” the San Diego Association of Realtors wrote on Twitter on Monday. | determination: false | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/fact/fact-check-san-diegos-home-buying-luster/ | Analysis:: In a message to the 360-plus followers of the San Diego Association of Realtors’ Twitter feed, the group claimed that this list of most searched homes in the nation this week had two San Diego County homes. | null | null | null | null | Fact Check: San Diego's Home-Buying Luster | June 7, 2010 | null | ['San_Diego_County,_California'] |
pomt-04054 | Says Chris Christie "vetoed" a "jobs package" of "30 bills." | half-true | /new-jersey/statements/2013/jan/27/stephen-sweeney/stephen-sweeney-says-chris-christie-vetoed-package/ | The Democrat-led state Legislature handed 30 bills aimed at spurring job growth to Gov. Chris Christie, but the Republican governor took his veto pen to the entire package, according to Senate President Stephen Sweeney. Sweeney made that claim during a Jan. 8 interview on The Dom Giordano Show on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT. After Sweeney criticized the governor, Giordano asked him what he would do differently from an economic perspective. "We gave him a jobs package, Dom, that he vetoed, and because it was our package," said Sweeney (D-Gloucester). "You know, the funny thing is, you’ve got to do something. You just can’t do nothing." Sweeney quickly added, "We gave him 30 bills that, by the way, were bipartisan." But the senator’s claim is misleading for two main reasons: While Christie conditionally vetoed certain bills, the governor later signed them after the Legislature concurred with his recommendations. Secondly, Sweeney’s claim ignores the fact that the governor signed several other bills meant to assist businesses and create jobs. First, let’s discuss the conditional vetoes. To back up the senator’s claim, Sean Kennedy, associate executive director of the Senate Democrats, provided a list of 30 bills that Christie vetoed in different ways between 2010 and 2012. For the most part, those bills received absolute vetoes or conditional vetoes. An absolute veto means the governor rejected the legislation outright, while a conditional veto means Christie agreed to sign the bill if the Legislature made certain changes. But of the nine conditional vetoes cited by Kennedy, eight of them involve bills that Christie later signed after the Legislature approved his proposed changes. So, it’s disingenuous for Sweeney not to acknowledge how versions of those bills were ultimately signed into law. Now, we’ll talk about other jobs-related bills signed by Christie. The majority of the bills cited by Kennedy were originally part of what Sweeney and other Democrats called the "Back to Work NJ" legislative package. The Legislature approved that package of roughly 30 bills in early 2011. Christie issued absolute vetoes on at least 15 bills, all of which were considered to be part of that package, including ones cited by Kennedy. Democrats later tried to override some of those vetoes, but failed to secure enough votes. But here’s what Sweeney failed to mention: several other bills labeled by Democratic legislators as part of that package were ultimately signed by Christie. The governor signed at least 16 bills described in Democratic news releases as being part of the "Back to Work NJ" package. Those bills include 12 bills signed by Christie without any changes and four bills cited by Kennedy as first being conditionally vetoed. Christie conditionally vetoed at least one other bill within that package, but the Legislature did not accept his recommendations. In addition to the "Back to Work NJ" bills, the remaining bills cited by Kennedy include legislation vetoed in 2010 and early 2012. We told Kennedy that, taken as a whole, those 30 bills don’t constitute a "package," since they were sent to Christie at different times. In response to our findings, Kennedy said the following in an e-mail, and then declined further comment: "All of the jobs bills acted on by the Senate were part of our jobs package, regardless of the timeframe in which they were done. The fact remains the governor vetoed 30 bills sent to his desk that would have created jobs and improved the economic climate in this state. In addition, in the Senate, it is the Senate President who defines what constitutes our jobs package." Our ruling In a radio interview, Sweeney claimed that Christie "vetoed" a "jobs package" of "30 bills." It’s correct to say the governor vetoed numerous bills aimed at supporting businesses and job growth, and thus stopped them from becoming law. But of the bills cited by the senator’s representative, eight were ultimately signed into law after the Legislature concurred with the governor’s recommendations. Also, Sweeney’s claim ignores several other bills labeled by Democrats as part of the "Back to Work NJ" package and signed by the governor without any changes. We rate the statement Half True. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. | null | Stephen Sweeney | null | null | null | 2013-01-27T07:30:00 | 2013-01-08 | ['Chris_Christie'] |
abbc-00325 | The claim: Susan Ryan says Australia is losing about $10 billion a year by not employing more people over 55. | in-between | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-24/susan-ryan-on-age-discrimination-fact-check/5836426 | The claim: Susan Ryan says Australia is losing about $10 billion a year by not employing more people over 55. | ['work', 'community-and-society', 'liberals', 'federal-government', 'discrimination', 'australia'] | null | null | ['work', 'community-and-society', 'liberals', 'federal-government', 'discrimination', 'australia'] | Fact check: Is workplace discrimination against older people costing $10 billion a year? | Sun 23 Nov 2014, 11:37pm | null | ['None'] |
snes-03683 | A photograph shows actor Bill Murray and a crying baby. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-murray-or-tom-hanks/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Bill Murray or Tom Hanks? | 28 October 2016 | null | ['Bill_Murray'] |
goop-01712 | Liam Payne Begging Cheryl Tweedy To Move Los Angeles? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/liam-payne-cheryl-tweedy-move-los-angeles/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Liam Payne Begging Cheryl Tweedy To Move Los Angeles? | 5:29 am, January 27, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01546 | Kim Kardashian “Begging” Kanye West To Stop “Ignoring” Her? | 2 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kim-kardashian-kanye-west-ignoring-attention/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Kim Kardashian “Begging” Kanye West To Stop “Ignoring” Her? | 12:55 pm, February 19, 2018 | null | ['Kim_Kardashian'] |
vogo-00533 | Statement: “We’re getting to calls quicker than ever before,” Police Chief Bill Lansdowne said July 21 at a City Council committee meeting. | determination: mostly true | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/fact-check-how-quickly-do-police-arrive/ | Analysis: The Police Department measures its response times based on five dispatch categories. The higher priority the call, the faster police officers aim to arrive. | null | null | null | null | Fact Check: How Quickly Do Police Arrive? | August 23, 2010 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02131 | If you work 40 hours a week at the proposed minimum wage of $10.10 an hour, "you get out of poverty." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2014/may/08/charles-schumer/does-1010-minimum-wage-get-you-out-poverty/ | During an appearance on MSNBC, Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., touted one of President Barack Obama’s key agenda items -- raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10.10 an hour. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10, Schumer said, "is important for one reason, and very important to us, which is, it's the bare minimum. You work 40 hours a week, you get out of poverty." The trouble with Schumer’s claim is that the accepted definition of poverty is actually a sliding scale that depends on the size of a family. We’ll walk you through the math. What raising the minimum wage means Earning $10.10 an hour for 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, produces a yearly gross income of $21,008. But people earning that amount also have a good chance of getting money back from the government through the Earned Income Tax Credit -- a provision of tax law that encourages work by low-income Americans. If your income is low enough -- but if you have a paying job -- the government supplements your income through refundable tax credits. Using the calculator at the IRS website, we created some sample taxpaying households. Both have two parents, only one of whom worked, and no complicated tax quirks. One had two children and the other had three. When we input the new minimum-wage level annual income of $21,008, the calculator told us that the EITC would provide an additional $5,370 to the family with two children and $6,040 to the family with three children. (EITC benefits are capped at three children.) So, combined, a hypothetical family of four would get $26,378 in gross income, and a hypothetical family of five would get $27,048. (The size of the tax credit can vary a bit depending on the taxpayer’s situation, but this at least shows the scale we’re talking about.) Is this enough to "get out of poverty"? Would this be enough to escape poverty? As we noted earlier, the size of the family makes a big difference. The poverty level is not a single threshold, but rather a series of them scaled to the size of the household. (Caution for any statistical geeks reading this: There are actually two poverty federal levels, one calculated by the Census Bureau and one by the Department of Health and Human Services. They track each other pretty closely, but there are some small differences. We calculated our data both ways, and our overall conclusions held regardless of which measure we used. For simplicity, though, we’re only going to show our calculations for the HHS poverty line.) Using the HHS numbers for 2014, the poverty line is $11,670 for a one-person household, $15,730 for a two-person household, $19,790 for a three-person household, $23,850 for a four-person household, and up from there with the addition of each new person. Since the new $10.10 wage would be fully phased in by 2016 (if it’s passed by Congress) we estimated what these poverty guidelines would be in 2016. We did this by increasing the 2014 guidelines by the same percentage as the guidelines increased between 2012 and 2014, which is the most recent two-year period. This produced the following estimated poverty guidelines for 2016: Persons in household Poverty guideline 1 $12,193 2 $16,354 3 $20,516 4 $24,678 5 $28,839 6 $33,003 7 $37,165 8 $41,329 So if one breadwinner earns a total of $26,378, then the new $10.10 wage, plus an EITC refund, is indeed enough to lift households of one, two, three, and four people beyond the poverty level. But it would be too small to lift the households of five people or more. (The additional EITC refund for a third child isn’t large enough to make a difference.) In other words, while raising the wage to $10.10 does get a lot of households out of poverty, it isn’t quite the guarantee that Schumer suggests. In addition, raising the minimum wage to $10.10 doesn’t get any one-person households out of poverty, because even the current federal minimum wage of $7.25 does that. To measure how "right" or "wrong" Schumer’s claim is, we wanted to measure what proportion of minimum-wage-worker households included one person, two persons, and so on. But experts told us there is no readily available data on this point. So we used the next best data we could find -- the Census Bureau’s distribution of impoverished households by the size of household. The three household sizes that get boosted out of poverty due to a wage hike to $10.10 -- households of two, three and four people -- collectively account for 46 percent of all households in poverty, according to this Census data. The remaining 54 percent either are out of poverty already at the current minimum wage (one-person households) or wouldn’t exceed the poverty line even after getting a raise to $10.10 an hour (households of at least five people). By that measure, Schumer is right a little less than half the time. These are estimates, but experts said these estimates are reasonable given the available data. A spokesman for Schumer said the statistic came from calculations by the Council of Economic Advisers, an office within the White House. (You can see a chart on page 6 in the slide show here.) The White House chart hangs its poverty-lifting claim on data for a four-person family, which squares with what we found. The problem with Schumer’s claim is that he glossed over some caveats and made too sweeping a case for the power of a $10.10 wage increase to knock out poverty. Our ruling Schumer said a new minimum wage of "$10.10 is important for one reason … It's the bare minimum. You work 40 hours a week, you get out of poverty." Raising the wage to $10.10 an hour does indeed put two-, three- and four-person households with one working member above the poverty line for the first time. But it doesn’t achieve a similar feat for one-person households (which already exceed the poverty line under the old, $7.25 wage) or for households of five or more people (who still wouldn’t earn enough with the $10.10 wage to escape poverty). Since the households helped by the $10.10 wage account for 46 percent of all impoverished households, Schumer is right slightly less than half the time. We rate his claim Half True. UPDATE, May 8, 3:15 p.m.: This item has been updated to clarify what calculations we made when determining the percentage of minimum wage workers's households who would be lifted out of poverty due to a rise to $10.10. | null | Charles Schumer | null | null | null | 2014-05-08T13:45:37 | 2014-05-05 | ['None'] |
snes-02237 | A German woman was fined €1,350 for sharing an anti-migrant meme on her Facebook page. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/german-woman-fined-facebook-meme-refugees/ | null | Crime | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Did a German Woman Get Fined for Sharing a Meme on Facebook? | 9 June 2017 | null | ['Germany', 'Facebook'] |
snes-00463 | Did an Iowa Congressman Retweet a White Supremacist? | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/iowa-congressman-retweet-white-supremacist/ | null | Politicians | null | Arturo Garcia | null | Did an Iowa Congressman Retweet a White Supremacist? | 13 June 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03495 | New Jersey’s once-broken pension system is now solvent. | half-true | /new-jersey/statements/2013/jun/09/13th-district-gop-slate/gop-mailer-claims-new-jerseys-pension-system-solve/ | When it comes to reducing the size and scope of government, three New Jersey Republicans claim they’re on the right path to accomplishing that goal. Assembly members Declan O’Scanlon and Amy Handlin, and state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, representing the 13th District, touted those reforms and others in a campaign flyer sent out for last week’s primary election. The flyer highlighted less spending, less government, more prosperity and standing up to the Internal Revenue Service as evidence of their efforts. The trio won their primaries Tuesday. But one claim under the heading of less government intrigued us: "New Jersey’s once-broken pension system is now solvent." The underfunded pension system that set off a political firestorm two years ago when Gov. Chris Christie and the Legislature ordered higher employee contributions and suspended Cost Of Living Adjustments for beneficiaries is solvent? In pension terminology, the part of the claim is correct. But the state pension system was once broken? That’s debatable. Let’s explain, starting with solvency. Some dictionaries define solvency as the ability to pay debts – and O’Scanlon and others say New Jersey has enough money in its pension funds to cut checks every month for retirees and have those checks clear. New Jersey’s pension reforms also will help keep the system more sustainable, O’Scanlon said. In addition to the temporary suspension of COLAs and increased employee contributions, New Jersey has increased the pension eligibility requirement for new hires and increased the salary timeframe on which retirement benefits are based. An improving stock market, as well as the state ramping up annual payments into the system until reaching full contributions starting in 2018 will help, he said. Two pensions experts we spoke with agreed with O’Scanlon’s assessment of solvency and emphasis on the state’s pension reforms. "If you have enough money to pay benefits in the short term or in the foreseeable future, to the extent that plans have enough cash on hand to pay benefits for the next 10 or 13 years, it’s solvent," said Jean-Pierre Aubry, assistant director for State and Local Research at the Boston College Center for Retirement Research. "A pension fund is solvent if it is able to honor its obligations," said Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators in Washington, D.C. "If they can pay their pension liabilities they would be considered solvent." New Jersey is able to pay its pension obligations, so it’s solvent. But was it once broken, as the mailer claims? "We would define broken as unquestionably heading on the path to insolvency," O’Scanlon said. "You couldn’t continue on the path we were going and end up with a sustainable system," he added. Either we were going to have bankruptcy or we were going to have massive tax increases to cover the obligation. With the reforms we did we now brought it in to solvency. It’s on a completely different path since the reforms." But O’Scanlon also admitted that the state has always been able to pay its pension obligations. If that’s the case, the system was never broken. Now let’s look at pension funding levels. Each of the state’s five open pension accounts is funded well below 80 percent, which Aubry said is a threshold that has come to mean "adequate." The state's total underfunded liability was $47.2 billion as of July 1, 2012, according to an annual report on the state's pension fund. The state’s Public Employees Retirement System account was at 49.1 percent funding as of July 1, 2012; teachers, 59.3 percent; police and firefighters, 51.5 percent; state police, 71.2 percent; judiciary, 46 percent. Aubry and Brainard both said 80 percent funding is an oft-cited threshold of whether pension accounts are "healthy." "Eighty percent has come to be recognized by practitioners as an adequate funding level," Aubry said. "The notion may be that at 80 percent funded you do have enough money in the pension fund to pay benefits for the foreseeable future, but the underfundedness basically helps battle the push for increase of benefits." Brainard said looking at funding ratios is just one metric of determining the health of a pension fund, "but it’s not the be-all, end-all." "The objective should be to reach full funding but there’s nothing necessarily wrong with being underfunded," Brainard added. "The issue is whether funding the plan is causing fiscal stress for the plan sponsor -- making the contributions to ensure that the benefits can be paid." Bill Quinn, a state Treasury Department spokesman, said New Jersey’s underfunded liabilities will flatten out and stop growing as the state puts more money into the pension fund each year as required by the reforms. Our ruling A primary campaign flyer from Assembly members Declan O’Scanlon and Amy Handlin, and state Sen. Joe Kyrillos last week claimed, "New Jersey’s once-broken pension system is now solvent." O’Scanlon said ‘once broken’ refers to the state’s pension system being on a path to insolvency or bankruptcy without major reforms – but admits the state has always been able to pay its pension bills. If the system was once broken, those bills wouldn’t have been paid. Furthermore, O’Scanlon and experts told us that a pension system being able to pay its obligations means the system is solvent. We rate this claim Half True. To comment on this story, go to NJ.com. | null | 13th District GOP slate | null | null | null | 2013-06-09T07:30:00 | 2013-05-31 | ['None'] |
