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chct-00317 | FACT CHECK: Was The Last Time The US 'Really' Reformed The Tax Code In 1986? | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2017/09/22/fact-check-was-the-last-time-the-us-significantly-reformed-the-tax-code-in-1986/ | null | null | null | Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 10:03 AM 09/22/2017 | null | ['None'] |
para-00114 | The world is moving away from carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes. | false | http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/11/tony-abbott/home-alone-rest-world-moving-away-carbon-pricing/index.html | null | ['Carbon Tax', 'Environment'] | Tony Abbott | Michael Koziol, Peter Fray | null | Home alone: is the rest of the world moving away from carbon pricing? | Thursday, July 11, 2013 at 9:01 a.m. | null | ['None'] |
vogo-00452 | Statement: About 21 percent of hate-crime victims in California two years ago were targeted based on their sexual orientation, Deputy District Attorney Oscar Garcia said Jan. 10 at a community meeting in Hillcrest. | determination: true | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/fact-check-whom-hate-crime-victimized/ | Analysis: The attacks came merely based on a perceived characteristic: gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or nationality. And in 2009, the state counted 1,321 victims. | null | null | null | null | Fact Check: Whom Hate Crime Victimized | January 13, 2011 | null | ['California'] |
pomt-02753 | Every major city which has a center of poverty is run by Democrats. Every major city. | mostly false | /punditfact/statements/2013/dec/15/newt-gingrich/new-gingrich-says-poverty-problems-are-tied-democr/ | A New York Times investigation detailing the plight of more than 22,000 homeless children in New York City prompted a fierce discussion about poverty in the United States on ABC’s This Week -- and specifically who’s to blame. Robert Reich, a Democrat and former Labor Department secretary, said Republicans shoulder responsibility for blocking legislation supported by Democrats and President Barack Obama. "Baloney," responded former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. "Every major city which has a center of poverty is run by Democrats," Gingrich said. "Every major city." We can’t easily assess whether Democrats or Republicans are to blame for poverty in U.S. cities, but we can analyze the basic statistics to see if Gingrich's point was correct. (Gingrich did not respond to us.) To measure the accuracy of Gingrich’s comment, we isolated the largest 50 U.S. cities using 2012 U.S. Census Bureau data. We then calculated the percentage of people in each city who are living below the federal poverty line, thanks to this Governing magazine report that relied on Census Bureau data. From there, we created a list of the 20 biggest U.S. cities with the largest percentage of people living below the federal poverty level (about $11,500 for one person). And finally, we researched the political party of the mayor in each city. Comparing poverty rates and political affiliation in large U.S. cities City % of people below poverty level Mayor Political party Detroit, MI 42.3 David Bing Democrat Cleveland, OH 36.1 Frank Jackson Democrat Miami, FL 31.7 Tomás Regalado Republican Fresno, CA 31.5 Ashley Swearengin Republican Milwaukee, WI 29.9 Tom Barrett Democrat Memphis, TN 28.3 A C Wharton Democrat Philadelphia, PA 26.9 Michael Nutter Democrat Tucson, AZ 26.7 Jonathan Rothschild Democrat Atlanta, GA 25.8 Kasim Reed Democrat Baltimore, MD 24.8 Stephanie Rawlings-Blake Democrat Phoenix, AZ 24.1 Greg Stanton Democrat Chicago, IL 23.9 Rahm Emanuel Democrat Dallas, TX 23.9 Mike Rawlings Democrat Houston, TX 23.5 Annise Parker Democrat Sacramento, CA 23.4 Kevin Johnson Democrat Los Angeles, CA 23.3 Eric Garcetti Democrat Long Beach, CA 22.9 Bob Foster Democrat El Paso, TX 22.8 Oscar Leeser Democrat Minneapolis, MN 22.7 R.T. Rybak Democrat Indianapolis, IN 22.2 Gregory Ballard Republican As you can see, out of the top 5 poorest major cities, two are led by Republicans -- Miami and Fresno, Calif. When we expand that to the top 20, we find three Republican mayors. For the record, New York -- which prompted the discussion -- ranked 25th out of the top 50 cities. Current New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has served as both a Republican and an independent. University of Michigan population studies professor Sheldon Danziger suggested analyzing state poverty levels and matching those with governors’ political ties would be more accurate than honing in on cities. Like we said at the outset, we’re staying away from drawing conclusions about poverty in U.S. cities and the political affiliation of their elected leader. We’re simply analyzing the statistics behind Gingrich’s comment. Our ruling Gingrich emphasized that every major, poor U.S. city is run by Democrats. We found two cities in the top 5 poorest, and three in the top 20, that have Republicans at the helm. Yes, most cities on the list are led by Democrats, but Gingrich said "every." As such, we rate his statement Mostly False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/4cfba731-6fa6-4ffe-8c24-c2fc2ae43b57 | null | Newt Gingrich | null | null | null | 2013-12-15T16:33:30 | 2013-12-15 | ['None'] |
pomt-07450 | General Electric "hasn't really created any jobs in this country, doesn't pay any taxes, and they're making historic profits." | half-true | /ohio/statements/2011/apr/20/marcy-kaptur/rep-marcy-kaptur-says-ge-pays-no-taxes-and-creates/ | Certain companies make natural targets for people who believe that multinational conglomerates game the United States tax system while the proverbial little guy can’t catch a break That’s why Rep. Marcy Kaptur brought up the names of certain companies while explaining her demand for fairness as Congress debated spending cuts. "I’m willing to support a package that is balanced," Kaptur, a Toledo Democrat, said during an April 6 interview on "On Point," a public radio show, when host Tom Ashbrook, asked what level of federal spending cuts and policy compromises she’d accept. Pointing to what she thinks is an imbalance, she cited the case of General Electric, "which hasn't really created any jobs in this country, doesn't pay any taxes and they're making historic profits." Her comments stood out because General Electric’s federal income taxes have been a matter of dispute. Did the Connecticut-based company, with $14.2 billion in earnings, avoid paying any U.S. corporate income taxes for 2010? A New York Times examination March 24 said so, noting in detail the tax-avoidance lengths -- all legal -- to which the company goes. Kaptur’s communications director, Steve Fought, says that Kaptur was referring to that article when making her comment. Yet that article has come under attack, and not just from GE. Another investigation, by the nonprofit journalism organization ProPublica and co-published with Fortune magazine, says the Times went too far. Due to various deductions, credits and an ace tax accounting team, GE got a $3.2 billion "tax benefit," both investigations found. But "tax benefit" is a financial term that is not the same as a tax refund or negative tax balance. So does GE "not pay any taxes," as Kaptur said? GE pays other kinds of taxes. But we believe that those following this issue -- especially public radio listeners -- knew that Kaptur meant income taxes. She was using a kind of shorthand that’s well known in public policy circles when discussing corporations’ avoidance and the way some shelter profits overseas. What is not disputed is that heavy losses from its financial unit, GE Capital, played a big role in helping GE avoid all U.S. income taxes for calendar year 2009. Forbes reported on this this last year and GE told us in an e-mail that "the total company lost money on its U.S. operations" in 2009. But Forbes suggests the Times was wrong about GE’s taxes for 2010. The Columbia Journalism Review sides with the Times, however. And Henry Blodget, a financial blogger and analyst who runs Business Insider, concludes that "GE is still trying to find a way, any way, to talk its way out of this." Our own discussions by phone and e-mail with GE spokeswoman Anne Eisele may illustrate why this is so hard to pin down. Eisele said in an e-mail: "We will file our 2010 tax returns by September. We expect to have a small, positive U.S. federal income tax liability." The figures reported elsewhere are based on pre-payments and projections. But that’s not quite the same as what GE said in a recent web statement: "GE paid significant U.S. income tax in 2010 and in total from 2006-2010." And AFP, an international wire service, reported that when it inquired about the dispute, Eisele replied in an e-mail saying, "GE did not pay U.S. federal taxes last year because we did not owe any." Confused? Add to that confusion something Eisele told us: "In 2010, GE paid significant federal income taxes for prior years." Presumably, that would mean GE paid taxes during 2010, but not for the 2010 tax year -- and presumably not for 2009 because GE reported that it lost money on U.S. operations that year. GE is not legally obligated to say what it actually paid or didn’t. You could put GE’s statements together like a jigsaw puzzle and the pieces seem to fit, but the statements are nuanced, qualified and at times legalistic. Given all this, we are going to hold this part of Kaptur’s claim in reserve. We’ll come back to it if the picture gets clearer. But what about Kaptur’s claim that GE "hasn’t really created any jobs in this country?" We turned to what we thought would be a reliable measure: GE’s annual 10-K filing, a self-reported, audited examination of its performance that it turns in to the Securities and Exchange Commission. We also looked at some of its annual reports to investors. In 2010, GE had 133,000 employees in the United States. In 2004, it had 165,000. The declines occurred every year, totaling 32,000 jobs lost in six years. If you went back even further you’d see more domestic job shedding. Meantime, the company’s foreign employment has shot upward. In 1996, GE had 84,000 workers in foreign countries. The number reached 172,000 by 2007 before dipping to 154,000 in 2010. GE itself has said it: There were growth opportunities abroad. Thousands of these job losses were the result of layoffs. Eisele attributed about 4,000 of them to the financial crisis and its effect on GE Capital. But she also said that since the beginning of 2009, "GE has announced plans to create nearly 7,000 new U.S. manufacturing jobs through 2013." She provided us with a list of those announcements, which listed 6,465 new jobs with GE plus others in support of a GE-related smart energy project. Furthermore, "GE's three largest industrial businesses (Energy, Aviation, and Healthcare) grew U.S. jobs 31% over the decade," Eisele said. But, even with these upcoming gains, GE will not employ as many people in the United States as it did in 2008. The expansion would create a blip, not a total comeback. Yet there is more to consider, Eisele said. About 33,000 jobs since 2004 are no longer on GE’s books because their divisions were sold or spun off, she said. "Those jobs weren't cut; they moved to other companies," she said. Add those 33,000 people back into the equation and the number of workers rises to 166,000. This math works in GE’s favor, because in 2001, GE reported 158,000 workers in the United States, and 165,000 in 2002. It gives credence to a GE assertion -- that if you factored in the dispositions, "GE's U.S. employment has increased from 2001 to 2010." But wait: It you decided to compare 2000 with 2010 -- going back just a year further -- a funny thing happens: GE winds up showing a loss again, even if you add those dispositions back in. We wanted a more precise accounting of job spin-offs by year so we could do a more exacting comparison, but Eisele said she did not have "that level of granularity" available. So how do we gauge Kaptur’s claim that General Electric "hasn’t really created any jobs in this country?" Using GE’s own filings to shareholders, Kaptur is correct. Backing out some of those losses because employees simply moved from GE’s books to successor companies’, the answer is: GE has mostly held steady since 2001 -- but not since 2000 or 1999. Getting precision beyond GE’s SEC filings requires, well, granularity. Kaptur made one more claim about GE -- that "they’re making historic profits." That’s false. GE reported $14.2 billion in continuing operations before taxes in 2010. But it was significantly higher in 2008, at $19.8 billion, and it was $27.52 billion in 2007. So, on the first part of Kaptur’s claim, the jury is still out. On the second part, GE’s self-reported numbers back her up. GE provided rough numbers that could point to a different conclusion, but it depends on the years selected. Short of much better detail -- if the company wants to go granular, we are here awaiting -- we go with the precise numbers the company reported to the SEC. But Kaptur is wrong on the third part of her claim. While $14.2 billion is a lot of money, it set no GE record. When arrows compete for opposite poles, the Truth-O-Meter turns to the only place it can: Half True. Comment on this item. | null | Marcy Kaptur | null | null | null | 2011-04-20T06:00:00 | 2011-04-06 | ['None'] |