abbc-00004 | In his headline-grabbing first speech last week, Katter's Australian Party senator Fraser Anning made a number of claims relating to Muslim immigrants. | in-the-red | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-21/fact-check-fraser-anning-muslim-crime-nsw-victoria/10133028 | null | ['minor-parties', 'crime', 'islam', 'immigration', 'nsw', 'vic'] | null | null | ['minor-parties', 'crime', 'islam', 'immigration', 'nsw', 'vic'] | Fact check: Are Muslims in NSW and Victoria three times more likely than other groups to be convicted of crimes? | Thu 6 Sep 2018, 7:10am | null | ['Islam'] |
pomt-06733 | Democrats in the Legislature in 2009 voted for various "pork projects" including "a $5 million scoreboard for the Milwaukee Bucks." | false | /wisconsin/statements/2011/aug/29/club-growth/wisconsin-club-growth-says-democrats-legislature-2/ | There was plenty of hot air expended during the unprecedented state Senate recall elections during the summer of 2011. An enormous amount of time and money was spent by political parties and third-party groups to protect or promote their candidates. And, of course, to attack their rivals’ record. The elections are over. But some of the claims lingered with us. One involved the Bradley Center, home of the Milwaukee Bucks, Marquette University Golden Eagles, Milwaukee Admirals and Milwaukee Mustangs. With the busy season of the downtown Milwaukee venue just around the corner, we thought we’d take a deeper look. The Bradley Center is a $90 million gift to the community from Jane Bradley Pettit in honor of her father, industrialist Harry Lynde Bradley. The facility is a state building but operates without state taxpayer support. For years, the Bradley Center board of directors and the Bucks have complained the facility, which opened in 1988, is obsolete for an NBA team. Most recently, the team sought $10 million in borrowing for renovations, a request that Gov. Scott Walker shot down. In recent years, a variety of smaller-scale renovations have been undertaken to generate more revenue for the team. That includes a new scoreboard that debuted in the fall of 2010 in an effort to increase advertising revenue. That scoreboard popped up in a string of television ads the conservative Wisconsin Club For Growth used to attack Democrats running in the recall elections. For instance, one spot targeted state Rep. Fred Clark (D-Baraboo), who lost to state Sen. Luther Olsen (R-Ripon) in his recall election. "Clark voted for $37 million in pork barrel projects, including a $5 million scoreboard for the Milwaukee Bucks," the narrator states in the ad. Did state taxpayers really buy the Bucks a new $5 million scoreboard? Let’s go to the replay. We asked the Club for Growth for backup, and they sent us to a Journal Sentinel story about items included in the budget, and the budget bill itself. So, we dug further. The Bradley Center board sought state assistance for the facility, arguing for the economic benefits that the facility provides to Milwaukee. The request was heard in 2009 by the state Building Commission, which handles requests for large-scale construction projects. The commission voted April 1, 2009, to recommended a $5 million grant for the Bradley Center, and the amount was included in the proposed 2009-’11 state budget. Among those voting to approve the borrowing was commission member Dean Kaufert, Republican member of the state Assembly from Neenah. Clark was not a member of the commission, nor were any of the Democrats targeted by the Club for Growth ads. The bonding for the Bradley Center was then included in the budget by then-Gov. Jim Doyle. Al Runde, an analyst at the state Legislative Fiscal Bureau, said there was no amendment made to remove the Bradley Center funding from the budget package. In other words, there was no separate vote on that item. (After this item was published, our attention was directed to a budget amendment that would have -- among other things -- cut the funding for the Bradley Center and nine other projects approved by the Building Commission. That amendment was tabled on a 51-47 vote with Clark voting in the majority.) The budget was approved by the Democratic-controlled Legislature with Clark among those voting in favor of it. We’ve seen this type of approach before, where a vote for an entire budget is used to hammer home a point on one relatively small item contained within it. This often distorts what really happens in the Legislative process. Beyond that, the Club for Growth’s claim is off base when it says the $5 million went for a scoreboard. "Nothing in the act says anything about the scoreboard, just general funding" for the Bradley Center, Runde said. The Bradley Center spent $1.29 million of the state money on the $3.2 million scoreboard, said Evan Zeppos, spokesman for the center’s board. The state funds also went to repair concrete, lighting, elevator and escalator maintenance, plumbing, flooring and a new hockey dasher-board system, he said. The Bradley Center has not yet spent the entire $5 million, and more than $580,000 remains on hand, Zeppos said. Zeppos noted the scoreboard isn’t just for the Bucks. Marquette, the Admirals and other tenants also use it. "It’s for everything we do there," Zeppos said. Let’s settle the score on this one. The Wisconsin Club for Growth said Clark and other Democrats voted for $5 million for a new scoreboard for the Bradley Center. There’s no evidence that Clark had an opportunity to vote yea or nay on that specific matter, although he did vote to table an amendment that included the Bradley Center funding and numerous other projects. And it’s a reach to make a specific charge against him for an item that was wrapped in a broader vote. What’s more -- and more importantly -- the group misstates how the state money was used. About a fourth of the money went to the scoreboard. And it’s not specific to the Bucks. So it’s wrong in multiple ways. We rate it False. | null | Club for Growth | null | null | null | 2011-08-29T06:00:00 | 2011-06-14 | ['Democratic_Party_(United_States)'] |
pose-01358 | Moving forward, Rick Kriseman will "return the Cross Bay Ferry to Tampa Bay and continue to find regional solutions to our transportation challenges." | not yet rated | https://www.politifact.com/florida/promises/krise-o-meter/promise/1450/return-cross-bay-ferry-tampa-bay/ | null | krise-o-meter | Rick Kriseman | null | null | Return the Cross Bay Ferry to Tampa Bay | 2018-01-02T12:22:17 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04445 | On ending the war in Iraq, "Gov. Romney said that was a tragic mistake, we should have left 30,000 troops there." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/oct/11/joe-biden/biden-romney-called-ending-iraq-war-tragic/ | The vice presidential debate started off with questions about the Obama administration’s handling of the lethal attacks on the Libyan consulate in September 2012. Vice President Joe Biden sought to portray the commander-in-chief as ever-mindful of threats to the country as he answered questions from moderator Martha Raddatz. "When you're looking at a president, Martha, it seems to me that you should take a look at his most important responsibility. That's caring for the national security of the country. And the best way to do that is take a look at how he's handled the issues of the day. "On Iraq, the president said he would end the war. Gov. Romney said that was a tragic mistake, we should have left 30,000 -- he ended it. Gov. Romney said that was a tragic mistake, we should have left 30,000 troops there." Did Romney really say ending the Iraq war was "tragic" and that the U.S. should have left behind 30,000 troops? First, some background. Ending the war in Iraq was a big campaign promise for Obama. In October 2011 he announced all troops would be pulled from Iraq by the end of the year. By the end of 2011, his administration could not reach an agreement with the Iraqi government on the size of a residual force. Negotiations on that fell apart, according to a Reuters report, "over a Pentagon demand that Iraq provide U.S. troops with immunity against prosecution in Iraq for any crimes committed there. Iraq's government was unwilling to meet that demand, and its political elite were divided over a post-2011 U.S. military presence." Some troops remained in the country. In the days leading up to the withdrawal date, about 200 U.S. troops remained and operated within the American Embassy "to coordinate military relations between Washington and Baghdad, particularly arms sales," the New York Times reported. So what was Romney’s take? He addressed Obama’s actions during a roundtable discussion with veterans at a South Carolina barbecue restaurant on Veterans Day in 2011. A colonel asked Romney how he would handle soldiers returning to the country in need of jobs, according to a transcript of the event. Romney called Obama’s troop removal "an enormous mistake," "a failing," "precipitous" and -- here’s the buzz word -- "tragic." His complete response: "Yeah. A couple of things. One, you probably know that it is my view that the withdrawal of all of our troops from Iraq by the end of this year is an enormous mistake and a failing by the Obama administration. Secretary Panetta and others had indicated they were working to put in place a Status of Forces Agreement to maintain our presence there, so that we could most effectively transition to the Iraqi military and Iraqi security forces providing security for their country. "The precipitous withdrawal is unfortunate. It's more than unfortunate. I think it's tragic. It puts at risk many of the victories that were hard-won by the men and women who have served there. I hope the risk is not realized. I hope instead that the Iraqis are able to pick up the baton, and despite the fact that we will have walked away on a too-rapid basis." This wasn’t the first time Romney’s campaign reacted to Obama’s withdrawal plan. He expressed his disapproval in a biting statement a few weeks earlier, keying in on the lack of an "orderly transition." On the night of the vice presidential debate, the Romney campaign website still faults the Obama administration for not reaching a Status of Force Agreement, or SOFA, and emphasizes continued unrest there. "Despite the clear need for a SOFA and desire on both sides to conclude an agreement, President Obama fumbled the negotiation. It was a display of stunning diplomatic incompetence. The day after the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. troops at the end of last year, Iraq’s Prime Minister took worrying actions to consolidate power. He leveled terrorism charges against the Sunni Vice President, causing the Vice President to flee the capital and sparking a political crisis that continues to this day. Iraq still faces worrying insurgent attacks." In a December 2011 interview with Reuters, Romney criticized Obama's "failure to secure an agreement and maintain 10,000 to 30,000 troops in Iraq." Our ruling While talking about how Obama kept his promise to end the Iraq war, Biden said, "Romney said that was a tragic mistake, we should have left 30,000 troops there." It’s true that Romney characterized Obama’s 2011 deadline with the word "tragic." Romney did not say ending the war was tragic; he was talking about the speed at which Obama removed all troops. Romney’s preference was to leave a large residual force, and he has used an estimate of up to 30,000 in the past, as Biden said during the debate. We rate Biden’s claim Half True. | null | Joe Biden | null | null | null | 2012-10-11T23:56:06 | 2012-10-11 | ['Iraq'] |
pomt-10937 | In 99 percent of counties in America, someone making the minimum wage working full time can’t afford a 1-bedroom apartment. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/25/kamala-harris/housing-unaffordable-full-time-minimum-wage-worker/ | Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., has recently made it a point to support affordable housing, both in her social media posts and in the legislation she brings before Congress. On July 19, Harris introduced the Rent Relief Act to Congress, which would provide assistance in the form of a refundable tax credit to those who make under $100,000 a year and spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing. To rally support for the bill, she tweeted, "In 99 percent of counties in America, someone making the minimum wage working full time can’t afford a 1-bedroom apartment." She later posted a video that expressed a similar sentiment and repeated the statistic. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com We decided to look into Harris’s statement. Aside from a few minor caveats, the statement is largely accurate. Out of reach? We began by reaching out to Harris’s press secretary, who directed us to a 2017 study published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition titled "Out of Reach." The study is updated yearly, and the 2018 edition is out. Harris’s press secretary pointed out a line from the latest study that reads, "In only 22 counties out of more than 3,000 counties nationwide can a full-time minimum wage worker afford a one-bedroom rental home at fair market rent." That statistic and the coalition’s report overall have been cited by various news outlets. Do the math, and you’ll see that 22 divided by 3,000 comes out to a figure slightly smaller than 1 percent. That small percentage refers to the counties where a one-bedroom home is affordable for minimum-wage workers. But there are two concepts in the sentence from the study that require further clarification: affordability and "fair market rent." The national coalition defines "affordability" as "consistent with the federal standard that no more than 30 percent of a household’s gross income should be spent on rent and utilities." That’s the same guideline used by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and we found it’s a standard threshold within the field. The definition of "fair market rent" is slightly different. It also has its origins from HUD. The National Low Income Housing Coalition defines it as "typically the 40th percentile of gross rents for standard rental units." So that means that within any given metropolitan area, 40 percent of all rental properties are priced equal to or below the fair market rent threshold. That means not all units within the 99 percent of counties referred to in Harris’s tweet are unaffordable for full-time minimum-wage workers, but it does mean that a majority — 60 percent — are. Of the remaining 40 percent of one-bedroom housing, some units may be affordable for those workers, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be quality apartments — they might be in a high-crime area or low-performing school district, for example. (We previously cleared up the definition of "fair market rent" in a fact-check of a Facebook graphic.) As Vincent Reina, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design, put it, "It does not mean there are 0 affordable units (in the 99% of counties that Harris is referring to), it means that there are none affordable at or above the 40th percentile of the rent distribution. There are likely some units that are affordable, just not even close to enough." The experts we reached out to pointed out that the conclusions reached by the National Low Income Housing Coalition are supported by other research, including a recent study published by the Joint Center of Housing Studies of Harvard University. "Not all the studies would support the exact claim that 99 percent of counties in the U.S. are unaffordable, but there’s a lot of evidence that the poorest families (say the bottom 20-25 percent) are financially stretched to afford unsubsidized housing," said Jenny Schuetz, a David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. Our ruling Harris recently tweeted, "In 99 percent of counties in America, someone making the minimum wage working full time can’t afford a 1-bedroom apartment." She was referring to a recent study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which shows that "in only 22 counties out of more than 3,000 counties nationwide can a full-time minimum wage worker afford a one-bedroom rental home at fair market rent." Harris didn’t refer to the concept of "fair market rent," which is defined as the "40th percentile of gross rents for standard rental units." The underlying study she referenced doesn’t say that a minimum wage worker can’t afford any housing in almost all of the United States, but that a minimum wage worker can’t afford the average-priced housing unit. With that said, Harris’s claim is still a largely accurate characterization of the magnitude of the rent affordability problems that many people face. We rate this claim Mostly True. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | Kamala Harris | null | null | null | 2018-07-25T17:56:34 | 2018-07-19 | ['United_States'] |
tron-00795 | Fashion tips from actress Audrey Hepburn | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/hepburn-fashion/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Fashion tips from actress Audrey Hepburn | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Audrey_Hepburn'] |
goop-01326 | Kourtney Kardashian, Travis Barker “New Couple” After Younes Bendjima “Breakup | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kourtney-kardashian-travis-barker-couple-dating-younes-bendjima-breakup-untrue/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Kourtney Kardashian, Travis Barker NOT “New Couple” After Younes Bendjima “Breakup” | 4:46 pm, March 23, 2018 | null | ['Kourtney_Kardashian', 'Travis_Barker'] |
pomt-09975 | Cass Sunstein, President Obama's nominee for regulatory czar, "wants to give legal standing to animals so they can sue you for eating meat." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/may/05/wayne-lapierre/sunstein-has-said-people-ought-be-able-sue-behalf-/ | At the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Feb. 27, 2009, the National Rifle Association's fiery Wayne LaPierre teed off on one of President Barack Obama's lesser-known appointees. The target: Cass Sunstein, a Harvard Law School professor who was tapped to head up the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, a position better known as the administration's regulatory czar. LaPierre opened with a zinger: "Sunstein is a radical animal rights extremist who makes PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) look like cheerleaders with pooper-scoopers." How extreme? LaPierre said Sunstein is "a man who wants to give legal standing to animals so they can sue you for eating meat." LaPierre isn't alone in making similar claims. Go to the self-explanatory Web site StopSunstein.com, sponsored by the American Conservative Union, and you'll find this quote from one of Sunstein's books: "Animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives …" The quote comes from Sunstein's 2004 book Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions . We call your attention to Chapter 11, titled "Can Animals Sue?" Sunstein argues that there are already plenty of animal cruelty laws on the books that just aren't enforced. "My simplest suggestion is that private citizens should be given the right to bring suits to prevent animals from being treated in a way that violates current law. I offer a recommendation that is theoretically modest but that should do a lot of practical good: laws designed to protect animals against cruelty and abuse should be amended and interpreted to give a private cause of action against those who violate them, so as to allow private people to supplement the efforts of public prosecutors. Somewhat more broadly, I will suggest that animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law." In a speech at Harvard in 2007, Sunstein argued there is "a real gap" in the laws governing animal cruelty laws, essentially that prosecutors have a monopoly in making sure those laws are followed. "The law should be changed to give affected persons, interested persons, those who have some sort of connection with the animal, a right to sue either for damages or for an injunction to get that violation of what is standard already in law to stop." That Sunstein is an animal rights activist is undisputed. For a CNN interview in the late 1990s, he once insisted on being joined on-air by his dog, a Rhodesian Ridgeback named Perry. And LaPierre is correct when he says that Sunstein has talked about allowing animals to sue — albeit through a human representative. But we think LaPierre has twisted Sunstein's words. Sunstein wasn't saying you — the meat eater — could be sued by Porky Pig for eating bacon. But he was saying that if the pig that winds up on your breakfast plate was raised or killed in a way that violates existing animal cruelty laws, then someone ought to be able to sue the processor on the pig's behalf. That's all, folks. We rate LaPierre's statement Half True. | null | Wayne LaPierre | null | null | null | 2009-05-05T15:28:04 | 2009-02-27 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-10205 | Sarah Palin was repeating "Abraham Lincoln's words" in discussing the war in Iraq. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/sep/12/sarah-palin/not-far-from-lincolns-sentiment/ | In her first major news interview since being named the vice presidential nominee of the Republican Party, Sarah Palin answered questions about comments she had made about "God's plan" and Iraq. The questioner was ABC News' Charles Gibson. Gibson asked her, "You said recently in your old church, 'Our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.' Are we fighting a Holy War?" Palin: "That's a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's words, when he said, first he suggested, never presume to know what God's will is, and I would never presume to know God's will or to speak God's words, but what Abraham Lincoln had said, and that's a repeat in my comments, was, let us not pray that God is on our side, in a war, or any other time. But let us pray that we are on God's side. That's what that comment was all about, Charlie." Gibson then followed up: "But you went on and said, 'There is a plan, and it is God's plan.'" Here's the rest of their exchange: Palin: "I believe that there is a plan for this world, and that plan for this world is for good. I believe that there is great hope and great potential for every country, to be able to live and be protected within inalienable rights that I believe are God-given, Charlie. And I believe those are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That in my worldview is the grand plan." Gibson: "Then, are you sending your son on a task from God?" Palin: "I don't know if the task is from God, Charlie. What I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision. What he decided to do, in serving for the right reasons in serving something greater than self, and not choosing a real easy path, where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer." We decided to compare Palin's words and Lincoln's words side-by-side to see if Palin's words were a repeat of Abraham Lincoln's. Palin made the original comments in June 2007 to the Wasilla Assembly of God. Her visit there had been videotaped and posted to the church's Web site. The video has since been removed, but copies are available on the Internet. In the video, Palin is speaking informally to a group of students, talking about her family and discussing current events. She offers quotes from the Bible at times, and also makes enthusiastic, casual comments, at one point joking that the students are "a cool-looking bunch of Christians." "My oldest, my son Track, is a soldier in the United States Army now. ... Pray for our military. He's going to be deployed in September to Iraq. Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending them out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan." We think it's important to note that Palin is asking the audience to "pray for" military men and women, and that national leaders are sending troops out "on a task that is from God." She even repeats "that's what we have to make sure that we're praying for." Gibson doesn't mention the words "pray for" when he questions her. Praying for something implies that you don't yet have it or that it there is some uncertainty, so it seems logical that Palin is expressing a hope that something is true, not a certainty. Meanwhile, we tracked down Abraham Lincoln's words on God's will. The original source appears to be a book titled Six Months in the White House with Abraham Lincoln , written by Francis B. Carpenter and published in 1867, not long after Lincoln's death. The following is from Page 282 of Carpenter's account: "No nobler reply ever fell from the lips of a ruler, than that uttered by President Lincoln in response to the clergyman who ventured to say, in his presence, that he hoped 'the Lord was on our side.' "'I am not at all concerned about that,' replied Mr. Lincoln, 'for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord's side.'" In fairness, Lincoln's words do seem to express a greater degree of anxiety about being on God's side than Palin's. Lincoln is also rebuking a clergyman's inflated sense of moral piety, while Palin appears to be expressing solidarity with fellow believers. But Gibson's truncation of her comments — omitting the crucial words "pray for" — change the meaning of her comments from a wish to a certainty. Palin's and Lincoln's words are similar in that they both express a hope that a plan meets with God's favor. Granted, some people find any mention of God's will and warfare to be disturbing. But we find similarities between the two sets of comments. We find Palin's statement Mostly True. | null | Sarah Palin | null | null | null | 2008-09-12T00:00:00 | 2008-09-11 | ['Sarah_Palin', 'Iraq', 'Abraham_Lincoln'] |
tron-01011 | Photo Shows the Sutherland Springs Church Shooter at Bernie Sanders Rally | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/sutherland-springs-church-shooter-bernie-sanders-rally/ | null | crime-police | null | null | ['bernie sanders', 'facebook', 'mass shooting'] | Photo Shows Sutherland Springs Church Shooter at Bernie Sanders Rally | Nov 15, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14354 | During the last five years, Iran has perpetrated terror attacks in 25 different countries on five continents. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/22/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-iran-responsible-terrorist-attac/ | During a prepared speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, Donald Trump took a hard line on Iran. "Iran has seeded terror groups all over the world," Trump said. "During the last five years, Iran has perpetuated terror attacks in 25 different countries on five continents. They’ve got terror cells everywhere, including in the Western Hemisphere, very close to home. Iran is the biggest sponsor of terrorism around the world. And we will work to dismantle that reach." We wondered whether Trump was correct that "during the last five years, Iran has perpetrated terror attacks in 25 different countries on five continents," so we took a closer look. The Trump campaign did not respond to an inquiry for this article, but we found a source for his comment -- the Israeli government, which has taken a hard-line stance against Iran’s theocratic government. The Israeli Embassy in Washington released an infographic on March 31, 2015, titled, "The Long Arm of Iran." It shows a map of the world superimposed with 27 headlines detailing overseas activity by Iran or its proxy groups groups. The countries affected span the globe, from North and South America to Europe to Africa and Asia. A November 2015 tweet from the embassy featuring the infographic included the explanatory text, "A look at Iran's global terror activity (last 4yrs): 5 continents, 25+ countries." In addition, during a speech to AIPAC a year earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed the audience a similar map with overlapping, though not identical, locations of alleged Iranian activity. So how well does this evidence support Trump’s statement? Imperfectly. Where Trump has a point Trump’s most salient point is that Iran is widely agreed to have significant overseas reach. Iran remains one of just three nations that the United States has labeled as a state sponsor of terrorism. The State Department notes that Iran has supported ongoing "terrorist-related activity" by groups in Gaza, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East. Probably the most prominent of these proxies is Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militant group. The rise of ISIS (which is part of the Sunni branch of Islam) in Iraq and Syria has led Iran (which is part of the Shia branch) to increase its assistance to Shia militias as a counterweight to ISIS. Meanwhile, Iran is looking beyond its immediate neighborhood, according to the State Department. "While its main effort focused on supporting goals in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Iran and its proxies also continued subtle efforts at growing influence elsewhere including in Africa, Asia, and, to a lesser extent, Latin America," the State Department wrote. Ted Bromund, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told PolitiFact that no one outside of Tehran really knows the scale of Iran’s foreign involvement. But he added that Trump’s subsequent statement -- that "Iran is the biggest sponsor of terrorism around the world" -- is almost certainly correct, at least among nations. The only potential challenger for that title, he said, would be ISIS, which isn’t a state. "The point of the Israeli infographic is that Iran is actively involved with terrorist groups with a very wide geographical range, and that it is a prolific smuggler of weapons, often in defiance of U.N. Security Council embargoes," Bromund said. Where Trump’s statement is misleading The problem with Trump’s statement -- that Iran "has perpetrated terror attacks in 25 different countries" -- is that he conflates actual "terror attacks" with terrorist-related activity or, in many cases, suspicions of terrorist-related activity. Indeed, the wording of the Israeli embassy’s tweet is more restrained than Trump’s comment was. It referred to Iran’s "global terror activity," not terrorist "attacks." Netanyahu, in his 2015 AIPAC speech, also stayed away from the word "attacks" when referring to the map he offered as a visual aid. "Iran is the foremost state sponsor of terrorism in the world," he said. "Look at that graph. Look at that map. And you see on the wall, it shows Iran training, arming, dispatching terrorists on five continents." Indeed, when we looked into each of the 27 headlines on the "Long Arm of Iran" graphic, we found that actual attacks accounted for only a minority of the headlines. In five cases, the headlines on the infographic referred to actual attacks, some of them deadly, in which Iranian involvement was suspected. These include incidents in Bahrain, Bulgaria, India, Georgia and Thailand. Six other headlines referred to attacks that were thwarted before they could be carried out. Using an expansive definition that includes both actual attacks and thwarted attacks, less than half of the headlines on the infographic -- 11 -- support Trump’s statement. By contrast, 12 headlines refer to allegations of ties to Iran or Hezbollah in various countries, but ones well short of an actual attack, or even one thwarted at the last minute. Such headlines in this category include, "Hezbollah tied to organized crime in Canada, says spy agency," "Senegal cuts ties with Iran over weapons shipment," "Gambia severs all ties with Iran after arms seizure," and "British special forces seize Iranian rockets in Afghanistan." Four other headlines address Iranian military involvement or influence in another country’s government. These and other allegations in the infographic will surely be troubling to many, but they are not the same thing as having "perpetrated terror attacks in 25 different countries on five continents." So how many have there been? Netanyahu reportedly told senior ministers that over the period of about a year between 2011 and 2012, Israel had thwarted 20 terrorist attacks overseas in such countries as Azerbaijan, Kenya, Turkey, Thailand, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Turkey. But he provided too few details for us to be able to verify them. The only hard numbers we could find for actual attacks are the ones included in the Global Terrorism Database operated by the University of Maryland. Under Hezbollah -- the operational group most frequently referenced in the headlines associated with the infographic -- we found 27 terrorist attacks since 2009. Of these, all but one occurred in the Middle East -- eight in Lebanon, seven in Bahrain, six in Israel, and five in Syria. The one attack outside the region was a bombing of an Israeli tour bus in Bulgaria. That’s a much narrower spread of attacks than what Trump suggests. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a terrorism expert at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, called Trump’s math "misleading." "There’s a difference between an attack and ‘activity,’ " he said. Our ruling Trump said that "during the last five years, Iran has perpetrated terror attacks in 25 different countries on five continents." He has a point that Iran is widely believed to be supporting, or trying to support, armed or terrorist groups in many countries around the world, though the exact number is not known with any specificity outside Tehran. However, that’s not the same thing as actually perpetrating terrorist attacks, as Trump indicated, even though his apparent source material only referred to activity, not attacks. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate it Half True. | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-03-22T18:14:04 | 2016-03-21 | ['Iran'] |