pomt-08873 | This is the first time since the Depression that unemployment has stayed above 9 percent for two consecutive years. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/03/john-boehner/john-boehner-says-unemployment-has-exceeded-9-perc/ | On the Aug. 1, 2010, edition of Fox News Sunday, House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, tried to crystallize how bad the current job picture is. "This is the first time since the depression that unemployment has stayed above 9 percent for two consecutive years," Boehner told host Chris Wallace. We decided to check whether Boehner was right. We looked at the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the federal agency responsible for calculating the national unemployment rate. It showed that unemployment has been 9 percent or higher for 14 months running, from May 2009 to June 2010. That's well short of the two years Boehner suggested. And before the downturn, it never got close to being as bad as Boehner claims. BLS' searchable figures go back to 1948, so we looked through the full data to find historical comparisons. Since 1948, there have only been two periods prior to the current stretch when unemployment exceeded 9 percent. There was a one-month blip in May 1975, and then a 19-month period between March 1982 and September 1983 when unemployment never dipped below 9 percent. Pre-1948 data is not as comprehensive, but a BLS study shows that things were far, far worse during the Great Depression. The estimated annual unemployment rates stayed above 9 percent for more than a decade -- from 1931 to 1941. Between 1932 and 1935, the unemployment rate exceeded 20 percent in each year. We considered the possibility that Boehner might have simply misspoken, intending to say that unemployment had exceeded 8 percent for two consecutive years. But that isn't correct either. If you go back a full two years, the unemployment rate in July 2008 was 5.8 percent. From today's vantage point, that seems like a whole lifetime ago. So any way you look at it, Boehner's statistic was wrong. We rate his statement False. | null | John Boehner | null | null | null | 2010-08-03T12:28:01 | 2010-08-01 | ['None'] |
hoer-00508 | Millions of Turkeys Recalled Due to Avian Virus | statirical reports | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/millions-turkeys-recalled-fake-news.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Fake-News Story Claims Millions of Turkeys Recalled Due to Avian Virus | November 24, 2014 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00439 | Jennifer Lopez Giving Alex Rodriguez Proposal Ultimatum? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-lopez-alex-rodriguez-proposal-ultimatum/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Jennifer Lopez Giving Alex Rodriguez Proposal Ultimatum? | 10:03 am, August 17, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03272 | The modern image of Santa Claus was created by the Coca-Cola Company. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/ | null | Holidays | null | David Mikkelson | null | Did Coca-Cola Invent the Modern Image of Santa Claus? | 18 December 2001 | null | ['The_Coca-Cola_Company'] |
pomt-14839 | Forty-five states allow open carry of firearms. | mostly true | /florida/statements/2015/nov/18/marion-hammer/there-are-45-states-allow-open-carry-handguns-form/ | The former president of the National Rifle Association is defending bills in the Florida Legislature proposing the open carry of handguns, saying the vast majority of states already allow the practice. Marion Hammer, currently executive director of United Sportsmen of Florida, responded to criticism of SB 300 and its companion in the House, HB 163. In a column posted on the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action website on Nov. 1, 2015, Hammer pointed out how many states allow open carry. "Forty-five (45) states allow open carry of firearms," she wrote. "Varying restrictions on open carry in some states does not alter the fact that 45 states allow open carry." Hammer was refuting Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who is the Florida Sheriffs Association Legislative Committee chairman. Gualtieri, whose group opposes the bills, previously told the Palm Beach Post it’s not really accurate to say those 45 states allow open carry because there are various rules and restrictions on the practice. PolitiFact Florida decided to get to the bottom of just how many states do let you carry guns openly in public. Laws across states The bills filed in the state Legislature would allow anyone with a valid concealed weapons permit to also carry their handgun openly, a practice currently prohibited by law. Obtaining a license for concealed carry already includes requirements for registration, fingerprinting and firearm training. Florida has about 1.4 million concealed weapon permit holders. Both bills are pending approval by committees before the 2016 legislative session. Hammer told PolitiFact Florida that her figure came from the NRA’s own research of state laws. According to that analysis, there are four other states that prohibit handgun open carry in public places like Florida — California, Illinois, New York and South Carolina. The District of Columbia does not allow it, either. Hammer is equating the lack of an outright ban in other states with the other 45 states allowing the practice, but it isn’t quite that cut and dried. There are different rules and restrictions in different places, and some so-called open carry states can be very specific about what’s required. The Florida bills address the open carry of handguns, so that's the context of Hammer's column. There are other states that allow the open carry of handguns while restricting long guns, such as rifles and shotguns. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence agrees with the NRA on the same five states that prohibit open carry. But the center points out that Massachusetts, Minnesota and New Jersey prohibit the open carry of long guns, just as Florida, California, Illinois and D.C. do. But New York and South Carolina allow open carry for long guns, while preventing it for handguns. So Hammer’s statement that 45 states allow the open carry of firearms, period, is imprecise. Further, 15 states require a permit or license to open carry, while eight more have other restrictions on how, when or where you are allowed to do so. Some municipalities restrict open carry in ways their state doesn’t. In Pennsylvania, open carry is generally allowed without a license, but Philadelphia does require a license. There are even more caveats about specific states and where they land on the open carry spectrum. For example, gun rights group OpenCarry.org doesn’t include Texas on its list of open carry states, because its recently passed law doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2016. Like Florida’s proposed change, the state’s concealed carry license will become an open carry license for handguns as well. There are also states that could be categorized differently depending on how you interpret the local laws. The NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action noted Arkansas is hard to categorize. The state decriminalized the open or concealed carry of a loaded handgun in 2013, but the state’s ban was not repealed. Attorney General Leslie Rutledge said in a nonbinding opinion that the law was intended to protect people traveling through or across the state, even though open carry was still technically against the law. The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence notes you generally can’t carry openly or concealed in Arkansas with the gun "readily available for use with a purpose to employ (it) as a weapon against a person." All the groups we consulted agreed California is not an open-carry state because it banned open carry of loaded handguns starting in 2012, but there’s still more to the story. If you live in a California county with less than 200,000 people, you can ask the local sheriff or police chief to give you an open-carry license at his or her discretion. Of course, the license is only good for that county, but there’s wiggle room in saying California prohibits open carry. Our ruling Hammer said, "Forty-five states allow open carry of firearms." Groups both for and against stricter gun laws told us there are five states that have laws banning open carry for handguns: California, Florida, Illinois, New York and South Carolina. It’s worth remembering, however, that the laws in some open-carry states are not as permissive as Hammer makes it seem. Several states have restrictions on the open carry of certain types of firearms, and in some places the rules are stricter than others. We rate Hammer’s statement Mostly True. | null | Marion Hammer | null | null | null | 2015-11-18T17:26:06 | 2015-11-01 | ['None'] |
pomt-05506 | The "Buffett rule" "raises virtually no money, maybe a day and a half of our borrowing per year." | mostly true | /rhode-island/statements/2012/apr/15/barry-hinckley/republican-senate-candidate-barry-hinckley-says-bu/ | When Mitt Romney was in Rhode Island last week as part of his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, GOP Senate candidate Benjamin "Barry" Hinckley III asked him a question about the Obama administration’s effort to raise taxes on the wealthy. Hinckley -- who is challenging Democratic U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the lead sponsor of the so-called "Buffet Rule" legislation -- asked how Romney would respond to the tax plan. As part of his introduction to the question, Hinckley dismissed the bill as part of the "politics of envy" and described it as "a plan that is so obviously political because it raises virtually no money, maybe a day and a half of our borrowing per year." The bill, which is officially known as the Paying a Fair Share Act, would increase the income tax rate on those who earn more than $1 million annually to 30 percent. It was inspired by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who has said it is unfair that he is able to use tax loopholes to pay a lower effective rate than his secretary. The Senate is set to vote on the bill Monday. Other opponents of the legislation have questioned how much money it would actually raise and whether it would make a dent in the national debt. But does the amount really correspond to just "a day and a half" of what the United States borrows annually? Hinckley’s statement relies on two numbers -- how much the nation borrows on a daily basis and how much the Buffet rule would raise per year. While we waited to hear back from Hinckley’s campaign, we started researching the issue, starting with what the federal government borrows to cover the national debt, a subject we have explored before. PolitiFact Florida and PolitiFact Georgia also have all written pieces on the national debt and what it works out to per day. We’ll use the same rationale as those items from 2011 but update the numbers. The national debt is the total amount of money owed by the federal government to creditors who have loaned the government money. That debt has grown by an average of $4.2 billion per day since January 2009. The rate has slowed down more recently. Since January 2012, the average daily increase has been about $3.9 billion. The total debt stood at $15.6 trillion as of April 11, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury. As Politifact Florida made clear, the government does not borrow money every day to stay afloat. Rather, it does so by periodically auctioning bonds. But the logic of calculating the borrowing per day is reasonable. For our purposes, we’ll use a rate of borrowing of $3.9 billion per day. The second part of Hinckley’s statement -- how much the Buffett rule would raise -- is based on a projection from Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, according to Whitehouse spokesman Seth Larson. The committee estimated that increasing the tax rate paid by the wealthiest Americans would raise $47 billion over 10 years, or $4.7 billion a year. But that estimate is based on a comparison to the "current law baseline," which assumes the full expiration of the Bush tax cuts. If the Bush tax cuts are extended -- a distinct possibility with a Republican-controlled House -- then the Buffet rule would raise $160 billion over 10 years, or $16 billion a year. Both are valid estimates. "They’re two separate projections based on two different scenarios," said Larson. A spokesman for Hinckley said that the candidate used the $4.7 billion figure and a range of estimates for borrowing that, at the high end, is nearly identical to our number. So if we divide $4.7 billion by $3.9 billion, we get 1.2, or the equivalent of 1 day and about 5 hours. That’s actually less than a day and a half. If we use the $16 billion figure, we calculated the Buffet rule would raise the equivalent of about four days of the nation’s borrowing. Our ruling Senate candidate Barry Hinckley says the Buffett rule would annually raise only "a day and a half" of what the federal government borrows every year. Our calculations yield a number closer to a day and a quarter, which would actually bolster Hinckley’s point that the tax plan raises "virtually no money." In relative terms, he may have a point, but $4.7 billion is not a small amount of money. (Rhode Island’s total budget is $7.7 billion.) Moreover, by another estimate, increasing taxes on the wealthy could raise $16 billion a year, or the equivalent of four days of the nation’s borrowing. Because of that issue and others related to calculating the national debt per day, Hinckley’s is not a perfect comparison. Because the statement needs clarification, we rate it Mostly True. (Get updates from PolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on our PolitiFact Rhode Island Facebook page.) | null | Barry Hinckley | null | null | null | 2012-04-15T06:00:00 | 2012-04-11 | ['None'] |