vogo-00172 | Did the Koch Brothers Donate to DeMaio? Fact Check TV | none | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/mayor-2012/did-the-koch-brothers-donate-to-demaio-fact-check-tv/ | null | null | null | null | null | Did the Koch Brothers Donate to DeMaio? Fact Check TV | October 29, 2012 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00641 | Roseanne In Talks For New TV Sitcom To Compete With “The Conners” Spinoff? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/roseanne-new-tv-sitcom-show-compete-the-conners-spinoff-not-true/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Roseanne In Talks For New TV Sitcom To Compete With “The Conners” Spinoff? | 11:04 am, July 14, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-09899 | Rep. Adam Putnam was silent when Rush Limbaugh called Sonia Sotomayor a racist. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/14/presente/rush-limbaugh-sonia-sotomayor-adam-putnam/ | UPDATE: We've updated this item after hearing back from Presente.org, but we haven't changed our ruling. A group called Presente.org is using some political sleight-of-hand to suggest that a Republican House member from Florida endorses Rush Limbaugh's comment that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is a racist. The sleight-of-hand is the tricky wording in a radio ad from the left-leaning Latino advocacy group's "Action" arm. Instead of directly saying that Putnam, who is running for Florida agriculture commissioner, endorses Limbaugh, the ad says that he "refused" to reply to the group's inquiry. A similar ad was used against Rep. John Mica, a Republican from the Orlando area. Here's a translation of the Spanish-language ad: (Spanish) "Sonia Sotomayor is set to be the first Latina, and the first Puerto Rican, to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. It is a proud moment for our community. Yet Republican leaders insist on attacking her. (English) "'She doesn't have any intellectual depth. She's got a — she's an angry woman, she's a bigot. She's a racist.' (Spanish) "That's Republican leader Rush Limbaugh calling Judge Sotomayor a racist and a bigot. It's insulting to all Latinos and Americans. We asked Republican Congressman Adam Putnam if he would denounce Limbaugh's words. He refused to reply. Let's put a stop to the hate. Call Congressman Putnam today at 863-534-3530 and tell him to condemn this language." The ad is unusual because House members don't have any say in the confirmation of Supreme Court nominees. That's up to the Senate. With its insinuation, the ad is incorrect. Most notably, Putnam has not "refused" to comment on this. He told the Orlando Sentinel very specifically that he thought Sotomayor was not a racist in response to Limbaugh's comments. His comments were published in a Sentinel column on May 31, 2009, by Scott Maxwell, about how Republicans were responding to the Sotomayor nomination and Limbaugh's controversial remarks. "I have not seen anything that would disqualify her," Putnam said. "And I certainly would not call her a racist based on anything we have seen so far." We also spoke with Putnam's communications director, Keith Rupp. Rupp said if Presente.org called Putnam's office looking for comment on Limbaugh, he couldn't find a record of it. He looked after they started getting calls off the radio ad. "The bottom line is we're not aware of them having contacted us," Rupp said. "When people call, we make a record of it, usually in writing." Presente.org, however, said they did call, and spokesperson Jennifer Fernandez Ancona provided us with a copy of their phone record that shows a 4-minute call to Putnam's Bartow office and a 1-minute call to his D.C. office on June 19. The group knew about Putnam's previous comments, she said, but felt it was important that Putnam and Mica denounce Limbaugh's remarks as the Sotomayor hearings began. She said it's not sufficient that Putnam said he didn't think Sotomayor was a racist, because of how influential Limbaugh is and how much attention his comments receive. "We were asking (Putnam) to specifically denounce Rush's comments," she said. "It's a different question." Rupp said that Putnam's statements to the Sentinel were his definitive comments on the matter. The phrasing of the ad is very artful, but the thrust of the message is that Putnam was silent when asked about Limbaugh's remarks. That's not the case. Presente.org said there's a difference between saying you disagree with someone's comments and specifically denouncing the person's comments. We don't think that's a meaningful distinction in the context of a 60-second radio ad. We rule Presente.org's statement False. | null | Presente.org | null | null | null | 2009-07-14T17:55:17 | 2009-07-13 | ['Adam_Putnam', 'Rush_Limbaugh'] |
pomt-08018 | The City of Milwaukee "uses the building inspection area as a revenue base." | false | /wisconsin/statements/2011/jan/10/lee-holloway/acting-milwaukee-county-executive-lee-holloway-acc/ | When Milwaukee County Board Chairman Lee Holloway took office as acting county executive Dec. 28, 2010, he laid out his vision for the county before a crowd of more than 250 people at a Courthouse swearing-in ceremony. Amid the vision, he made passing reference to his notoriety as a city landlord. Earlier in December, Holloway was ordered into court -- again -- for not correcting building code violations on five apartment buildings he owns with his wife, Lynda, on W. Atkinson Ave. Holloway had been cited for 116 violations ranging from rodent and roach infestations to loose window trim and moldy walls, according to city officials and inspection records. Some of the violations have been fixed. According to a Dec. 2, 2010 Journal Sentinel article only 63 of the 116 violations were part of the case sent to court. And inspection notes indicated some of the remaining 63 already had been addressed. The violations date back to 2009, and have been subject to monthly re-inspections -- many at a cost of $350 per visit. His problems with code violations stretch back years, according to city records and news reports. In his swearing-in speech, Holloway didn’t say much about his violations, but took this unscripted swipe at City Hall: "We know that the city uses the building inspection area as a revenue base." Is Holloway right on that point? Is the city raking in building inspection fees to help balance the budget? We called Holloway spokesman Harold Mester to ask what the acting executive -- and candidate for the full-time job in the April election -- was basing his statement on. Mester responded that Holloway might talk -- if we first made some calls. He said we should contact Crown Hardware, Door City and Home Depot and find out what their customers said about building inspection fees. We tried, but the responses led to unlisted phone numbers and shrugs as to why Holloway wanted a reporter to contact the business. Mester then told us Holloway was not willing to discuss his comments further. He did tell us Holloway received advice and data about the city’s building inspection department from another landlord -- and occasional political foe -- Orville Seymer, a founder of the Citizens for Responsible Government. After hearing about Holloway’s latest court date last month, Seymer said he called Holloway and "invited myself" to meet Holloway at the apartments for a visit from city inspectors. "I don’t think that Lee Holloway is the problem here," said Seymer. "I think it’s the Department of Neighborhood Services. They’re out to get Holloway and they’re out to get landlords in general." Seymer said he shared with Holloway budget data that he has collected that he argues shows building inspectors are padding city coffers. He prepared a spreadsheet showing the growth in recent years in "special charges" on the city tax rolls -- money added to property tax bills that is owed to the city for services provided. Those numbers are growing, according to the city. Those "special charges" were $6.9 million in 2010, compared with $4 million in 2006. But those charges take in much more than building inspection fees. They also include boarded-up buildings, abandoned cars, litter and snow and ice removal. What’s more, city officials say the increases have come as a tidal wave of foreclosed properties have hit the city -- and as the city has taken numerous steps to keep those buildings from falling into disrepair. Last year there were 6,427 foreclosures in Milwaukee County, and the vast majority of those were in the city of Milwaukee. For instance: Records show that last year the city had nearly four times as many properties that needed boarding up and spent about twice as much on litter removal compared with five years ago. So, what about the fees Holloway is being charged to cover inspections of his properties? In 2010, the city collected about $4 million in fees for re-inspections of 5,939 properties. That compares with $2.53 million for 6,091 properties in 2006. The amount taken in was up, officials said, because the city increased re-inspection fees for property owners who received repeated visits. The fees increase from $50 to $350 for the fourth visit -- viewed as an added incentive for landlords to make repairs in a timely fashion. City Budget Director Mark Nicolini said the fees help fund the operation of the city’s Department of Neighborhood Services. That department had a $14 million budget for 2010, with that amount being paid by various fees generated by department services. Under state law, the city cannot use fees to cover anything more than the service provided. "These aren’t additional revenues," said Nicolini. "We can’t use them to go fund garbage collection." Patrick Curley, chief of staff to Mayor Tom Barrett, was even stronger on this point. "Mr. Holloway does not have the facts on the city budget," Curley said. "Mr. Holloway is dead wrong." OK, we’ve finished our inspection of Holloway’s building inspection statement. No charge. Holloway, who is due in court Jan. 27, 2011, for the building inspection fees, said the city is using such charges to balance its budget. The city has had more re-inspections and other unpaid charges in recent years. But there’s no evidence that the city uses them as a revenue source or to otherwise pad the budget -- indeed, it’s against state law to use fees for anything beyond paying for the service provided. We’ll add this to that summation: False. | null | Lee Holloway | null | null | null | 2011-01-10T09:00:00 | 2010-12-28 | ['None'] |
tron-03281 | Prayer Requests for Dakota Miller, Boy Who Accidentally Shot Himself | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/prayer-request-for-dakota-miller/ | null | prayers | null | null | ['facebook', 'prayer request'] | Prayer Request for Dakota Miller, Boy Who Accidentally Shot Himself | May 19, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-06031 | Says up to a quarter of African Americans don’t have government photo ID. | mostly true | /texas/statements/2012/jan/13/steny-hoyer/democratic-leaders-say-quarter-african-americans-d/ | Two Democratic congressmen last month challenged the fairness of state voter identification laws like one in Texas, suggesting the mandates would target certain Americans. In an opinion piece published in the Austin American-Statesman on Dec. 13, 2011, U.S. Reps. Steny Hoyer of Maryland and John Lewis of Georgia said: "New measures introduced in several states would mandate government-issued, current photo identification for all wishing to vote. However, as many as one in four African Americans do not carry the necessary forms of identification to vote under these conditions and would be hit hard by these new laws." A reader asked us to check if indeed as many as 25 percent of African Americans do not carry a current government-issued photo ID, such as a driver’s license, passport or military ID. That statistic comes from a 2006 survey by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law. Hoyer spokesman Dan Reilly told us by email that the congressmen got their number from a Nov. 14, 2011 speech by the center’s Lawrence Norden. Norden cited the center’s 2006 survey of Americans’ ownership and access to citizenship documents and identification. The Brennan Center combines research and legal advocacy on public policy issues such as campaign finance reform and racial balance in criminal law, and it has said that state efforts to require photo IDs from voters at the polls could discourage millions from voting, especially minority and low-income Americans. In an October 2011 report, the center said that in five states where photo ID laws were scheduled to take effect in 2012, some 3.2 million Americans, accounting for about 10 percent of the states’ voting-age residents, lacked government-issued photo IDs. Two of those states -- Texas and South Carolina -- must have their laws cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice because of past failures to protect minority voting rights. The department rejected South Carolina’s law last month (saying that minority registered voters were more likely than whites to lack state IDs), and has asked Texas to supply more data about the impact of its law on minority voters. Specifically, federal officials asked Texas in September 2011 for the racial breakdown and counties of residence of registered voters who don’t have a state-issued license or ID -- about 600,000 people, Texas’ secretary of state estimated. Secretary of state spokesman Rich Parsons told us the office is preparing those numbers. Texas’ law, signed last year by Gov. Rick Perry, requires voters to show a valid government-issued photo ID, such as a Texas driver's license, Department of Public Safety identification card, state concealed handgun license, U.S. military ID or U.S. passport. Back to the nationwide data: The Brennan Center’s 2006 survey reached by telephone 987 U.S. citizens of voting age, asking them questions including, "Do you have a current, unexpired government-issued ID with your picture on it, like a driver’s license or a military ID?" As voter ID debates heated up in 2011, the conservative Heritage Foundation issued a critique of the survey, noting it was still frequently cited and questioning its decision not to focus on registered or actual voters. The center’s response said in part, "While it is true that citizens in those groups are more likely to vote in any given election, they are not the only citizens who have the right to vote." Overall, according to the survey, 11 percent of voting-age Americans did not have current government-issued photo ID. Among African Americans, 25 percent did not have such ID, compared to 8 percent of whites. Not enough Hispanics were surveyed to reach reliable conclusions about that subgroup, the center said. A December 2011 report by the NAACP on barriers to voting rights mentioned the 25-percent figure from the 2006 survey, going on to say that reasons for such a disparity can include the cost of getting a photo ID (because minorities are over-represented in the poor population) and the lack of documents they need to apply for the photo ID, such as birth certificates (not issued to many African Americans born before the Civil Rights Act passed), which can also cost money to obtain. The center has not surveyed voting-age Americans since 2006 about whether they have photo IDs, Keesha Gaskins, senior counsel for its Democracy Program, told us. Separately, we found no other national surveys by race of which U.S. citizens eligible to vote have government-issued photo IDs. Two national surveys taken in 2008, however, checked on registered voters. Before the 2008 presidential election, researchers from the University of Washington and other schools carried out a national telephone survey of 4,563 registered voters. In the survey, 10 percent of blacks, 11 percent of Hispanics and 5 percent of whites said they did not have a valid driver's license or an ID issued by their home state. Another survey, reaching 10,000 registered voters via phone and Internet after the 2008 election, included questions about driver’s license ownership by race. In an Aug. 30, 2011, blog post, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Charles Stewart III said responses showed that 19 percent of black respondents and 3 percent of whites did not have a driver’s license. In his blog post, Stewart did not break out results for Hispanic respondents. Of respondents who reported having a driver’s license, 16 percent of blacks and 9 percent of whites said the address on it was not current. In all, 32 percent of black respondents did not have a driver’s license bearing their current address, Stewart said, compared to 13 percent of whites. Among half a dozen other studies, ranging in scope from three counties to three states, several struck us as having limited applicability to the statement by Hoyer and Lewis: The NAACP report said a 2008 Pew Center study in Georgia showed 30 percent of African Americans said they voted absentee because they lacked a photo ID. However, this statistic reflects the responses of only 30 voters in three counties, and the Pew report warns against using it to draw conclusions. A 2005 Department of Justice summary of state data said that among registered voters who applied for Georgia driver’s licenses or state ID cards, African Americans had state ID at a "slightly higher" percentage than whites. A 2011 Associated Press analysis of South Carolina data showed the state’s photo ID law would fall harder on black populations in some areas and on whites in other areas. A 2005 University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee study used U.S. census and state data to conclude that in Wisconsin, 45 percent of black men and 51 percent of black women had a valid driver’s license, compared with 54 percent of Hispanic men and 41 percent of Hispanic women. Two other surveys asked questions closest to matching the statement by Hoyer and Lewis. A 2007 survey of Indiana’s voting-age citizens found 26.6 percent of blacks and 13.6 percent of whites did not have a "current" government-issued or state university-issued photo ID. Lead researcher Matt Barreto of the University of Washington told us Hispanics composed too small a share of the population for their survey results to be analyzed separately. A 2008 survey of registered voters in Indiana, Mississippi and Maryland found 3.8 percent of blacks and 0.9 percent of whites did not have government-issued photo IDs. Results for Hispanic voters were not broken out. Our ruling Hoyer and Lewis stated that "as many as one in four African Americans do not carry the necessary forms of identification to vote" under conditions imposed by photo ID laws -- "government-issued, current photo identification." That figure came from a national survey taken about six years ago and, far as we could tell, mostly unchallenged since. While other collections of data do not touch on exactly the same point, most indicate that African Americans are less likely than whites to hold varied kinds of government-issued IDs, with percentages of blacks without such ID ranging from nearly 4 percent to more than 26 percent. We rate the Democrats’ "as many as" claim Mostly True. | null | Steny Hoyer | null | null | null | 2012-01-13T20:22:31 | 2011-12-13 | ['None'] |
afck-00172 | “Of the [more than 2 million] work opportunities created, more than 1 million have been taken up by the youth.” | correct | https://africacheck.org/reports/facts-alternative-facts-zumas-10th-state-nation-address-checked/ | null | null | null | null | null | Facts or alternative facts? Zuma’s 10th State of the Nation Address checked | 2017-02-10 07:12 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00934 | Goole Yorkshire Coloured Stickers Dog Fighting Warning | bogus warning | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/goole-yorkshire-coloured-stickers-dog-fighting-warning-remains-unsubstantiated/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Goole Yorkshire Coloured Stickers Dog Fighting Warning Remains Unsubstantiated | March 6, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00133 | Did the University of Alabama Cut Ties with Nike Over the Colin Kaepernick Endorsement Deal? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nike-alabama/ | null | Sports | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Did the University of Alabama Cut Ties with Nike Over the Colin Kaepernick Endorsement Deal? | 5 September 2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01818 | Tylenol Banned in South Carolina | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/tylenol-banned-in-south-carolina/ | null | health-medical | null | null | null | Tylenol Banned in South Carolina | Jul 2, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
para-00156 | If we increase Year 12 completion rates to 90 per cent, we'll increase productivity by 0.6 per cent a year. | false | http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jun/07/wayne-swan/swan-says-raising-year-12-completion-rates-will-li/index.html | null | ['Economy', 'Education'] | Wayne Swan | Ellie Harvey, Peter Fray | null | Swan says raising Year 12 completion rates will lift productivity by 0.6 per cent a year | Friday, June 7, 2013 at 5:28 p.m. | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05082 | A company with "20 employees" could go "out of business" because of health care law requirements to buy insurance. | pants on fire! | /florida/statements/2012/jul/02/rick-scott/rick-scott-small-business-health-care/ | People who work in small businesses are fearful of being forced to provide health insurance to full-time employees. Gov. Rick Scott, who entered the political fray in 2009 on a strictly anti-"Obamacare" platform, says they’re confessing their fears to him. "I was in a business the other day, and they walked up to me and they said, 'Governor, is this really going to become the law?' " Scott told Fox News host Greta Van Susteren on June 29, 2012. " 'Because if it does, we’re out of business. We have 20 employees. We know we won’t be able to buy any health care for anybody.' " Scott’s story was similar to one he told in Tampa earlier that day and at the Reagan Day Dinner of Pasco County Republicans that night. Scott told attendees at the dinner he was stopping in for a Blizzard at Dairy Queen when he was asked about the law. A Tampa Bay Times reporter tracked down a Dairy Queen owner in Tallahassee who said he recently talked with Scott about how complying with the law would hurt his business. The owner, Jamshaid Mohyuddin, 47, said he told the governor that he couldn’t afford to provide health insurance to his 16 employees. "I'm a businessman myself, and I don’t even have health insurance," Mohyuddin said. "I can’t afford it." Scott encouraged him to link up with other business owners to support Mitt Romney's campaign for president, Mohyuddin said. Scott’s communications staff didn’t confirm that Scott was talking about Mohyuddin. Really, though, it’s not so important for the purposes of this fact-check. What’s important is this: They are mistaken. Businesses with fewer than 50 full-time employees are not required to offer coverage. (See sections 1513 and 4980H of the Affordable Care Act). For larger companies, those with 50 or more full-time employees, there are fines if they do not offer insurance and one of their employees qualifies for government-subsidized insurance. But again, small employers don’t face those fines. While there are no penalties for small businesses like the one Scott described, the law offers tax credits for these employers if they decide to offer coverage. Employers with fewer than 25 employees, whose average annual wages are below $50,000 and offer health insurance, qualify for a tax break of no more than 35 percent. That cap will be lifted to 50 percent in 2014. The law also creates a health insurance exchange for small businesses, with the idea being they can comparison shop for plans. Mohyuddin was elated when a reporter told him that the law exempts him from penalties for not offering health insurance. "That helps me a lot," Mohyuddin said. "I always thought I had to do this." Our ruling Scott repeated an anecdote about a business of about 20 employees that will go broke from having to offer health insurance under the law. But these employers would face no such penalty like the one described. They are exempt from requirements put on larger businesses. If he knew the basic facts about the health care law, he would know that. We rate Scott’s statement Pants on Fire. | null | Rick Scott | null | null | null | 2012-07-02T20:07:24 | 2012-06-29 | ['None'] |
snes-04920 | A photograph shows Paul McCartney wearing a t-shirt with the word "adopt" written across the chest. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/paul-mccartney-adopt-shirt/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Photograph of Paul McCartney Wearing ‘Adopt’ Shirt | 14 April 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03050 | A photograph shows Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau watering a tree in the rain. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/justin-trudeau-waters-a-tree-in-the-rain/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Justin Trudeau Waters a Tree in the Rain? | 30 January 2017 | null | ['Justin_Trudeau', 'Canada'] |
snes-01515 | Photograph shows a patient who received a severe penile burn from urinating on an electric fence. | miscaptioned | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dont-whizz-on-the-electric-fence/ | null | Fauxtography | null | David Mikkelson | null | Does a Photograph Show a Penile Burn from an Electric Fence? | 28 December 2006 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05350 | Democrats plan to keep student loan interest rates low "by raising taxes on small businesses, very small businesses … the kinds of small businesses that give jobs to graduates." | false | /florida/statements/2012/may/11/marco-rubio/marco-rubio-said-democrats-want-raises-taxes-small/ | Everyone seems to agree they don’t want student loan interest rates going up this summer. President Barack Obama, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, and Republicans and Democrats in Congress -- all say the government should take action to keep the rates where they are. Yet for all that agreement, it’s still become a political fight. That because keeping interest rates low for student loans means increasing the deficit. Both parties in Congress say they want to find a way to offset that. As you might have guessed, Republicans want to cut spending, while Democrats favor raising taxes on the wealthy. Republicans in the Senate voted down a bill on the matter from the Democrats on May 8, 2012. To explain his vote, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., released a statement that day: "As someone with a student loan and with a state with so many people with student loans, I support a hundred percent making sure that the interest rates on student loans do not go up," Rubio said. "I cannot support the way the Democrats want to do it, however, because, they want to do it by raising taxes on small businesses, very small businesses. The kinds of small businesses that give jobs to graduates who not only need low interest rates but need jobs in order to pay their student loans." We decided to check out Rubio's claim that Democrats want to raise taxes on "small businesses, very small businesses … the kinds of small businesses that give jobs to graduates." To fact-check Rubio's statement, we read the text of the legislation the Democrats were proposing, examined a summary of the bill provided by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, and ran the proposal by the experts at the Tax Policy Center, a respected independent think tank that focuses on taxes. The Democratic proposal seeks to raise more tax revenues by changing rules on some S-corporations. This is pretty arcane tax law, but what we found was very different from Rubio’s description. What’s an S-corporation? Under Internal Revenue Service rules, S-corporations are companies with a limited number of shareholders. Profits can be paid out to owners or retained by the corporation; both are taxed as regular income. S-corporations are not always small businesses, but they often are. Democrats say their bill would crack down on a loophole that some professionals are using to avoid payroll taxes by paying themselves through S-corporations. Here’s the scenario: S-corporations are sometimes owned by the same people who do most of the work -- think of small law firms, accounting firms and the like. As employees, their earnings are subject to payroll taxes, which go to pay for Social Security and Medicare. But as owners, their profits are not subject to payroll taxes. So employee-owners decide to avoid the payroll taxes by giving themselves low pay and high dividends. "It is only when the owner and the employee are the same person, so that the wages come from the same person’s profit, that there is a problem," said Eric Toder of the Tax Policy Center. "Typically this will happen only if there are a very small number of owners who also do the work." The Democratic bill said that all income of partners of those types of S-corporations would now be subject to payroll taxes. And the bill includes several steps to make sure that only those types of people would be targeted. For one, the bill applies only on S-corporations where the owners are doing the work, and only on professional services firms in the fields of "health, law, lobbying, engineering, architecture, accounting, actuarial science, performing arts, consulting, athletics, investment advice or management, or brokerage services." The bill also stipulates that the new taxes wouldn’t apply to individuals making less than $200,000 or couples making less than $250,000. In defending the bill, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it was aimed at people who are avoiding taxes. "We want to pay for this with legislation that closes a long, long overdue tax loophole of people who are gaming the system," he said. "These are people who are usually accountants and lawyers who try to pay themselves through dividends and not ordinary income. It's wrong, it's not a tax increase, they're just being called upon to pay what they should pay." We asked Rubio's office for evidence that the Democratic proposal hits "small businesses, very small businesses … the kinds of small businesses that give jobs to graduates." His staff referred us to a U.S. Treasury Report analysis that found that some individuals report small business income in excess of $200,000. The Treasury report found that approximately 8 to 11 percent of all small businesses report income at that level or above. That report, though, counted small businesses as individuals who reported income from a sole proprietorship, partnership, farming operation, miscellaneous rental activity or S-corporation. The Democratic bill called for higher taxes only on a subset of S-corporations. Our ruling Rubio said he opposed the Democratic bill on student loan interest because it would raise taxes on "small businesses, very small businesses … the kinds of small businesses that give jobs to graduates." Actually, the bill changed tax rules only for S-corporations, and only on professionals like lawyers and accountants who could be taking advantage of the tax code to avoid paying payroll taxes. The Democrats took the additional step of saying the rule change would only apply to individuals who reported more than $200,000 in income. The bill's intent was to close a loophole on people who were avoiding payroll taxes, taxes that they're supposed to be paying anyway. Rubio's statement gives the impression that all kinds of mom-and-pop operations might be subject to new, additional taxes, when actually the bill is aimed squarely at high-income professionals who are taking advantage of a loophole. We rate Rubio’s statement False. | null | Marco Rubio | null | null | null | 2012-05-11T14:26:42 | 2012-05-08 | ['None'] |
pose-00768 | As governor, I'll swing the sledgehammer to bring down the Buckhead Wall. The state has collected more than enough money to pay the bonds for the highway. We are now using the tolls of Georgia 400 drivers to pay for other road projects. That's not fair to the commuters in north Fulton and Forsyth counties. They've carried more than their fair share. | promise broken | https://www.politifact.com/georgia/promises/deal-o-meter/promise/798/will-eliminate-the-georgia-400-toll-by-the-end-of/ | null | deal-o-meter | Nathan Deal | null | null | Will eliminate the Georgia 400 toll by the end of 2011 | 2011-12-16T06:00:00 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00777 | Supports High Occupancy Toll lanes for NEW construction to give commuters greater choice and to expand capacity. | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/georgia/promises/deal-o-meter/promise/807/will-build-more-hovtoll-lanes/ | null | deal-o-meter | Nathan Deal | null | null | Will build more HOV/toll lanes | 2011-01-06T16:27:46 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10385 | George Bush, and a Republican Congress, have presided over a 55 percent increase in the size of domestic government spending in the last seven years. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jun/18/john-mccain/right-on-the-number-just-a-year-off/ | Some days, John McCain and his advisers sound like they are running as much against President Bush as against Sen. Barack Obama. And after using issues like climate change and nuclear disarmament to begin distancing themselves from the administration, McCain & Co. now are branding themselves as hard-nosed fiscal managers capable of putting the clamps on federal spending … unlike President Bush. McCain adviser Carly Fiorina, former chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard Corp., took aim at the president's economic stewardship during a June 17, 2008, appearance on MSNBC's Morning Joe program, criticizing Bush and GOP leaders who ran Congress for much of his tenure for failing to cut spending to offset his tax cuts. "This Republican president, George Bush, and a Republican Congress, have presided over a 55 percent increase in the size of domestic government spending in the last seven years," Fiorina said. McCain's camp is eager to draw distinctions, aware that Obama and Democrats are intent on trying to tie the presumptive GOP nominee to Bush's positions to taxes and some spending priorities. Earlier this month, McCain's top adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, derided Bush's knowledge of the economy in an interview with Bloomberg Television, saying the president knows nothing about the economy except taxes. Holtz-Eakin later said he regretted personalizing the issue. While the definition of "domestic government spending" that Fiorina brought up is open to some interpretation, historical tables in the fiscal 2009 budget request that Bush issued in February 2008 demonstrate that all types of federal spending have surged during the Bush years. But domestic spending has not risen quite as fast as Fiorina suggests. Total nondefense domestic spending rose to $2.18-trillion in fiscal 2007 from $1.49-trillion in fiscal 2000 — a 46 percent increase. A good portion of that is attributable to the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill, which drove up entitlement costs. Throw in national security spending increases after 9/11, particularly the cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and cumulative spending for the same seven years rose 53 percent, from $1.79-trillion to $2.73-trillion. Because McCain supported many of Bush's national security priorities, and even pressed for sending more troops to Iraq, it would be disingenuous for him to portray Bush and Republican Congresses as profligate in these areas. But on the domestic front, McCain did join other fiscal conservatives in opposing the 2003 Medicare drug bill, preferring to target drug benefits to the needy in an effort to avoid broad new federal mandates. And he has consistently spoken about the need to offset tax cuts with spending reductions, including stamping out earmarks in spending bills. The budget documents show discretionary domestic spending — money not explicitly mandated by law and made available through annual spending bills in such amounts as Congress chooses — rose 54 percent over the seven-year timeframe Fiorina cited. Mandatory spending on Social Security, Medicare, other entitlements and interest payments on government debt rose 44 percent. Interestingly, Fiorina's claim is right on the money if you roll estimated spending for fiscal 2008 into the equation, which makes us wonder if she should tweak her talking points. Bush's budget request estimates nondefense domestic spending will total $2.32-trillion in 2008. That's precisely a 55 percent increase from the $1.49-trillion it totaled in 2000. Either way, Fiorina's point is generally backed up by the numbers. Domestic spending did surge during the Bush years, along with every other broad category of government outlays. We judge her claim Mostly True. | null | John McCain | null | null | null | 2008-06-18T00:00:00 | 2008-06-17 | ['United_States_Congress', 'George_W._Bush'] |