snes-04086 | George Soros said that he funded the Black Lives Matter movement because he wanted to 'bring down the United States' and 'the black community is the easiest to manipulate.' | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/george-soros-bring-down-us/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | George Soros Said: ‘I’m Going to Bring Down the U.S. by Funding Black Hate Groups’? | 7 September 2016 | null | ['United_States', 'George_Soros'] |
goop-02396 | Miley Cyrus Said Satan Is “Nice Guy” But “Misunderstood”? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/miley-cyrus-satan-nice-guy-misunderstood-devil/ | null | null | null | Holly Nicol | null | Miley Cyrus Said Satan Is “Nice Guy” But “Misunderstood”? | 3:00 pm, October 1, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00171 | An image shows a 'Time' cover featuring Colin Kaepernick as the magazine's 'Person of the Year' for 2018. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/colin-kaepernick-2018-person-of-the-year/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Is Colin Kaepernick on the Cover of Time Magazine as the 2018 ‘Person of the Year?’ | 24 August 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-06370 | Swiffer WetJet Pet Danger | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/swiffer-wetjet-pet-danger/ | null | Critter Country | null | David Mikkelson | null | Swiffer WetJet Pet Danger | 17 May 2004 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03436 | Says abortion increases the risk of breast cancer. | pants on fire! | /ohio/statements/2013/jun/24/ron-hood/state-rep-ron-hood-links-abortion-and-breast-cance/ | A group of Ohio House Republicans has introduced legislation aimed at reducing abortions through an extensive list of restrictions and requirements. Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, the sponsor of the legislation, House Bill 200, said he drafted it based on talks with the National Pro-Life Alliance. He said it was intended to make women more aware of what they are doing to "make an informed choice." Among its provisions, the bill would require abortion providers to tell patients about "the increased risk of breast cancer" from abortion. PolitiFact Ohio wanted to know more about that warning. We called to ask Hood for the source. His legislative aide referred us to the website of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, an advocacy group that asserts there has been a "cover-up" of a link between abortion and breast cancer. A review of the website shows that the group's case for a link is supported largely by the work of Dr. Joel Brind, a member of the group's advisory board, who is a professor of biochemistry at Baruch College in New York City and is recognized as the leading proponent of an abortion-breast cancer link; and Dr. Angela Lanfranchi, a breast cancer surgeon in New Jersey who, with Brind, co-founded the Breast Cancer Prevention Institute to help publicize what is sometimes called the ABC (for abortion-breast cancer) link. A review of the history shows their work is a significant part of what has been called "abortion politics." Research on a possible connection had been going on for decades when Brind published an analysis in the 1990s that suggested a link between induced abortion (the deliberate ending of a pregnancy) and an increased risk of breast cancer. But the analysis was based on studies that relied on survey interviews of women, which were widely questioned because of factors including "response bias" -- the inaccurate self-reporting of medical history information by participants. Subsequent studies using larger groups and data not subject to bias found no link, according to sources including the National Cancer Institute. In 2003, largely because of political questions raised over the "ABC link," the NCI convened a three-day conference of experts on abortion and cancer. Based on a review of population-based, clinical and animal studies, they concluded that having an abortion or miscarriage does not increase a woman’s subsequent risk of developing breast cancer. Hood also pointed specifically to a 2009 paper by Lanfranchi about the mechanisms of cancer. It asserted that a prematurely ended pregnancy leaves a woman with more cancer-susceptible breast tissue than when the pregnancy began. Also in 2009, however, the Committee on Gynecologic Practice of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists concluded that "more rigorous recent studies demonstrate no causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk." PolitiFact does not do medical or scientific analysis. We rely, as we do in other areas, on the most reliable and independent sources available. The World Health Organization says that abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer. Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists says that abortion does not increase the risk of breast cancer. The American Cancer Society says: "scientific research studies have not found a cause-and-effect relationship between abortion and breast cancer." The Susan. G. Komen Foundation says there is no link. The National Cancer Institute gives its highest strength-of-evidence ratings to the statements that: Induced abortion is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk. Recognized spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) is not associated with an increase in breast cancer risk. Women who have had an induced abortion have the same risk of breast cancer as other women. Women who have had a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) have the same risk of breast cancer as other women. Cancers other than breast cancer also appear to be unrelated to a history of induced or spontaneous abortion. The credible research overwhelmingly contradicts the statement in Hood’s legislation. It’s a ridiculous claim, and even more ridiculous to force doctors to spread this misinformation to patients. Pants on Fire! | null | Ron Hood | null | null | null | 2013-06-24T06:00:00 | 2013-06-12 | ['None'] |
pomt-14797 | The Family Research Council, according to some government agencies, is a terrorist group. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/01/ben-carson/ben-carson-incorrect-government-agency-considers-f/ | Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, the top news story was the incident in which a gunman killed three people and shot nine others at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo. During a Nov. 29 interview, CNN host Brianna Keilar asked Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson about the incident. "Planned Parenthood is calling this now an act of domestic terrorism," Keilar said. "Do you agree with that assessment?" Responding by satellite link from Jordan, where he had gone to visit Syrian refugee camps, Carson said, "It certainly is an act of extreme hatred and violence. You know, the Family Research Council, according to some government agencies, is a terrorist group. You know, so let's get away from the rhetoric and talk about the real problem." A reader asked us to check whether it’s true that government agencies had labeled the Family Research Council a terrorist group. So we took a closer look. The council would seem like an odd group to be labeled "terrorist." A prominent think tank for social conservatives, the council hardly lives in the shadows. Its experts appear regularly on television, it has a prominent headquarters building in downtown Washington, and its legislative affiliate sponsors a high-profile annual political conference called the Value Voters Summit that attracts a variety of top politicians, including such Republican presidential contenders as … Ben Carson. We didn’t find that any government agencies have labeled the council as a terrorist group. But the council has sparked condemnation from a high-profile civil rights group, and it seems possible that might be what Carson was thinking of. (Neither Carson’s staff nor the Family Research Council responded to inquiries for this story.) The Southern Poverty Law Center -- a nonprofit based in Montgomery, Ala., that monitors "domestic hate groups and other extremists, including the Ku Klux Klan, the neo-Nazi movement, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, black separatists, anti-government militias, Christian Identity adherents and others" -- has labeled the Family Research Council an "extremist group." Specifically, the Southern Poverty Law Center writes on its website that the Family Research Council’s "specialty is defaming gays and lesbians. The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to denigrate LGBT people" in various public-policy battles. The center separately lists several of the Family Research Council’s leaders, including president Tony Perkins and retired Lt. Gen William G. (Jerry) Boykin, the group’s executive vice president, in its category for individual "extremists." Such designations have flummoxed some observers, including some who generally lean liberal, such as Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, who wrote, "I disagree with the Family Research Council's views on gays and lesbians. But it's absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church." The Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation appears to have contributed to a violent incident when 28-year-old Floyd Corkins shot and wounded a security guard at the Family Research Council’s headquarters in August 2012. The gunman told law enforcement that he was opposed to the council’s socially conservative policies and had targeted the group after using the Southern Poverty Law Center’s website. Corkins later pleaded guilty to transporting a firearm over state lines, assault with intent to kill, and committing an act of terrorism while armed. We won’t take a position on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s designation, but we should note that while calling the Family Research Council an "extremist" group is a serious charge, it’s not the same thing as saying the council is a "terrorist" group. The former generally refers to someone who holds extreme views. The latter generally involves something more -- the threat or use of violence to advance such extreme views. For the record, the Southern Poverty Law Center does not consider the Family Research Council a "terrorist" group, said Heidi Beirich, a spokeswoman for the group. "We have no such list," she said. That said, there has been some blurring of the lines, at least linguistically. " 'Terrorism' and 'violent extremism' are often used interchangeably -- the Obama administration's policy on countering 'violent extremism' was explicitly intended to replace the term ‘terrorism,' " said Charles Kurzman, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill who has studied terrorism. More definitively for the purpose of gauging Carson’s statement, the Southern Poverty Law Center is not a government agency. So are there any federal agency lists that label the Family Research Council a terrorist group? The only official, public list of terrorist groups is maintained by the State Department, and the Family Research Council isn’t on it. That list is designed to catalogue foreign terrorist organizations. Indeed, there is no equivalent list for domestic terrorist groups, though the FBI has cited some broad categories that it considers potential sources of domestic terrorism, including eco-terrorists and animal rights extremists, sovereign citizens movements, anarchist extremism, militia extremism and white supremacy extremism. The Family Research Council is not mentioned by name in any of these categories. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security produced a report in April 2009 titled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." When the report was leaked to the public, the newly installed Obama administration took significant heat from some conservatives who said the report unfairly labeled right-of-center groups as potential sources of violence. However, neither this report -- nor another Department of Homeland Security study focusing on a broader range of potential ideologically driven threats -- lists the Family Research Council, or, for that matter, any other specific conservative groups. "I do not know of any source that lists the Family Research Council as a ‘terrorist group,’ " said Pete Simi, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, where he serves as director of radicalization and violent groups research. Our ruling Carson said, "the Family Research Council, according to some government agencies, is a terrorist group." The Family Research Council has been labeled an "extremist" group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, but that’s not the same as a "terrorist" group and, more importantly, the center is a private, non-profit group, not a government agency. We could find no government agency that singled out the Family Research Council as a terrorist group, and experts told us they were unaware of any government lists that did. We rate Carson’s statement False. | null | Ben Carson | null | null | null | 2015-12-01T12:08:16 | 2015-11-29 | ['None'] |