snes-04011 | News photograph captions described a black man "looting" and a white couple "finding" supplies in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hurricane-katrina-looters/ | null | Hurricane Katrina | null | David Mikkelson | null | Were Hurricane Katrina ‘Looting’ Photographs Captioned Differently Based on Race? | 1 September 2005 | null | ['Hurricane_Katrina'] |
pose-00880 | Will "remove roadblocks to development in land parcels like the Park East, and he will sell at competitive terms unused and underused land and building assets to companies and entrepreneurs who want to start or expand business ventures." | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/promises/abele-o-meter/promise/912/remove-roadblocks-to-development/ | null | abele-o-meter | Chris Abele | null | null | Remove roadblocks to development | 2011-05-11T10:21:33 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10021 | In eighth grade math, we’ve fallen to ninth place. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/mar/13/barack-obama/8th-graders-are-9th-showing-improvement-not-fallin/ | In his first major education speech, President Obama endorsed charter schools, merit pay for teachers and increases in school spending. He justified his agenda partly by saying American students are slipping compared to counterparts around the world. "We've let our grades slip, our schools crumble, our teacher quality fall short, and other nations outpace us," Obama said in the March 10 speech to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. "In eighth grade math, we've fallen to ninth place." Since Obama brought up math, we decided to check his. Turns out we had to pull out the red pen. We asked the White House to defend Obama's claim, and received no response. His claim that eighth grade math students in the United States are in ninth place internationally almost certainly comes from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, a periodic comparison of math and science achievement carried out since 1995 by research institutions and government agencies worldwide. The most recent study , published in 2007, did indeed show U.S. eighth graders in ninth place behind five East Asian countries and Hungary, England and Russia. But it was misleading to say they had "fallen" to ninth place. In 1995, they came in 28th . In 1999, they moved up to 19th . In 2003, they climbed to 15th . So rather than falling, U.S. students have actually improved in the past decade. We considered giving the president partial credit since American students did come in ninth. But the point of his statement was that they had "fallen" to that position and that mathematics performance in the United States is getting worse relative to other countries. And that's just plain False. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2009-03-13T15:15:04 | 2009-03-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-12470 | Says police officers smoke marijuana once a year as part of their jobs. | false | /punditfact/statements/2017/may/05/alex-jones/police-smoke-marijuana-yearly-test-potency-alex-jo/ | Texas-based radio show host Alex Jones admitted during a child custody hearing that he has smoked cannabis, in violation of state law. But he only smoked it once per year, he reasoned — just like law enforcement does. Locked in a custody battle over his three children with his ex-wife, the conservative media personality made the admission during testimony in Austin, Texas, on April 20. That’s right, 4/20. Jones said that he tries marijuana annually to gauge its potency. He argued from the stand that he thought marijuana was too strong, a shortcoming he blamed on billionaire George Soros, a frequent scapegoat of conspiracy theorists. Why smoke cannabis annually? "That’s what police do," Jones said, according to the Austin American-Statesman. "They smoke it once a year, too." Jones has admitted to smoking marijuana before, and notably sparked up on Joe Rogan’s podcast earlier this year. While marijuana is illegal in Texas, it is decriminalized in California, where Rogan’s show was recorded. PolitiFact has checked claims about marijuana potency before, the gist being that cannabis is as much as 800 percent stronger now than it was four decades ago. We attempted to contact Jones through his InfoWars website to suss out the basis of his claim that cops rolled their own, but did not receive a response. Jones may have been speaking anecdotally, with or without firsthand knowledge of stoner cops. Law enforcement agencies, however, suggested that Jones was just blowing smoke. Where there’s smoke In general, when people talk about marijuana’s potency, they mean the levels of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. That’s the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, which contains hundreds of chemical compounds. There’s plenty of research that shows THC levels have increased over the years. A 2010 study by researchers at the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi, for example, found that the THC concentrations had risen by about 171 percent in just a 16-year time period. That study used 46,000 samples of marijuana seized during law enforcement raids. But there was no indication that cops smoked the ganja to find out how strong it was. That’s a job for a laboratory. There are a couple of methods for measuring the chemical compounds in cannabis, but all of them take a certain level of scientific proficiency and technical equipment. Many states that have medical or recreational marijuana have labs that test for these compounds; one company in California has even developed testers for business use outside of a lab. But it’s not like you can take a few hits and spit out a THC percentage, the way Jones implied. We don’t know how he concocted his theory, or which police department he believed was letting officers light up, but we checked with a few places. The Texas Department of Public Safety said they did not have any specifics about departmental drug testing, either for seized evidence or for employees. The state does operate several crime labs that test drugs seized as evidence. The Texas Police Association also did not tell us any particular procedure used by law enforcement agencies. They only said that each department in the state would have its own policies and methods. Since Jones is in Austin, we went to the local P.D. to ask them if it’s possible cops spark up the local dank to get an idea of how strong the weed is there. In a word, no. Jennifer Herber, a spokeswoman for the Austin police department, pointed out that the department’s policy manual prohibited marijuana use. The department does not test cannabis, she said. On a federal level, Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Russ Bayer said the DEA operates its own labs to gauge potency and purity of all kinds of drugs, including marijuana. Depending on the case, the labs may test evidence from federal cases or helping local authorities. But agents toking up to give drugs a personal test? "It’s laughable. Not plausible," Bayer said. "Frankly, it’s insulting. The DEA would never allow consumption of any controlled substance." Our ruling Defending his own use of marijuana, Jones said police officers "smoke it once a year, too." He didn’t offer any proof of his claim that cops light up joints annually to test the strength of cannabis, and we couldn’t find any. Perhaps Jones anecdotally knows or has heard of police officers who don't keep off the grass, but we didn't find a cop shop that said that was a policy. Law enforcement agencies generally test marijuana potency in a laboratory setting, and not by lighting up in the squad room (or elsewhere). For lack of evidence, we rate this statement False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Alex Jones | null | null | null | 2017-05-05T13:53:28 | 2017-04-20 | ['None'] |
vees-00292 | BUHAY KA PA BA? Portrait of a president as a source of disinformation | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/buhay-ka-pa-ba-portrait-president-source-disinformation | null | null | null | null | null | BUHAY KA PA BA? Portrait of a president as a source of disinformation | February 13, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-06477 | The (Florida) casino proposed by Malaysian gambling conglomerate Genting would be nearly double the size of the largest casino in the world. | mostly true | /florida/statements/2011/oct/17/no-casinos/no-casinos-group-says-genting-would-build-casino-d/ | If we had to settle on one word to describe the $3 billion proposal for Genting's Resorts World Miami in downtown Miami at the current Miami Herald site, we might keep things simple and pick the word "big." Genting has proposed a 10-million-square-foot development including a casino, and the Herald has reported on the various elements of the largesse -- a 3.6-acre outdoor lagoon as large as 12 Olympic-size swimming pools, 5,200 hotel rooms, 1,000 condo units, more than 50 restaurants, lounges, bars and nightclubs, ranging from fine dining to buffets and a food court for a total of 700,000 square feet, about 60 luxury shops, plus a marketplace for a total of 250,000 square feet, and 750,000 square feet of convention and meeting space including a 200,000-square-foot ballroom. Big right? But what about the size of the casino space? A group opposing the expansion of gambling in South Florida, No Casinos, made a claim in an Oct. 11, 2011, "Myth vs. Facts" chart that a bill in the works by two South Florida legislators would pave the way for a record-breaking enormous casino. On the "myth" side of the group's ledge, they say: "The bill carefully limits the scale of casino gambling by requiring that the casino occupy no more than 10 percent of the entire development …" And now for the "fact": "The 'sleight of hand' is one of the casino promoter's best tricks. The fact is the bill would put the biggest casinos in the world right here in Florida. In fact, the casino proposed by Malaysian gambling conglomerate Genting would be nearly double the size of the largest casino in the world. In fact, even if Genting limits the casino size to 8 percent of their development, that Miami casino would be big enough to house six modern marquee casinos on the Las Vegas Strip –- with room to spare! The Genting casino alone would comfortably fit the casinos of the MGM Grand, the Wynn, the Mirage, the Bellagio, Caesar’s Palace and the Venetian. If 3 casinos of this size are built, Florida would have as much casino gambling as 20 or more casinos on the Las Vegas strip –- and all the money would be in the hands of just 3 companies." There are a lot of interesting numbers in that paragraph, but we wanted to find out if the proposed bill would mean that Genting's proposal would "nearly double the size of the largest casino in the world." First, a little background. Genting announced in May that it had purchased land owned by the Miami Herald (which partners on PolitiFact Florida with the St. Petersburg Times) for $236 million and later took over the $206 million mortgage on the neighboring Omni Center. Genting has now amassed about 30 acres. Part of the resort could open as early as 2012 months after it hopes to get approval from the state Legislature for a gambling license. The Genting Group has holdings in resorts and casinos among other industries and owns 50 percent of Miami-based Norwegian Cruise Line. On Oct. 6, 2011, an appeals court gave the go-ahead for legislators to expand gambling in South Florida. Specifically, the First District Court of Appeals upheld a lower court decision that concluded that a law passed by the Legislature allowing Hialeah Racetrack to offer slot machines was constitutional and rejected the argument by other facilites that when voters approved slot machines in Miami-Dade and Broward that limited the number of permits to seven pari-mutuels. Two South Florida legislators -- State Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff (R-Fort Lauderdale) and Rep. Erik Fresen (R-Miami) -- are drafting a bill that would pave the way for three resort casinos in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The bill would create a Florida Gaming Commission and companies could submit bids for casino licenses. The Legislature is expected to take it the legislation when it convenes in January. Bogdanoff and Fresen said the bill they will produce will restrict each resort to using no more than 10 percent of their total footprint for casino games. If state legislators approve the 10 percent limit and Genting builds a 10-million -square-foot resort -- as the company said it plans -- that would mean the casino area could be a maximum of 1 million square feet. (A note: Genting would still have to bid for the rights to build the casino.) China has the largest casino We asked John Sowinski, spokesman for No Casinos, to explain how the group determined that Genting's casino would be nearly double the largest casino in the world. (Kind of obvious, but No Casinos is a group that opposes the expansion of gambling. Sowinski said the group has fought gambling issues since the 1970s.) Sowinski pointed us to a 2009 article in BusinessWeek about the 20 biggest casinos in the world. The article listed the Venetian Macao in China as the biggest --- saying the casino measured 546,000 square feet and had 3,000 gaming or slot machines and 870 casino tables for various games. (This Las Vegas Sands website states that the Venetian Macao is 550,000 square feet.) Three gaming experts confirmed for us that Venetian Macao is the largest: David G. Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada and Holly Wetzel, a spokeswoman for the American Gaming Association, and Roger Gros, publisher of Global Gaming Business Magazine, a publication of the American Gaming Association and a trade publication for the gaming industry. So the largest casino in the world measures about 546,000 square feet and theoretically, the Genting Group could build a casino that's 1 million square feet. No Casinos took that into account to get to its claim that the Miami casino "would be nearly double the size of the largest casino in the world." The group also cited a lower figure -- Sowinski referred us to this article from the Beacon Council, Miami-Dade County's economic development partnership, that stated that Genting's casino size would be 800,000 square feet. A Genting spokeswoman in Miami, Kelly Penton, told us that the gaming floor at Resorts World Miami will measure no more than 8 percent of the total footprint putting the casino size at 800,000 square feet. At that size, four Super Targets would fit in the casino -- with room to spare. She said it's too early to tell on the number of machines. Sowinski says if Genting doesn't build up to full capacity initially for the casino they could over the time. "Why would they limit themselves if the Legislature gives them more than they ask for?" Our ruling The problem is we won't know for at least months, if not years, the size of Genting's casino in Miami. Gros, publisher of Global Gaming Business magazine, told us there's no way Genting's Miami project will be double size of the Venetian Macao. "The market isn’t that big and there will be several large competitors in Florida ... Genting will never build a 1 million square foot casino," he wrote. Schwartz also expressed some skepticism about whether Genting would build a 1-million-square-foot casino. "Hard to say -- all of Atlantic City has about 1.3 million square feet of casino space, and that's 11 casinos. If they populated their casino at the same density as Harrah's Atlantic City (the biggest in the market by floor space) they'd have 12,967 slot machines and 737 table games, which is huge -- far bigger, by positions, than the Venetian Macao," Schwartz wrote in an e-mail. "If they had a complete monopoly on the South Florida market, they might be able to support that kind of footprint, but I'm skeptical that,with any competition in the region, a casino that size could work. It's certainly far larger than anything that's ever been attempted, and we might start to see diseconomies of scale. Without seeing their blueprints it's hard to say for sure." We see their point, but for now all we have to go on is Genting's own words. They said they want to build a casino that is 800,000 square feet. That is significantly larger than the largest casino in the world, though we believe it falls a little shy of "nearly double." We rate this claim Mostly True. | null | No Casinos | null | null | null | 2011-10-17T15:07:05 | 2011-10-11 | ['Malaysia'] |