pomt-08393 | Says Rick Perry recently said he "wanted another (Texas) business tax." | pants on fire! | /texas/statements/2010/oct/23/kathie-glass/kathie-glass-says-rick-perry-told-houston-newspape/ | Libertarian gubernatorial nominee Kathie Glass vowed to cut the state budget in half during an Oct. 19 debate in Austin also featuring Democratic candidate Bill White and Green Party hopeful Deb Shafto. There was more to her vision of revenue and taxes. "We need to end property taxes and end (business) franchise taxes," Glass said. Then came a revelation: "In the Sunday Houston Chronicle, Gov. (Rick) Perry said that he wanted another business tax." Missed that Perry bombshell? Us too. Far as we can tell, Perry has lately ruled out tax hikes. In an Oct. 15 interview with the Texas Tribune, the governor reaffirmed his intent not to raise taxes to balance the next state budget, adding that he's got a track record of no tax increases--a claim that we're not checking in this article. So what about Perry calling for another business tax? Glass's campaign pointed us to a news article on page A-10 of the Oct. 17 Houston Chronicle titled "Where They Stand," subtitled "the candidates for governor, on the issues." The article briefs where Perry and White stand on such topics as higher and public education, border security, state spending and economic development. And in the economic development portion, it says Perry claims his policies resulted in jobs being added to Texas and brags that Texas has been hailed as the nation's leading state for business. The next sentence--highlighted by Glass's camp--says Perry cut "property taxes by $15.5 billion statewide, paid for in part by the adoption of a new business tax." Huh. We read that sentence as referring to 2006 legislation encouraged by Perry that resulted in the state picking up a bigger share of public school funding by using state revenues--including money from a major revision of the state's business franchise tax--to cover reductions in local school property tax rates. We called Glass to to share our read of the Chronicle story. Glass said: "I just read it differently and I am not willing to give Perry any slack. He should have been there" at the debate. She was referring to Perry's refusal to join any debate with White unless White released additional tax returns. Our conclusion is that Glass's statement greatly distorts the Chronicle story which--if Perry had called for a new tax--would have landed on the front page. In fact, we smell smoke. Pants on Fire! | null | Kathie Glass | null | null | null | 2010-10-23T06:00:00 | 2010-10-19 | ['Texas', 'Rick_Perry'] |
snes-01385 | Congress has a "slush fund" from which it has paid $17 million to women who accused members of sexual harassment or abuse | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/congress-use-slush-fund-pay-17-million-women-sexually-harassed/ | null | Politics | null | Bethania Palma | null | Did Congress Use a ‘Slush Fund’ to Pay $17 Million to Women They Sexually Harassed? | 30 November 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13653 | The Iran nuclear deal is "putting billions of dollars back into a country that’s the world’s largest supporter of terrorism. We are actually giving them the money to fund the terrorists that are killing us and our allies." | half-true | /new-york/statements/2016/aug/05/rudy-giuliani/no-one-writing-iran-check-under-nuclear-deal/ | Speaking at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani took aim at the U.S. nuclear weapons deal with Iran last year. "To defeat Islamic extremist terrorists, we must put them on defense. If they are at war against us, which they have declared, we must commit ourselves to unconditional victory against them," Giuliani said. "This includes undoing one of the worst deals America ever made - Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran that will eventually let them become a nuclear power and it’s putting billions of dollars back into a country that’s the world’s largest supporter of terrorism. We are actually giving them the money to fund the terrorists that are killing us and our allies. We are giving them the money. Are we crazy? Donald Trump will make sure any agreement with Iran meets the original goals of the U.N. and our allies - a non-nuclear Iran." Republicans in Congress have opposed the nuclear deal. They tried to block it through a vote in the Senate, but the effort failed by two votes. Since then it’s been a talking point on the campaign trail both in national and statewide races. Is Giuliani right about the details of the Iran nuclear deal? ‘Billions of dollars’ to Iran A similar claim has been made before about the money Iran will receive under the deal. In March, Donald Trump said in Florida that Iran would be given $150 billion ‘for nothing’ as part of the deal. As PolitiFact has reported previously, the money already belongs to Iran and the final amount is expected to be closer to $50 billion. Giuliani did not specify an amount that Iran will receive. PolitiFact previously rated Donald Trump’s claim as False. Money to Iran The countries involved are not collectively writing a check to Iran. According to Richard Nephew from Columbia University, the money is revenue from oil and gas sales that foreign banks are forced to hold. With the sanctions lifted, Iran was expected to end up with about $50 billion after financial obligations and other matters, according to experts we spoke to and testimony from Treasury Secretary Jack Lew. Iran would not receive the money without U.S. permission. If the U.S. had not cut a deal with Iran, the funds would still be frozen under the sanctions. So while no taxpayer money goes to Iran, the U.S. allowed Iran to receive billions of dollars. It’s unclear how much money has been released to Iran. The sanctions were lifted when the deal was implemented earlier this year, but only the Iranian Central Bank knows exactly how much is available to the country. Sponsor of terrorism More than 30 years ago the U.S. State Department designated Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism. The country remains on that list. Each year the State Department releases reports on international terrorism for Congress and the public. This year’s report was released in June. In a briefing with reporters to discuss the report, the department’s acting Coordinator for Counterterrorism Justin Siberell called Iran the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Iran sponsors Hezbollah in Lebanon, terrorist groups in Gaza, and groups in Iraq and the Middle East. Experts we spoke to are mixed on whether the deal means Iran has increased terror funding. Matthew Kroenig from Georgetown University suggests that could happen. No experts had evidence that Iran's funding of terror groups had grown. Our ruling At the Republican National Convention, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the United States is giving Iran billions of dollars under the Iran nuclear deal and that the money is being used to fund terrorists. He also called Iran the world’s largest supporter of terrorism. Giuliani is right that Iran ranks as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. The billions of dollars released to Iran was already Iran’s money, but could only be released with U.S. consent. On the last part of Giuiani's claim, experts have said it’s difficult to know whether Iran has used any of the money to sponsor terrorist groups. We rate this claim as Half True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/d81d1a7d-7aa5-47d8-b7e3-1859f23fc5b8 | null | Rudy Giuliani | null | null | null | 2016-08-05T15:05:12 | 2016-07-18 | ['Iran'] |
pomt-05874 | This year President Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House under the ruse of ‘not wanting to offend anyone.' BUT … on September 25, 2009 from 4 AM until 7 PM, a National Day of Prayer FOR THE MUSLIM RELIGION was HELD on Capitol Hill, Beside the White House. | mostly false | /new-jersey/statements/2012/feb/09/chain-email/claim-obama-canceled-national-day-prayer-has-been-/ | The people behind a chain email circulating in New Jersey about President Barack Obama and the National Day of Prayer might want to think about the sin of omission. That’s omission, as in omitting facts. The email, received Jan. 30 by PolitiFact New Jersey, claimed in 2010 that Obama canceled a National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House in 2009, but later that year a National Day of Prayer for Muslims was permitted on Capitol Hill, beside the White House. The email reads, in part: "This year President Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House under the ruse of ‘not wanting to offend anyone,’" the email reads. "BUT … on September 25, 2009 from 4 AM until 7 PM, a National Day of Prayer FOR THE MUSLIM RELIGION was HELD on Capitol Hill, Beside the White House." Most of the claims in the email don’t have a prayer of being accurate, PolitiFact New Jersey found. There are several statements to address. Let’s start with the origins of the National Day of Prayer, which is an annual observance for people of all faiths. President Harry Truman established the day as a national event in 1952. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a resolution designating the first Thursday in May as the National Day of Prayer. Every president since – including Obama – has issued a proclamation to recognize the day. Obama, however, has not held the National Day of Prayer ceremony at the White House that President George W. Bush had for eight years. Presidents George H.W. Bush held one, in 1989, and Reagan also held one, in 1982. President Bill Clinton had none. So, there have not been 21 annual National Day of Prayer ceremonies, as the email claims. In fact-checking this email, we found at least 30 published reports in a basic Google search debunking various claims in it. While those reports confirm that Obama decided against the public White House ceremony, none state exactly why. In a May 7, 2009 CNN video, a representative with the Christian Broadcast Network speculated the cancelation might stem from publicity about controversial comments once made by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s longtime pastor in Chicago. Other articles imply that a statement in Obama’s inaugural speech about inclusivity of all religions and nonreligions in the United States might have been a factor. At the time, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said of Obama’s plans on the National Day of Prayer, "Privately, he’ll pray as he does every day." The same is expected this year. "As he has done each of the last three years, President Obama will continue to recognize the National Day of Prayer," White House spokesman Brandon Lepow said in an email. Next, let’s review the claim about "a National Day of Prayer FOR THE MUSLIM RELIGION" being held "on Capitol Hill, Beside the White House." The Jummah Prayer on Capitol Hill event was a one-time only activity coordinated by the Dar-ul-Islam mosque in Elizabeth to "clear up myths about Muslims," said Imam Ali Jaaber, who attended the Sept. 25, 2009 event. It was never billed as a National Day Of Prayer. Hassen Abdellah, board president at Dar-ul-Islam, organized the event in response to positive remarks by Obama in his inaugural speech and during another speech five months later in Egypt about welcoming and acknowledging the presence of Muslims in the United States, Jaaber said. Also, Capitol Hill is approximately one mile from the White House – not beside it. And, Muslim is not a religion. A person who follows the religion Islam is a Muslim. Our ruling A chain email circulating in New Jersey that Obama canceled the 21st annual National Day of Prayer ceremony in 2009 but a National Day of Prayer for Muslims was held later that year on Capitol Hill is full of inaccuracies. While it’s true that Obama did not hold a public ceremony at the White House that President George W. Bush did, it’s untrue that the ceremony would have been the 21st annual event. But wait – there’s more: the email’s author incorrectly located Capitol Hill as "beside" the White House and identified Muslim as a religion. Despite the numerous errors in the email, it does contain an element of truth -- and that fits the Truth-O-Meter’s definition for Mostly False. To comment on this story, go to NJ.com. | null | Chain email | null | null | null | 2012-02-09T07:30:00 | 2012-01-30 | ['White_House', 'Barack_Obama', 'National_Day_of_Prayer', 'Capitol_Hill'] |
pomt-06863 | The (State Board of Administration) transparency issue got a great airing the last legislative session. | false | /florida/statements/2011/aug/02/ash-williams/florida-state-investment-chief-says-transparency-w/ | Facing questions about the handling of the state's $130 billion investment portfolio, the executive director and chief investment officer of the State Board of Administration tried to reassure Florida Gov. Rick Scott that everything is fine. SBA executive director Ash Williams defended SBA procedures and policies to Scott and members of the Florida Cabinet on Aug. 2, 2011. The comments came following a St. Petersburg Times analysis, which found that state investments would have yielded a better return sitting in an automated index fund than they did under high-priced investment consultants. The SBA currently invests about $130 billion for more than 1 million current and future government retirees and hundreds of state and local government agencies. Part of the concern for Scott, were questions about whether the SBA is handling its transactions in secret. "What about the question about transparency?" Scott asked Williams. "Are there things that we ought to be doing that we're not doing yet?" "Well, I think the transparency issue got a great airing the last legislative session. We have for the most part full transparency," Williams said. "All of our publicly traded activity is very readily observable or obviously subject to the public records law. We have one very narrow slice of our activity that has a very limited exception from Florida's public records law and that relates to alternative investments and subjects them to a certain type of review prior to being released." What stuck out to us at PolitiFact Florida was Williams' suggestion that the question of transparency at the SBA "got a great airing the last legislative session." (After all, we witnessed the entire legislative session firsthand.) Was that what really happened? The 2011 annual legislative session came and went with lengthy debate on a number of issues. We remember hours of debate about a bill -- which ultimately failed -- that would have eliminated the automatic payroll deduction of union dues for public employees. We remember feisty arguments and a fair amount of public testimony about a bill that passed (and is now being challenged in court) altering Florida voter laws. Early in the session, debate zeroed in on an education bill that would eliminate a form of tenure for public school teachers. Late in the session, in the Senate, debate roiled over an immigration bill. We can list others -- bills about abortion, the state budget and amending the state's growth management laws all consumed hours of time in the 60-day spring session. But again, back to Williams' statement -- transparency at the SBA. We searched and found one bill on the topic -- HB 7225 (the identical Senate bill was SB 2174). The bill was filed in order to extend a public records exemption for the SBA that was set to expire. Specifically, it renews a 2006 law giving the SBA an exemption from public records requirements for "proprietary confidential business information." The bill passed the Senate 33-3 (one senator originally voted yes, but changed -- more on that later) and the House 114-1. It was signed into law by Scott on May 31. Williams explained the 2006 law and the extension this way to Scott and Cabinet members as part of his Aug. 12 comments: "That law has been in effect and affects less than 10 percent of the SBA's portfolio, so the other 90-plus percent doesn’t have any of that protection," he said. "That law was under sunset review last legislative session. It was heard extensively in committees and in the House and Senate, and the overwhelming vote of the Legislature was that it was in the public interest, so much so that it was reinstated and the future recurring sunset review of it was removed because it's been in place for so many years that the judgment of the Legislature in public hearings and after extensive staff review was that it actually served the public interest well." The Florida Senate and House websites archive video of committee meetings, as well as regular floor sessions. So by retracing the path of the bill, we were able to watch the entire debate over HB 7225 and SB 2174. Lucky for us, there wasn't a lot. The measure was first heard in the Senate Governmental Oversight and Accountability on April 5. It was explained by a Senate staffer (the de facto sponsor, Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate, was not at the meeting.) After its introduction, Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, asked several questions about the records exemption and whether it was necessary. Eventually, Williams responded to Fasano's questions directly in a back-and-forth that lasted a little less than 20 minutes. At one point, Fasano showed SBA documents that had been heavily redacted. "It's all blank, Mr. Chairman. There's nothing. It just goes on and on," he said. Williams, in response, noted that the document Fasano was referring to -- an Invitation to Negotiate for legal services -- was heralded as being a model of transparency by a national group. That didn't win over Fasano, who continued to voice strong objections. Another senator, Jack Latvala, R-Clearwater, also voiced concern. The proposal, which didn't get a vote that day, returned before the same committee April 14, when senators heard and discussed the bill for 10 minutes. No one from the public spoke; neither did Williams. Fasano reiterated his concerns, as did Latvala. Democratic Sen. Bill Montford of Tallahassee said he had no problem with the exemption, and Ring defended the proposal -- saying companies now doing business with the state would walk away if the public records exemption were allowed to expire. It passed the committee 11-2. On the same day, April 14, a House committee heard its version of the same bill. Discussion lasted three minutes and 15 seconds. Republican Paige Kreegel of Punta Gorda asked sponsor Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Panama City, if there had been concerns over some of the SBA's investments. Patronis didn't directly answer the question, saying the two members could talk later, and that the bill had another committee stop. The bill passed unanimously 17-0. But it never went to another committee. Instead, it appeared on the House floor April 28, where it was read the required second and third times and passed by the full chamber 114-1 in a total of 57 seconds. The Senate then took up the House version of the legislation the next day (though the versions were identical). The Senate read the bill a second and third time as required, and without any discussion or debate -- voted 34-2 in favor. Fasano, originally a yes vote, changed his vote to no, making the final outcome 33-3. Total time on the Senate floor: One minute, 30 seconds. Overall, the SBA public records exemption was a topic for less than 36 minutes in a public meeting, according to our review of videos from committee hearings and from the floors of the House and Senate. Of that, about 25 minutes of the discussion came from one senator, Fasano, during a back-and-forth with Williams and a subsequent committee speech. And excluding the sponsors -- Ring and Patronis -- only five members of the 160-member Legislature ever discussed the exemption in a public forum: Fasano, Latvala, Montford, Kreegel and Rep. Rick Kriseman, D-St. Petersburg, who asked during a hearing what the First Amendment Foundation thought about the bill. That brings us back to what Williams said, that "the transparency issue got a great airing the last legislative session." At PolitiFact we're sometimes reluctant to analyze statements that are open to interpretation (what's the definition of "great" in this case), but we feel confident that someone seeing Williams' statement would come away with an impression that is very different from the legislative record. In fact, the public records SBA bill that moved through the House and Senate passed with just slightly more debate than is absolutely necessary to comply with state rules that a bill be read three times before it is passed. We're not saying it's Williams' fault that the Legislature decided not to speak out on this bill. But we do hold him accountable for his words. We rate his statement False. | null | Ash Williams | null | null | null | 2011-08-02T15:35:26 | 2011-08-02 | ['None'] |
para-00154 | The government’s net debt level, measured against GDP, "is the same as someone who earns $100,000 a year having a mortgage of $10,000". | mostly false | http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jun/09/julia-gillard/julia-gillards-says-net-federal-debt-same-person-o/index.html | null | ['Debt', 'Economy'] | Julia Gillard | David Humphries, Su-Lin Tan, Peter Fray | null | Julia Gillard says net federal debt is the same as a person owing $10k on a $100k mortgage | Sunday, June 9, 2013 at 7:00 p.m. | null | ['None'] |
snes-02647 | Did President Trump Have Diarrhea on the Golf Course? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-diarrhea-golf-course/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Did President Trump Have Diarrhea on the Golf Course? | 10 April 2017 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00203 | Does Drinking Water at Certain Times Of The Day Maximize Its Health Benefits? | misleading recommendations | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/correct-time-drink-water.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Does Drinking Water at Certain Times Of The Day Maximize Its Health Benefits? | May 18, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00109 | Islamic Refugee Arrested With Gas Pipeline Plans in New Mexico | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/islamic-refugee-arrested-gas-pipeline-plans-new-mexico/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | Islamic Refugee Arrested With Gas Pipeline Plans in New Mexico | Jun 17, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-06980 | There's no scientific conclusion that (being gay) is genetic. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jul/13/tim-pawlenty/tim-pawlenty-says-theres-no-scientific-conclusion-/ | During a July 10, 2011, appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty about the origins of homosexuality. Here’s their exchange: Gregory: "Let me ask you about social policy. You've notably said that you're a big fan of Lady Gaga, and even the song Born This Way. There's a lot of debate about a gay marriage pledge in Iowa. And related to that, I wonder, do you agree with some of those who are behind that, that being gay is a choice?" Pawlenty: "Well, I have two teenage daughters who listen to Lady Gaga, so I'm subjected to it. And it has some good qualities to it. But as to, as to gay marriage, I'm in support of traditional marriage as between a man and a woman. I have not supported the issues of allowing gay couples to have the same benefits ... as traditional couples. And so this is an issue in Iowa and across the whole country. But I've stood in favor of traditional marriage and traditional relationships in that regard. Gregory: "Is being gay a choice?" Pawlenty: "Well, the science in that regard is in dispute. I mean, the scientists work on that and try to figure out if it's behavioral..." Gregory: "Right." Pawlenty: "...or if it's partly genetic." Gregory:"What do you think?" Pawlenty: "Well, I defer to the scientists in that regard." Gregory: "So you, you think it's not a choice." Pawlenty: "Well, there is no...." Gregory: "That you are, as Lady Gaga says, you're born that way." Pawlenty: "There's no scientific conclusion that it's genetic. We don't know that. So we don't know to what extent, you know, it's behavioral, and that's something that's been debated by scientists for a long time. But as I understand the science, there's no current conclusion that it's genetic." We decided to rate two of Pawlenty’s statements separately. In another item, we’ll look at whether scientists are "in dispute" about whether being gay is a choice. In this item, we’ll look at Pawlenty’s claim that "there's no scientific conclusion that it's genetic." Pawlenty’s word choice -- "genetic" -- is pivotal for rating the accuracy of his claim. The way he phrased it, he’s pretty close to accurate. But if he’d said instead that "there's no scientific conclusion that (being gay) is biological," he would have been incorrect. Since the significance of this distinction may not be obvious at first glance, we’ll explain it in detail here. If a trait is "genetic," it means that it