pomt-12431 | Barack Obama arrested in a Japanese drug bust. | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2017/may/17/blog-posting/conspiracy-theorists-concoct-fake-report-obama-arr/ | A fake news story that said former President Barack Obama was busted for his links to a drug smuggling operation is part of an extensive and completely unsupported conspiracy theory popularized online. A May 2, 2017, headline on AmericanFlavor.news declared, "Just in: Barack Obama arrested in a Japanese drug bust." The story was flagged by Facebook users, as part of the social media site’s efforts to cut down on fake reports in its users’ news feeds. The post was exceptionally short, saying that Obama had "informed on his drug-dealing bosses," citing "Japanese military intelligence." It explained that "an airplane filled with Afghan Heroin and North Korean amphetamines was impounded at Argyle International Airport on St. Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean." Obama had been arrested for some unspecified connection to a ship that was carrying more than 4 tons of cocaine. The proceeds of the future drug sales were to fund ISIS, the post read. The story is nonsense, because obviously Obama had not been arrested. And he was too busy negotiating $400,000 for speaking appearances to smuggle cocaine. The AmericanFlavor.news post was the latest stop for a conspiracy theory that goes back a few weeks. The article linked to a YouTube video: See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com The video was created by Denise Stark, a conspiracy theorist who was citing an online radio show called Stillness in the Storm, a show its creators describe as "an ongoing conversation about world events, hidden truths, and empowering information." Stillness in the Storm’s website linked to a blog post written by Benjamin Fulford, who on March 31 had written the piece that later appeared on AmericanFlavor.news. Stillness in the Storm had warned on its site that "Fulford's claims should not be considered to be true without substantiation." Fulford, in turn, used his original post to link to a March 15 screed on WhatDoesItMean.com, a site rife with conspiratorial meanderings. The essay said that Obama had some nebulous link to a fishing boat called Lady Michelle, which had been busted in the Caribbean while smuggling cocaine. The post was written by Sorcha Faal, the pseudonym of a conspiracy theorist with a series of posts on WhatDoesItMean.com. Faal’s post makes some pretty big leaps in logic, including that George W. Bush and Obama operated cocaine-smuggling operations and that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had ordered their arrest. The photo that accompanied Faal’s post was of a ship called Lady Michelle, which had been stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard off the shore of Suriname on Feb. 16, 2017. Four Guyanese men were arrested for transporting 4.2 tons of cocaine worth about $125 million. There’s no mention of Japan, or any connection to Obama. Previously PunditFact had checked a claim that Obama was arrested at the Canadian border for wiretrapping Trump, which earned a Pants On Fire! rating. This post also is contrived, stemming from unfounded conspiracy theories that drew ridiculous conclusions and made provably untrue claims. We rate it Pants On Fire! See Figure 3 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2017-05-17T10:00:00 | 2017-05-02 | ['Japan'] |
faan-00041 | “There’s nothing in this plan about private sector employment, about job creation.” | factscan score: false | http://factscan.ca/rona-ambrose-private-sector-employment/ | The topic of job creation – presumably in the private sector – does make an appearance. | null | Rona Ambrose | null | null | null | 2015-12-22 | ember 4, 2015 | ['None'] |
snes-02721 | A Southern California mom experienced a near-miss abduction of her daughter by human traffickers at a local IKEA store. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/california-ikea-trafficking/ | null | Crime | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Narrow Brush with Human Traffickers at a Southern California IKEA? | 28 March 2017 | null | ['IKEA', 'Southern_California'] |
pomt-01036 | Assault weapons and handguns are allowed in the state Capitol while bullhorns, trumpets, helium balloons and flags on poles are banned. | mostly true | /virginia/statements/2015/jan/26/virginia-house-democratic-caucus/dems-say-assault-guns-allowed-va-capitol-while-bal/ | House Democrats in the General Assembly have launched a petition drive to show public support for a package of pending gun control bills. The online entreaty calls for "common sense gun laws" and, to foster the contention that Virginia’s firearm policies are awry, contains a white and blue graphic of some of the rules regarding public entrance to the state capitol. On the left side of the graphic is the headline "Banned in the Virginia State Capitol." Underneath are pictures of a bullhorn, a trumpet, a floating helium balloon and an American flag on a pole. The right side says, "Allowed in the Virginia State Capitol." Underneath are pictures of a handgun, a rifle, and two assault guns. "How does this make sense?" the bottom of the chart asks in capital letters. We wondered whether the petition accurately described the rules for entry into the Capitol. David Pourshoushtari, a spokesman for the House Democrats, pointed us to visitors’ rules posted on the General Assembly’s website. The House and the Senate have identical rules for general entry into the Capitol. The conditions vary slightly for entry into galleries in each chamber. Let’s take a look. Bullhorns, trumpets and balloons. The basic rules for entering the Capitol are spelled out in these words on the legislative website: "Possession or use of any device that may disrupt the conduct of business is prohibited, including, but not limited to: voice-amplification equipment; bullhorns; blow horns; sirens, or other noise-producing devices as well as signs on sticks, poles or stakes, or helium-filled balloons." That confirms two of four items Democrats said were banned. But what about trumpets? Susan Schaar, the Senate clerk, said they would generally not be allowed since they fall into the realm of "noise-producing devices." Schaar said exceptions can be made, such as for a memorial service. Paul Nardo, the House clerk, said flags are allowed to be brought into the building, but not if they’re hoisted on poles. The image on the Democrat’s petition shows a flag on a pole. Nardo explained that the rules apply to everyone, including members of the legislature as well as the general public. Firearms We couldn’t find any rules about bringing guns into the Capitol on the General Assembly’s website. But they do exist. Capt. Randy Howard of the Virginia Division of Capitol Police said firearms access into the Capitol is governed by rules passed in 2004 by a joint legislative committee. He told us possession is limited to three groups: General Assembly members, law enforcement officials and any holder of a valid concealed handgun permit. Could someone bring an assault rifle into the Capitol? If he is allowed to bring in a firearm, the answer is yes, Howard said. The 2004 rule "simply says ‘firearm’, so it’s fairly broad," Howard told us. "It doesn’t just say that the only thing they can bring in is a handgun even though that’s what’s covered by the (concealed) handgun permit." Del. Joseph Morrissey, I-Henrico, held aloft an unloaded AK-47 in the House chamber during a 2013 debate over a gun control measure he sponsored. Morrissey said then that the weapon had been inspected by the Capitol police prior to being brought into the chamber, according to an article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The Senate bans firearms in its public gallery looking over the chamber’s floor. There is no such restriction in the House gallery. Our ruling Calling for reform to Virginia’s gun laws, House Democrats noted that firearms -- including assault rifles -- are allowed to be brought in the state Capitol while helium balloons, flags on poles, trumpets and bullhorns are banned. The list of barred articles holds up. The firearms issue is a bit trickier. They can be brought into the Capitol, but only by lawmakers, valid concealed weapons permit holders and law enforcement. They are banned in the Senate gallery. We rate the claim Mostly True. | null | Virginia House Democratic Caucus | null | null | null | 2015-01-26T13:00:00 | 2015-01-19 | ['None'] |
pose-00630 | Will "enact common-sense medical liability reforms to lower costs, rein in junk lawsuits and curb defensive medicine." | promise broken | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/gop-pledge-o-meter/promise/656/enact-medical-liability-reform/ | null | gop-pledge-o-meter | John Boehner | null | null | Enact medical liability reform | 2010-12-22T09:57:30 | null | ['None'] |
thet-00005 | “Labour built less than half the number of homes for social rent than they claim. SNP has delivered almost 52,600 homes for social rent, including 9,799 council homes.” | mostly true | https://theferret.scot/snp-social-rent-labour/ | null | Fact check Housing and homelessness | SNP, Twitter | null | null | Claim that SNP built more social rent homes than Labour Mostly True | August 29, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08556 | We now have our kids go to school about a month less than most other advanced countries. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/30/barack-obama/president-barack-obama-says-kids-us-go-school-abou/ | It's not the most popular plank in the Obama platform among too-young-to-vote crowd. Nonetheless, in an interview on the Today Show on Sept. 27, 2010, that focused on education, President Barack Obama stuck to his long-held position, saying, "I think we should have longer school years." The following day, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert took aim at Obama's plan, saying, "This has got to be Obama's worst legislative initiative since the 'You Forgot to Give Us Homework Act' of 2009." Whether summer vacation ought to be shortened is a matter of opinion. But what Obama said to back up his position is a checkable fact. "We now have our kids go to school about a month less than most other advanced countries," Obama said. "And that makes a difference." In the United States, kids go to school 180 days a year. We looked at statistics from 2008 provided by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), a research group sponsored by most of the world's advanced industrialize nations. Among the 31 OECD countries that reported statistics, the average for primary grades of public school was 187 days. The average for countries in the European Union, which includes several countries which are not part of the OECD, was 184 days per year. So it's certainly accurate to say that kids in the United States go to school fewer days than most other advanced countries. But "about a month" less? Taking out weekends, we figured a generous figure for "about a month" was at least 15 days. According to the OECD, there were eight countries with 195 or more days of school a year. Again, that's out of 31, so it's not "most." Obama had it right when he raised this issue last year and cited a similar, but different statistic. "We can no longer afford an academic calendar designed when America was a nation of farmers who needed their children at home plowing the land at the end of each day," Obama said. "That calendar may have once made sense, but today, it puts us at a competitive disadvantage. Our children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea. That is no way to prepare them for a 21st-century economy." With regard to South Korea, Obama was on the mark. American children spend over a month less in school than children in South Korea (220 days). The issue of longer school years has been debated intensely in academic circles for years. Some studies have made a case for longer school days, rather than more days of school, while others have shown longer schools years have been of particular benefit to poorly performing students. But our focus here is on Obama's claim about the length of the school year in the United States compared with other advanced countries around the world. We think Obama has a solid argument about American kids going to school fewer days than many other kids, but it's a stretch to say they go about a month less than students in most other advanced countries. Students in those countries on average go about a week and a half longer. Students in only about a quarter of those countries go to school close to a month longer than American kids. So we rate his comment Half True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2010-09-30T06:00:00 | 2010-09-27 | ['None'] |
tron-01985 | Help the Victims of Hurricane Katrina | none | https://www.truthorfiction.com/hurricanerelief/ | null | natural-disasters/hurricane | null | null | null | Help the Victims of Hurricane Katrina | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04863 | A United Nations arms treaty would "almost certainly force" the U.S. to "create an international gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation." | false | /georgia/statements/2012/aug/10/paul-broun/broun-un-treaty-likely-lead-international-gun-regi/ | U.S. Rep. Paul Broun wants you to reach for your checkbook. A Second Amendment rights group needs money to keep the United Nations from coming for your guns. The Athens Republican made his pitch in a YouTube video posted by the National Association for Gun Rights. "If passed by the U.N. and ratified by the U.S. Senate, the U.N. Small Arms Treaty would almost certainly force the United States to … create an international gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation," Broun said during the video posted July 10. Treaty negotiations fell apart in late July, but advocates are hopeful that a version will pass soon. We therefore took a closer look. PolitiFact Georgia asked Broun for more information, but his spokeswoman refused repeated requests for comment. We soldiered on. PolitiFact Georgia interviewed gun rights experts, especially those who, like Broun, are critical of gun control. We also consulted past PolitiFact coverage of the arms treaty. The U.N. has mulled over a treaty to regulate the global arms trade for years. Backers say it would curtail mass killings and terrorism, and keep dictators from killing their own people. (Small arms are not the treaty’s sole focus, as Broun’s description suggests. Conventional weapons, including guns, missiles and attack helicopters, are.) The George W. Bush administration rebuffed the effort, but the Obama administration said in 2009 that it is open to negotiations. In 2010, PolitiFact National evaluated a claim that under the treaty, "all U.S. citizens will be subject to those gun laws created by foreign governments." In the unlikely event that the president and two-thirds of the Senate agreed to a treaty that bans guns and requires their confiscation, long-standing Supreme Court precedent would make it unenforceable, it said in ruling the claim False. In May, PolitiFact Texas tested a claim that "Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are negotiating with the United Nations about doing a treaty that will ban the use of firearms." It ruled Pants on Fire because an administration official recently said the U.S. will not back a treaty that infringes on the Second Amendment. So "full-scale gun confiscation" in the U.S. is out of the picture. What about an international gun registry? Gun control critics pointed us to a July 26 draft posted on the website of a pro-disarmament group. Article 2 states that each party "shall establish or update, as appropriate, and maintain a national control list" that would include battle tanks, attack helicopters and guns, among other things. "Even the most limited reading of the treaty suggests that, while it would not create an international registry of all guns, it seeks to create one of all imported guns," said Ted Bromund, a senior research fellow with the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank. But no treaty language establishes a worldwide registry of individuals who own guns or dealers who sell to customers in their own countries. In fact, the draft affirms the "sovereign right and responsibility of any State to regulate and control transfers of conventional arms that take place exclusively within its territory, pursuant to its own legal or constitutional systems." Prior General Assembly resolutions contain similar language. Official U.N. statements emphasize that a treaty would regulate international import, export and transfers of conventional arms only. "Nobody wants to control the transfer of weapons inside a country," said Tom Collina, the research director of the Arms Control Association. Of course, this version of the treaty failed in U.N. negotiations. Even if it had succeeded, U.S. ratification would be unlikely, our anti-gun control experts agreed. Still, we opted to take Broun’s statement further. He posits an alternate political reality where leaders ratify a treaty that could lead the U.S. to create a registry to track -- and ultimately confiscate -- guns. PolitiFact Georgia asked legal experts whether one would be constitutional. They gave differing opinions. The Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue. Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, thinks registries would pass constitutional muster because they don’t "materially interfere with the ability to keep guns for self-defense." Dave Kopel, a legal expert with the pro-free market Independence Institute, called registration a "gray area, legally speaking." A future court could overturn Second Amendment precedent, Kopel said. "Like so much else in constitutional law, the answer is ‘it depends,’ " said Brannon P. Denning, a professor at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham. How do we rule? A draft of the U.N. treaty would require the U.S. to report information on international arms sales only -- not domestic sales. But "full-scale gun confiscation" would not be constitutional. A domestic registry may not be. This means that even in the unlikely event that the U.N. creates a treaty that provides for domestic registries and the U.S. Senate ratifies it, it would not "almost certainly force" the U.S. to create one. Broun’s statement contains the tiniest sliver of truth. The treaty would track international gun sales. But his claim makes it sound like the U.N. will keep a registry of all gun owners across the world. That’s a bizarre distortion of the facts. His claim is False. | null | Paul Broun | null | null | null | 2012-08-10T06:00:00 | 2012-08-10 | ['United_States', 'United_Nations'] |