comes from the genes encoded in your DNA. Furthermore, arguing that something is genetic suggests that there’s a single, or at least a well-defined, genetic source -- what has sometimes been called a "gay gene." By contrast, if a trait is "biological" in origin, it means that it can stem from any number of factors, such as hormone levels or how a fetus develops in the uterus. It would not, however, originate primarily from environmental factors such as childhood experiences -- what one might call the "nurture" part of the nature/nurture divide. The typical way of figuring out whether something is caused by genes is through twin studies. Since identical twins share 100 percent of their DNA, any observed differences in traits would be presumed to be influenced by environment rather than genetics. So if being gay was truly, and exclusively, a genetic trait, every set of identical twins should either be both straight, or both gay. In fact, that’s not the case. Even the studies with the strongest linkage show about a 50 percent correlation in sexual orientation between identical twins. Other studies have shown lower rates. Based on these findings, scientists agree that being gay is not caused exclusively by genes. However, being gay does appear to have a genetic component -- just a weaker one. The same study that showed roughly a 50 percent correlation in sexual orientation between identical twins also showed weaker correlations for fraternal twins, who share only 50 percent of their genes on average. That’s pretty much what you’d expect to see if genetics played a role, but not a dominant one. "Pawlenty is surely right that a genetic explanation has not been proven, and indeed genetics is likely a modest influence on sexual orientation," said Michael Bailey, a Northwestern University psychologist who undertook the twin study that showed a 50 percent correlation, as well as another that showed lower correlations. But if being gay is not primarily determined by genes, it doesn’t mean that its origin isn’t biological. Bailey and others find some of the most convincing evidence of the inherent nature of sexual orientation in long-term studies of the rare cases in which hormonally normal boys are reared as girls due to either accidents or certain medical conditions that have left them less obviously male. He said there have been six published cases of hormonally normal males reassigned early as females, and invariably, their sexual orientation was toward females. That’s consistent with their prenatal gender, not with their rearing as girls. The point of these studies is that sexual orientation -- one’s attractions and impulses -- runs very deep and is resistant to social and environmental factors. "If you can't make a male attracted to other males by cutting off his penis, castrating him, and rearing him as a girl, how likely is any social explanation of male homosexuality?" Bailey asks. Scientists freely acknowledge that the precise pathways for imparting sexual orientation are not yet understood. "Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation – heterosexuality, homosexuality or bisexuality -- is determined by any particular factor or factors," the American Psychological Association has put it. However, just because scientists don’t know the specific mechanisms that cause sexual orientation doesn’t mean that they aren’t confident that they are biological in nature. "We do not really know in any definitive way the mix between biological and other explanations, but the evidence for biological contributions is as good or better than for any other factor," said Clinton W. Anderson, the associate executive director of the American Psychological Association and the director of its lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender concerns office. "Some have suggested that it’s how you were reared or a failure in bonding to the same-sex parent. But the research to support that is abysmal." Jack Drescher, a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, added that "you’d be hard-pressed to find a reputable scientist who would exclude some aspect of biology" from the causes of homosexuality. Drescher is a member of the working group on sexual and gender-identity disorders for the forthcoming fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM 5-- the authoritative reference work in the field. At this point, we need to note an important caveat: What we’ve been discussing here applies primarily to gay men. There is actually no solid scientific consensus about the causes of female homosexuality, because the research has been much less extensive. We struggled with the question of how we should factor in what one might call the lesbian exception. Neither Pawlenty nor Gregory specifically referred to either gay men or gay women in their comments. Ultimately, we concluded that the science of what causes women to be gay was too unformed to draw any solid conclusions, so we set it aside as a factor in our ratings. So where does this leave us? Pawlenty said "there's no scientific conclusion that (being gay) is genetic." On that specific question, we found broad agreement that Pawlenty was correct. Scientists told us that genetics may play a role in determining sexual orientation, but the current evidence suggests that it’s not the dominant factor and may ultimately be shown to play just a modest role. But a modest role is still different from no role. And we also think that viewers of the interview might be led to believe that because homosexuality is not primarily caused by genes, there’s no biological cause. In reality, most scientists do believe that sexual orientation is caused by biology, rather than by choice. On balance, we rate Pawlenty’s statement Mostly True. | null | Tim Pawlenty | null | null | null | 2011-07-13T12:17:49 | 2011-07-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-11587 | There were slaves in 1845 who helped construct and build the Old Capitol. | mostly true | /florida/statements/2018/feb/01/kionne-mcghee/did-slaves-help-build-old-capitol-building-tallaha/ | Rep. Kionne McGhee, D-Miami, offered an emotional speech about the role slavery played in Florida’s history as the Florida House prepared to vote on a slavery memorial at the Capitol. McGhee, the bill’s sponsor, referred to a mural in the House chamber that depicts a slave woman holding a bushel of cotton near Andrew Jackson, the state’s military governor who would later become president. "Because her lips were sealed, I will attempt to do justice," McGhee said. "You see, if she were able to talk on this day, she would tell us that in 1824, the slaves from Gadsden (County) came here, on this capitol complex some 200 yards away to clear the field." "She would also tell us that just behind us, there were slaves in 1845 who helped construct and build the Old Capitol, as we call it, that’s what she would tell us," McGhee said. The Florida House voted unanimously for HB 67, the companion of which has not yet been considered by the full Senate. If approved, the slave memorial would join other Capitol Complex monuments honoring fallen police officers, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Civil War soldiers from Leon County, among other structures. We wanted to take a look at McGhee’s claim that enslaved people helped build the "Old Capitol." (We have previously found slaves helped build the White House in Washington.) We found very little documentation about enslaved people building the Old Capitol, but history experts said it was very likely they helped build it, given the large role slaves played in Florida at the time. McGhee’s team said the claim can be found in The Old Capitol: The Florida Center of Political History and Governance, an informational pamphlet compiled by Museum of Florida History staff to accompany the opening of a new exhibit. The booklet said that the Old Capitol was "built in part" by enslaved people, but does not say anything else about its construction. The history of Florida’s Capitol Florida commissioners picked Tallahassee as the capital in 1824, between two existing governmental centers — Pensacola and St. Augustine. The building that came to be known as the "Old Capitol" was completed in 1845, just before Florida was admitted as the 27th state. The Florida Capitol Complex we know today includes the Old Capitol, plus House and Senate office buildings, and the 22-story building sometimes called the "New Capitol." We asked the Florida Historic Capitol Museum, the Museum of Florida History and the Florida Department of State for additional information about the pamphlet McGhee cited, but came up empty-handed. The Florida Historic Capitol Museum has a webpage dedicated to the Old Capitol, but it does not mention anything about slave labor. (Rachel Porter, the director of research and programming at the museum, collected the information for McGhee’s claim.) Every expert we spoke to said that slave labor was integral to every aspect of Florida in the 19th century. However, specific records about slaves’ contributions often went unrecorded, as slave owners rarely disclosed the extent of their labor. "The fact that there is only a cursory mention of enslaved Africans building the Capitol is not unusual," said Larry Rivers, a distinguished history professor at Florida A&M University. "Enslaved Africans were regarded, like in other antebellum southern states, as objects to be simply worked until they died." According to Census information from 1840, Richard A. Shine, the supervising architect and primary contractor for building the Old Capitol, was listed as a slave owner. Andrew Frank, associate history professor at Florida State University, said Shine was known to have used slaves on other projects in Tallahassee or to have hired out some of them as manual or skilled laborers. Frank added that Shine’s son, Richard Shire Jr., later described himself as an "auctioneer" or slave trader. "They, like most residents in what was known as Middle Florida, were deeply invested (financially and socially) in slavery," he said. Edward E. Baptist, a history professor at Cornell University who has written a book about slavery in Florida, said almost every building in pre-1865 Tallahassee was built at least in part with slave labor. "It would in fact be shocking if the Old Capitol was not built with enslaved labor," Baptist said. "Artisans like white carpenters and masons owned slave laborers and craftsmen." Our ruling McGhee said enslaved people "helped construct and build the Old Capitol." African-American slaves were part of almost every facet of Florida life in the 19th century. Historians said they did all possible work in Florida, which would have included the building McGhee referenced. However, we were unable to find conclusive documentation about the construction of the Capitol building. Without that certainty, we rate this claim Mostly True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Kionne McGhee | null | null | null | 2018-02-01T10:55:31 | 2018-01-25 | ['None'] |
tron-02575 | Barnes & Noble Store Put a Monkey Book in an Obama Window Display | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/obama-bn/ | null | miscellaneous | null | null | null | Barnes & Noble Store Put a Monkey Book in an Obama Window Display | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
vogo-00433 | Statement: The University of California, San Diego built secret tunnels during the 1960s to provide accessible routes for the National Guard in case of rioting, according to local urban legend. | determination: false | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/fact-check-ucsds-not-so-mythic-tunnels/ | Analysis: For a few months now, we’ve been tracking down some of the region’s most puzzling urban legends: the mysterious downtown blob, a rumored floating bridge and now, the tunnels beneath UCSD. | null | null | null | null | Fact Check: UCSD's (Not So) Mythic Tunnels | February 15, 2011 | null | ['San_Diego', 'University_of_California', 'National_Guard_of_the_United_States'] |
pomt-03978 | Says "overwhelming majorities of Americans" support gun legislation "like background checks." | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/feb/13/barack-obama/president-barack-obama-says-overwhelming-majority-/ | President Barack Obama used his 2013 State of the Union address to urge Congress to vote on legislation to reduce gun violence. Victims of recent attacks deserve it, he said, and voters support some "common-sense reform." "Overwhelming majorities of Americans – Americans who believe in the 2nd Amendment – have come together around common-sense reform – like background checks that will make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun," he told lawmakers. Do "overwhelming majorities of Americans" support gun legislation such as background checks? The evidence Viewers who watched an enhanced version of Obama’s speech online at WhiteHouse.gov saw a graphic that said "92 percent of Americans support background checks for gun buyers." It cited an independent poll from Quinnipiac University, which we quickly found on the university’s site. The results from the phone poll of 1,772 registered voters in late January and early February 2013 were straightforward: • It found 92 percent support for background checks for all gun buyers, which the Quinnipiac pollsters described as "overwhelming." • It found 91 percent support for universal background checks among voters in a household with a gun. Other polls we’ve cited in recent fact-checks also found high percentages of support for universal background checks, even among gun owners. A Pew Research Center poll from Jan. 9-13, 2013, of 1,502 adults found 85 percent of Americans (and 85 percent of gun owners) favor making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks. A CBS/New York Times poll conducted Jan. 11-15 among 1,110 adults showed that 92 percent of Americans (and 85 percent of respondents living in a household with an NRA member) support universal background checks. Obama did cherry-pick the gun-control proposal on which consensus is strongest -- background checks. Other proposals he might also call "common-sense," such as bans on assault weapons and high capacity magazines, held 56 percent support in the Quinnipiac poll. And they were narrowly opposed by voters in households with a gun, with 52 percent against such measures. Our ruling Obama said "overwhelming majorities of Americans" support gun legislation "like background checks." The poll cited by the administration, as well as other independent polls in 2013, do show support for universal background checks above 80 percent among voters, even those who own guns. But people would get the impression from Obama's statement that there is similar support for other White House gun proposals, when the reality is weaker majority support among voters and slim opposition among gun owners. That’s a point worth clarifying. We rate the president’s claim Mostly True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2013-02-13T00:21:37 | 2013-02-12 | ['United_States'] |
hoer-00946 | Fast and Furious Giveaway | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/fake-fast-and-furious-giveaway-posts-targeting-facebook-users/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Fake Fast and Furious Giveaway Posts Targeting Facebook Users | September 4, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01661 | Keanu Reeves Believes ‘The Matrix’ Plot Is Real? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/keanu-reeves-matrix-fake-news/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Keanu Reeves Believes ‘The Matrix’ Plot Is Real? | 1:20 pm, February 2, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00092 | Did a Clerk Refuse to Sell Gas to a Man Fleeing a Hurricane Over a Trump Bumper Sticker? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hurricane-gas-bumper-sticker/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Did a Clerk Refuse to Sell Gas to a Man Fleeing a Hurricane Over a Trump Bumper Sticker? | 13 September 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01822 | There are "approximately 20,000 annual gun purchases in Rhode Island." | true | /rhode-island/statements/2014/jul/20/brett-smiley/providence-mayoral-candidate-brett-smiley-says-the/ | As the gun debate continues to roil the nation and Rhode Island, Providence mayoral candidate Brett Smiley wants to take guns out of the hands of criminals. But how? Smiley, one of five Democrats vying for the seat, proposes a supplemental 10-percent statewide sales tax "on the approximately 20,000 annual gun purchases in Rhode Island and on ammunition purchases." That in turn, would produce revenue to support community anti-violence efforts and other initiatives to part criminals from their guns. Smiley unveiled his "Safest City Plan" at a December press conference. A seven-page campaign brochure he mailed to voters in the last week of June includes a version of that plan that reiterates his gun tax proposal. [A bill sponsored on Smiley’s behalf to impose the 10-percent statewide surplus gun tax failed to make it out of committee in the last General Assembly session]. So are there 20,000 guns sold a year in Rhode Island? First, let’s look at the laws for buying a gun in the state: Statutes 11-47-35 and 11-47-35.2. Anyone wanting to do so must first fill out a state purchase application form with a Federal Firearms Licensee - i.e., a licensed gun shop. The application is run through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) data base. The licensed firearms dealer sends a copy of the application to local or state police, and the attorney general’s department. They must later destroy the copies if no disqualifying information is found. If approved, you must wait seven days before you buy your firearm - or firearms (more than one gun can be purchased per application.) Smiley bases his claim on NICS Firearm Background Checks data. Here are the NICS statistics from 2010-2014: 2010: 14,835 2011: 17,271 2012: 24,050 2013: 26,666 2014: 10,140 as of June 30 "Looking just at the data for NICS Firearm Background Checks, you see that the Rhode Island figure has been steadily increasing in recent years, with 24,050 in 2012 and 26,666 in 2013," campaign manager Josh Block wrote in an email. "It's also worth noting that these figures are for the number of people receiving background checks, and multiple guns purchased at the same time would still yield only one background check. Given these figures, it's clear that saying "approximately 20,000 annual gun purchases in Rhode Island" is an accurate, and frankly even a relatively conservative, estimate," Block wrote. He said that number refers specifically to the number of guns sold. Federal law prohibits the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives from creating a federal registry of gun transactions. The FBI must destroy all approved gun purchase records within 24 hours. "ATF does not gather or collect information pertaining to the number of guns sold," says Debora A. Seifert, public information officer for the ATF Boston field division. The FBI notes that the NICS Firearm Background Checks "do not represent the number of firearms sold. Based on varying state laws and purchase scenarios, a one-to-one correlation cannot be made between a firearm background check and a firearm sale." OK. But do those NICS statistics represent an approximate measure, as Smiley claims? Short of tallying every licensed firearms dealer’s register in the state, no one can say precisely how many guns are sold every year in Rhode Island. We turned to the Rhode Island State Police and attorney general’s office for some answers. We also called more than half a dozen local gun shop owners. In different ways, they suggested that, if anything Smiley’s estimated number is on the low side. Amy Kempe, spokeswoman for Atty. Gen. Peter F. Kilmartin, gave us a breakdown for the years 2010 through 2013, of the number of applications approved and denied. The data reflect a consistent ratio between approvals and denials: on average, fewer than 1 percent are denied. State police Major James M. Manni interprets the NICS data the same way as Smiley. "Based on the number of NICS checks done - that’s factual that there are approximately 20,000 firearms sold in Rhode Island or even more" every year, said Manni, state police commander of inspectional services. Take the 2013 figure of 26,666 firearms background checks for example, Manni says. "Does that mean there were 26,000 guns sold? There could be more. You can buy multiple firearms" on one application, however he notes that "the vast majority are single sales." Manni also noted that the numbers of applicants who are either denied a purchase -- or who ultimately decide not to buy a firearm -- are very small. He said that In 2014, "in a six-month period, there were 10,140 NICS firearms background checks. So 2014 is on track for about 20,000" of those checks. Gun shop owners we spoke with also confirmed that very few applicants change their minds about buying a gun during the 7-day waiting period. And they confirmed that it’s impossible to determine precisely how many guns are purchased in the state each year. John Francis, owner of Competition Shooting Supplies, in Pawtucket, said " Unless you went to each dealer, and had each dealer count through our records … there’s no way to know." Our ruling Brett Smiley says there are "approximately 20,000 annual gun purchases in Rhode Island." There is no official registry of yearly gun sales in Rhode Island; state law prohibits it. But state and federal law enforcement officials cite the same statistics that Smiley does to back up his claim. Gun shop owners, and state police tell us that the majority of applications represent single sales. Because Smiley was careful to approximate the number, we rate his claim as True. | null | Brett Smiley | null | null | null | 2014-07-20T00:01:00 | 2014-06-25 | ['Rhode_Island'] |
snes-00002 | Maya Angelou was raped when she was a child, and after the man responsible was found dead, she refused to speak for nearly 5 years. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/maya-angelou-assaulted-chlid/ | null | Viral Phenomena | null | Arturo Garcia | null | Was Maya Angelou Sexually Assaulted as a Child? | 5 October 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03620 | An FBI agent investigating Hillary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server killed himself after murdering his wife. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fbi-agent-murder-suicide/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide | 5 November 2016 | null | ['Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation', 'Hillary_Rodham_Clinton'] |
pomt-10888 | New Mexico moved "up to" sixth in the nation in job growth. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2007/jun/19/bill-richardson/yes-but-note-the-fine-print/ | Richardson is correct, but doesn't mention the fine print. In touting his economic record as New Mexico's governor, Richardson's campaign produced a TV ad noting the pace of the state's job growth while he's been in office. Although the state was ranked sixth in August 2006 for job growth, it most recently ranked 15th. A more accurate statement would be to say that the state "ranked as high as sixth in the nation." | null | Bill Richardson | null | null | null | 2007-06-19T00:00:00 | 2007-05-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-08706 | Ohio today has the "fewest number of state employees since the Reagan administration." | true | /ohio/statements/2010/sep/06/yvette-mcgee-brown/strickland-running-mate-yvette-mcgee-brown-says-oh/ | For much of this gubernatorial campaign, Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland has been defending his record against charges from Republican challenger John Kasich that he has done too little to stem job losses in Ohio and responding to accusations that he still oversees a bloated state government. Strickland’s running mate, Yvettee McGee Brown, in her own campaign speeches has echoed the governor’s. Recently she tackled a charge by Republicans that Ohio still has too many employees on the state payroll by evoking the name of one of the GOP’s favorite sons. Ohio today has the "fewest number of state employees since the Reagan administration," McGee Brown said in an Aug. 4 speech at a candidates forum in Columbus. Clearly, recent well-chronicled state layoffs and hiring freezes almost assure Ohio has fewer state employees than when Strickland took office in 2007. But could it be fewer than in the 1980s when Reagan was president, as Brown contends? The Strickland campaign is looking to reverse long-held Republican opinion that Democrats favor higher taxes and bigger government. The higher taxes issue will loom for whomever is Ohio’s next governor, given that the state faces up to an $8 billion budget deficit in the next operating budget with seemingly few options other than raising personal income taxes. But the big government question is something Strickland has dealt with since 2009 when the last biennial budget was set and the administration laid off state workers, froze hiring in some areas and otherwise shrunk government by attrition. Now McGee Brown has gone a step further by stating that under Strickland, Ohio now has the fewest state employees since Reagan, who was president from 1981 through 1988. Strickland’s campaign communications team offered uneven explanations for where McGee Brown got her information. It first stated it came from a state data chart that officials could not find until, PolitiFact began inquiring three weeks after McGee Brown’s speech. It then said the information was in an October 2009 news release from the Strickland administration that the campaign never produced. But the Ohio Department of Administrative Services bailed them out. It discovered annual employee data in a trends report that contained information dating back to 1983 and updated to include recent years. The report shows that as of December 2009, Ohio had 58,622 employees, the lowest number since 1983 when the state had 60,292 workers. That 28-year stretch includes a period from 1991 through 2006 when Ohio’s governors were Republicans and the state had more than 65,000 employees. We rate McGee Brown’s statement as True. Comment on this item. | null | Yvette McGee Brown | null | null | null | 2010-09-06T06:00:00 | 2010-08-04 | ['Ohio', 'Ronald_Reagan'] |