pomt-14693 | The economy is "too weak to raise income levels." | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/12/nikki-haley/economy-too-weak-raise-incomes-nikki-haley-state-u/ | In her Republican response to the State of the Union address, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley expressed criticism of President Barack Obama’s stewardship of the economy. "The president's record has often fallen far short of his soaring words," Haley said. "As he enters his final year in office, many Americans are still feeling the squeeze of an economy too weak to raise income levels." We decided to check whether, six years into the economic recovery, income levels are still in the doldrums. Haley is basically correct if you look at Census Bureau data for median household income, adjusted for inflation. Here’s the trend line in recent years. Inflation-adjusted, median household income has fallen from $57,357 in 2009 to $53,657 in 2014, the most recent full year available. That’s a decline of 6.4 percent over a five-year period once inflation is taken into account. Obama himself seemed to acknowledge this trend when he spoke about "more and more wealth and income" concentrated at the top and "squeezed workers." The only silver lining for Obama is that median income has increased a bit since the first full year of the recovery -- 2010 -- and saw a tangible bump between 2012 and 2013. Still, at best, median income is moving sideways, a result strongly at odds with the much better record of job creation and unemployment reduction under Obama. There are alternative ways to measure income, such as earnings from work, but these show growth that’s tepid at best. For instance, median weekly earnings of full-time wage and salary workers rose from $776 in 2013 to $791 in 2014, which is less than a 2 percent increase, or roughly in line with inflation. Our ruling Haley said the economy is "too weak to raise income levels." While the economy under Obama has made significant strides in such areas as job creation, income has not been an area of significant improvement. Median income is lower now compared to 2009. It is, however, slightly up from its low point in 2012. Haley’s claim is generally accurate but somewhat depends on your time frame and what you would consider a rise in income levels. We rate her statement Mostly True. | null | Nikki Haley | null | null | null | 2016-01-12T23:47:09 | 2016-01-12 | ['None'] |
hoer-00097 | Thierry Mairot Wants to Talk to Children About Sex | bogus warning | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/thierry-mairot-rumour.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Unfounded Facebook Rumour - Thierry Mairot Wants to Talk to Children About Sex | 9th January 2012 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05798 | Today gasoline hit $6 a gallon in Florida. | pants on fire! | /florida/statements/2012/feb/23/ron-paul/gas-prices-are-6-gallon-florida-says-ron-paul/ | There’s no doubt gas prices in Florida have been on the rise -- but have they really hit $6 a gallon? That was the surprising claim from Ron Paul at the Republican presidential debate in Arizona on Feb. 22, 2012. It started with CNN moderator John King asking candidates what should be done about Syria. Paul, a congressman from Texas, was making a point about the downside of U.S. intervention in foreign countries, which led to an aside about gas prices. "You know, I've tried the moral argument. I've tried the constitutional argument on these issues. And they don't go so well. But there's an economic argument, as well," Paul said. "As a matter of fact, al-Qaida has had a plan to bog us down in the Middle East and bankrupt this country. That's exactly what they're doing. We've spent $4 trillion of debt in the last 10 years being bogged down in the Middle East. The neoconservatives who now want us to be in Syria, want us to go to Iran, have another war, and we don't have the money -- today gasoline hit $6 a gallon in Florida -- and we don't have the money." International geopolitics is one thing, but $6 gas hits close to home. So we decided to check it out. We emailed the Paul campaign, but we didn’t hear back. Still, it didn’t take long to find some likely suspects for sources. The Drudge Report, for example, featured the headline "$6 gas" just a few hours before the debate’s start. The Drudge Report’s link sent readers to a Tampa television station's report that a couple of gas stations in Florida are charging close to $6 a gallon. The report’s source was GasBuddy.com, a website that tracks prices by gas station so consumers can find the cheapest prices and avoid the highest. Sure enough, when we checked GasBuddy the morning after the debate, we found one gas station that was charging $5.79 a gallon and another that was charging $5.69. (You can read user reviews on Yelp.com for the two gas stations here and here.) So that’s two gas stations out of the entire state. Every other gas station charged much less, with the next highest at $4.35. Most notably, those two gas stations are suspiciously close to the beating heart of Florida tourism -- the international airport that brings visitors to Walt Disney World. "Florida residents know better than to get gas there. It's entirely to clip the tourists," said Gregg Laskoski, an analyst with GasBuddy. Citing those two stations "totally exaggerates the gas prices situation here in Florida." Laskoski told us it’s not the first time a few stations have given the wrong impression about gas prices statewide. "Every year, these stories about a couple of gas stations in the Orlando area pop up, to represent extreme gas stations," he said. "This is not a new story; it's an old story with a new price." Statewide averages are high by historical standards but much lower than Paul's scary $6 figure. The day after the debate, GasBuddy was reporting the average Florida price as $3.70. AAA’s Fuel Gauge Report set the average Florida price similarly, at $3.70 for a gallon of regular unleaded. Jessica Brady, a spokesperson for AAA, said $6 a gallon was not accurate. And while average gas prices are going up, she said she didn’t expect them to hit $6, at least not anytime soon. "It is going up, and it's expected to continue to go up into the spring and the summer," Brady said. "It's possible by spring we could see prices at $4 a gallon." Brady blamed the rising gas prices on mounting tensions with Iran; economic instability in Europe; fluctuating expectations of economic growth in the United States; and seasonal refinery maintenance. We also spoke with Izzy Rommes, director of the division of standards at the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which regulates gasoline. He said he wasn’t familiar with the Orlando gas stations in question, but said the state generally only acts on complaints of price gouging during hurricanes or other natural disasters. "The market controls the price of gas absent a declaration of emergency," he said. "As long as the price is disclosed, there's nothing wrong with it." Finally, we spoke with "Bob," last name unknown, who answered the phone at Suncoast Energys, one of the gas stations in question. No one there wanted to answer our questions, he said. He added that the station hasn’t changed its prices since May of last year. Our ruling Florida drivers can take a small measure of gratitude in the fact that gas prices are not at $6 a gallon. Or $5 a gallon. Or $4 a gallon. The statewide average is $3.70. (One note of caution: If you need to fill up near the Orlando airport, shop around!) As for Paul, we suspect he read headlines that gave the wrong impression on Florida gas prices. In fact, we found only two of approximately 7,100 gas stations that even come close to the price he cites. We wouldn't bring a flaming Truth-O-Meter to a filling station, but that's what this one deserves. Pants on Fire! | null | Ron Paul | null | null | null | 2012-02-23T16:27:44 | 2012-02-22 | ['None'] |
para-00130 | More people will die from asbestos in Australia than died in the fields of Flanders in World War I. | mostly true | http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/01/bill-shorten/more-die-asbestos-Australia-fields-Flanders-war/index.html | null | ['War History', 'Workers rights'] | Bill Shorten | David Humphries, Peter Fray | null | More people will die from asbestos in Australia than died in the fields of Flanders in World War I. | Monday, July 1, 2013 at 7:24 a.m. | null | ['Australia', 'Flanders'] |
tron-01796 | Baby Dies from Vicks VapoRub | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/baby-dies-vicks-vaporub/ | null | health-medical | null | null | ['medical', 'products', 'warnings'] | Baby Dies from Vicks VapoRub | Nov 29, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11784 | Says Josh Hawley "broke his promise to create a Public Corruption Unit to crack down on the pay-to-play culture of Jefferson City." | mostly false | /missouri/statements/2017/nov/24/claire-mccaskill/mccaskills-campaign-says-hawley-broke-his-promise-/ | Editor's note, Dec. 7, 2017: The Missouri Democratic Party asked us to take another look at the evidence after this fact check ran in November. The party’s spokeswoman provided us with examples of other units that Josh Hawley created with dedicated staffs. She argued again that the attorney general’s reference to a public corruption "team," rather than "unit," showed Hawley had not fulfilled his promise. We have added those examples, as well as more information from Hawley’s camp. After further review, our rating remains the same. *** Democrats have accused Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley of breaking more than one promise. Now, incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill’s campaign says he has broken another. McCaskill campaign manager David Kirby released a statement in response to Hawley’s announcement for Senate, addressing a vow to prosecute public corruption. "He broke his promise to create a Public Corruption Unit to crack down on the pay-to-play culture of Jefferson City," Kirby said. You can see the full statement below. Download PDF But Hawley’s office says he has kept that promise. Who’s telling the truth? Let’s find out. Hawley’s campaign During his attorney general campaign, Hawley promised to create a public corruption unit that would "take a more aggressive role in aiding local and federal prosecutors investigating allegations of corruption." On the attorney general’s website, Hawley says he’s fulfilled his promise. The page defines the group as a team that "actively investigates and prosecutes official abuses of power and other corruption to keep Missouri government honest and clean." Hawley also referred to problems with "pay-to-play culture" in Jefferson City on the campaign trail. Pay-to-play is usually defined as money in exchange for services. What Democrats say When we reached out to McCaskill’s campaign for evidence, it pointed us to the Missouri Democratic Party. The party sent us language it said was from Hawley’s campaign website that specifically promised to use the public corruption unit to end pay-to-play in Jefferson City. "In addition to a public corruption unit, my ethics reform plan would prevent public officials from getting rich off the system, increase transparency, attack the pay-to-play politics of Jefferson City and ban lobbyist gifts to employees within the A.G.’s office — a ban that should be extended to the Missouri Legislature." We couldn’t verify that ourselves because that passage no longer exists on Hawley’s website, but the party also pointed us to a quote from a debate Hawley did on 93.9, the Eagle. "I have a plan to clean it up. I've announced that I would create a public corruption unit in the office of the Attorney General to coordinate local law enforcement, federal law enforcement, to prosecute, investigate and prosecute these public corruption crimes that have come to characterize Jefferson City and it's time that we took these measures," he said on May 17, 2016. Team vs. Unit Hawley’s website says he has a public corruption "team," not a "unit." Meira Bernstein, a party spokeswoman, pointed us to six other units in Hawley’s office that have dedicated staff. They are the Federalism Unit, the Anti-Human Trafficking Unit, and four units in the Public Safety Division. "There is absolutely no reason he would call the Public Corruption Team a ‘team’ rather than a ‘unit,’ other than the fact that it is different than a unit," Bernstein said. Here’s where we have to go back to the original promise. Hawley did not promise to create a public corruption unit "with dedicated staff." He promised to create a public corruption unit to "take a more aggressive role in aiding local and federal prosecutors investigating allegations of corruption." Whether he calls it a team or a unit, Hawley’s office provided substantial evidence proving he has done that. When asked about the team versus unit argument, Hawley’s deputy chief of staff Loree Anne Paradise said, "When you look up the word ‘team’ on Thesaurus.com, ‘unit’ is listed as a synonym." Does it matter? Though Hawley made some indications he would use the group to address pay-to-play in Jefferson City, it doesn’t necessarily prove what Democrats are claiming. Why? Because a public corruption team exists. The group is led by Deputy Attorney General Darrell Moore. Other lawyers working on the team include First Assistant John Sauer and Deputy Attorney General Michael Martinich-Sauter. Paradise said attorneys within the Public Safety Division also provide support, such as Greg Goodwin, Travis Lilly, Steven Kretzer and Locke Thompson. At the time of Kirby’s statement, the website page listed three cases the team has worked on. It now lists four cases, with the most recent press release dated December 1, 2017. Paradise said there are several other ongoing investigations that are not yet public. Hawley’s office said they find these public corruption cases in three primary ways. They receive tips from government officials and law enforcement, find cases themselves by actively looking for them and receive complaints issued by the Missouri Office of Constituent Services. After identifying a public corruption case, Hawley’s office said the investigation process requires complex analysis by a number of attorneys (depending on the case) and takes at least a couple of months. Democrats say the group didn’t exist until the Missouri Democratic Party started asking questions. Bernstein said the party made a Sunshine Request on July 12 for any emails regarding a public corruption unit. The next day, according to the Democratic Party’s timeline, Hawley sent a request that a page be created on his official website. Paradise did not specify when the webpage was created but said the team was in play months before Democrats’ accusations. The news release for the first case is dated April 5, 2017. The corruption team has prosecuted officials in Mississippi, Cooper and Cass counties. No state legislators or other Jefferson City officials have been prosecuted. Our ruling McCaskill’s campaign manager said Hawley "broke his promise to create a Public Corruption Unit to crack down on the pay-to-play culture of Jefferson City." Although Democrats contest when it was born and say he hasn’t used the team to crack down on "pay-to-play" in Jefferson City, the bottom lineis Hawley has prioritized prosecuting public corruption and created a team to make it happen. Regardless of whether the group is a team or unit, Hawley’s office still has a working group of lawyers who have already prosecuted four officials for public corruption. We rate this statement Mostly False. | null | Claire McCaskill | null | null | null | 2017-11-24T18:12:23 | 2017-10-10 | ['None'] |
snes-05935 | The day after Thanksgiving in the United States, Black Friday, is the biggest shopping day of the year. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/black-friday-biggest-shopping-day-year/ | null | Holidays | null | David Mikkelson | null | Is Black Friday the Biggest Shopping Day of the Year? | 28 November 2003 | null | ['United_States'] |
snes-01026 | Kehinde Wiley, the artist who painted former President Barack Obama's official portrait, also produced a pair of paintings depicting black women decapitating white people. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kehinde-wiley-painted-black-woman-severed-head/ | null | Racial Rumors | null | David Emery | null | Did Obama’s Portraitist Paint an Image of a Black Woman Holding the Severed Head of a White Person? | 13 February 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02649 | Malia Obama was expelled from Harvard for a drug violation. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/malia-obama-expelled-harvard/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Malia Obama Expelled from Harvard? | 10 April 2017 | null | ['Harvard_University'] |
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.