pomt-10994 | The United States was paying for anywhere from 70 to 90 percent of (NATO), depending on the way you calculate. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/12/donald-trump/donald-trump-misleads-us-defense-spending-nato-bud/ | Since his earliest days in office, President Donald Trump has made no bones about his feelings on how much the United States spends on NATO, often scolding allies for not carrying their weight. This week he was in Brussels for a summit with those very nations he’s unhappy with. One talking point came up again and again. As he left the White House for Europe, Trump tweeted that the United States is paying for 90 percent of NATO with other member countries falling far behind. In a short speech before he boarded his plane, he repeated his frustration but dialed back the size of the U.S. share, saying "we spend at least 70 percent for NATO." And in a July 12, 2018, press conference before he left Brussels, Trump decided to use both numbers to describe a lopsided U.S. contribution: "I believe in NATO. I think NATO's a very important, probably the greatest ever done. But the United States was paying for anywhere from 70 to 90 percent of it, depending on the way you calculate. That's not fair to the United States." Regardless of the figure used, it is not accurate to say that the United States is paying for either 70 or 90 percent of NATO’s military defense. U.S. outspends other countries on defense We first consulted NATO’s latest budget report for 2017. (A report with projected 2018 defense spending was released after Trump’s initial comment, but this doesn’t change the facts surrounding the claim.) The 2017 numbers show defense spending data of all member countries from 2010 to 2016 and 2017 estimates. By NATO’s count, total defense spending of all NATO members stood at about $957 billion in 2017. The United States’ share was about $686 billion. Do the math, and the percentage of U.S. spending is about 72 percent. (We don’t know the source for the 90 percent number.) Here are the top four spending countries on NATO’s list: Country Spending in billions (2017) Percent of total defense spending by NATO members United States $686 71.7% United Kingdom $55 5.8% France $46 4.8% Germany $45 4.8% U.S. spending isn’t all for NATO But what do these numbers mean? The spending doesn’t represent money spent on behalf of NATO, nor for NATO. They’re the total defense budgets of NATO members. For 2017, the defense spending of all NATO members totaled about $957 billion. The United States spent $686 billion on all of its defense spending across the globe for that year. Gordon Adams, professor emeritus at American University’s School of International Service, said the president’s wording is "bizarre" given that the burden for defense is quite different for the United States and European nations. "U.S. defense missions are global, not just European," he said, "while the allies spend solely for European defense." American defense spending supports aircraft carriers in the Pacific, as well as troops in Europe. On top of that, Adams said that U.S. equipment and personnel in Europe, such as an F-35 stealth fighter, can be deployed for missions in the Middle East. There is no clear way to tease out the fraction of American defense spending that primarily guards Europe. How countries do fund NATO NATO does have things it calls its own. There is a civilian staff and headquarters, and military equipment such as surveillance aircraft. There are bases, command headquarters and a program to beef up military capabilities in certain countries above and beyond what they would need for their own defense. Each of the 29 members contribute to those costs through an agreed cost-sharing formula based on the country’s gross domestic product. As the member with the largest GDP, the U.S. contributed 22 percent of NATO’s common funding. Not far behind is Germany with about 15 percent, then France and the United Kingdom with about 10 percent. With common costs of about $2.5 billion in 2017, the U.S. share of about $550 million doesn’t change the picture, since Europe’s share was a much larger $1.8 billion. That gap only weakens Trump’s argument. Our ruling Trump said "the United States was paying for anywhere from 70 to 90 percent of (NATO)." It is not accurate to say the United States pays for the majority of NATO's costs. The United States pays for 22 percent of NATO's common fund. Beyond that relatively small amount, the cost of NATO is undefined. The organization does total the defense budgets of its members, and based on that, U.S. defense spending equals about 70 percent. But the United States spends as much as it does because it is a global military power, which by and large, the European members are not. It is an apples and oranges comparison. Trump pushed a flawed comparison even further by saying the U.S. paid for as much as 90 percent of NATO. That goes beyond the exaggeration of this statistic that we've seen before. Trump’s statement contains just an element of truth, ignoring critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2018-07-12T14:44:03 | 2018-07-12 | ['United_States', 'NATO'] |
pomt-02910 | If your plan is the result of collective bargaining, no subsequent changes by anybody -- insurance companies, Obamacare -- can force your grandfathered policy to change. | mostly false | /punditfact/statements/2013/nov/04/rush-limbaugh/rush-limbaughs-errant-attack-unions-grandfathered-/ | President Barack Obama made sure his union pals got special treatment in the health care law, says conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh. How? Their health insurance plans are locked in, completely immune to new rules set forth by the Affordable Care Act, he said, noting that everyday Americans being hit with cancellation notices from their insurers don’t get the same courtesy. "If your plan is the result of collective bargaining, no subsequent changes by anybody -- insurance companies, Obamacare -- can force your grandfathered policy to change," Limbaugh said about the union carve-out on his show Oct. 30. "So, in other words, union insurers can amend their coverage. Your insurance company can't," Limbaugh continued. "Well, your insurance company can, but you lose your grandfathered status when they do. Unions don't because they're covered under an amendment made pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement." Limbaugh’s commentary leans on a Human Events column by Betsy McCaughey, the former New York lieutenant governor who once claimed that "Obamacare will question your sex life." We contacted several experts of the health care law, as well as unions, and they agreed: The law does contain a special rule for some union-negotiated health plans, but it’s not a permanent guarantee of grandfather status. It was a temporary rule aimed to create a smooth transition to the new law without breaking collectively bargained contracts across the country. You may be wondering about all this "grandfather" talk in the news lately, and why people are so dad-gum angry about it. We’ll back up a little bit. We discussed grandfathered plans, the fight du jour in the ongoing health care wars, at length in this fact-check. Basically, a health plan purchased by an individual or through an employer may be "grandfathered" if it existed before the Affordable Care Act became law March 23, 2010, and has not significantly changed since. The insurers offering these old plans have to follow some parts of the new law, such as covering adult children up to age 26, but they can largely keep these plans as they are without making many of the bigger changes required of new plans, such as fully covering preventive care. That said, the plan can lose its grandfathered status if the insurer makes a tweak that is considered too drastic by the federal government. For example, a plan can lose its grandfathered status if copayments go up by at least $5 plus medical inflation or if an employer decreases its contribution rate by more than five percentage points for a group plan. There’s a lot of fine print, and you can read it all courtesy of the breezy Federal Register. A plan that loses its grandfathered status is headed for certain death. There’s your need-to-know background info. So where do unions come in already? Here’s where: The same section of the Affordable Care Act that talks about grandfathered policies also talks about plans agreed to through collective bargaining (section 1251 (d) on page 56). The lawmakers who wrote this provision were not thinking of those of us without law degrees when they wrote it, so here’s the PunditFact translation: Workers whose health benefits are provided through an insurance company and were included in a collective bargaining agreement ratified before March 23, 2010, can keep their plan no matter the changes -- but not for long. The plan is only automatically grandfathered until the termination date of the agreement. So they do receive different treatment, but only until the agreement expires. After that, the plan must meet the same requirements of all other grandfathered plans. And importantly, none of this applies to collectively bargained plans for self-insured employers, which comprise more than half of union plans. Union-negotiated self-insured plans operate like all other companies. "This isn’t some huge gift which is being handed to the union," said Timothy Jost, Washington and Lee University law professor. "It’s simply recognizing that if you have coverage under a collective bargaining agreement, as long as that collective bargaining agreement remains in place, that coverage is okay." Gail Wilensky, former head of Medicare and Medicaid under President George H.W. Bush, sounded a similar chord, saying "to me, that’s not unreasonable" because the alternative is prying open existing agreements to satisfy the health care law. A union plan could keep its grandfathered status after the expiration date of the agreement as long as "no changes were made since March 23, 2010, that would have otherwise caused the plan to lose its grandfathered status," according to the University of California Berkeley Labor Center. In other words, union plans could lose their grandfathered status once the agreement expires if they reduce benefits in ways that are at odds with the health care law, just like all other grandfathered plans, said Randy G. DeFrehn, National Coordinating Committee for Multiemployer Plans executive director. "The statement that collectively bargained plans cannot lose their grandfather status is not correct," he said. Experts told us most union agreements last between three to five years, which means most of those plans are already being treated like other grandfathered plans because the agreements that were in place before the health care law passed have expired. "It’s a really narrow exception," said Paul Secunda, a labor law professor at Marquette University School of Law. "This is kind of coming to an end anyway." The law says these plans can be adjusted to comply with the Affordable Care Act without breaking the union agreement. Our ruling Limbaugh takes a point about real language inserted in the health care law for some union-negotiated health care plans and twists the truth. These plans are only grandfathered for as long as the collective bargaining agreement lasts. After the agreement expires, and some already have, those plans are held to the same standards as all other grandfathered plans. Limbaugh's suggestion that "no subsequent changes by anybody" can change the union plans goes too far. On top of that, union-negotiated self-insured plans (which make up more than half of all union plans) are treated no differently than regular employer plans. We rate Limbaugh's claim Mostly False. | null | Rush Limbaugh | null | null | null | 2013-11-04T18:26:08 | 2013-10-30 | ['None'] |
pomt-13732 | Says Hillary Clinton helped "get done" the Children's Health Insurance Program. | mostly true | /florida/statements/2016/jul/26/bill-clinton/bill-clinton-says-hillary-clinton-helped-get-done-/ | Former President Bill Clinton said that after health care reform failed in the 1990s because they couldn’t break a Senate filibuster, Hillary Clinton sought to tackle health care reform piece by piece, including expanding health insurance for children. "In 1997, Congress passed the Children's Health Insurance Program, still an important part of President Obama's Affordable Care Act. It insures more than 8 million kids," Clinton said in his speech at the second night of the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. "There are a lot of other things in that bill she got done, piece by piece, pushing that rock up the hill." We will fact-check Hillary Clinton’s role in expanding health care for children. Children’s Health Insurance Program We have previously rated a few claims related to her role in the Children’s Health Insurance Program, known as CHIP. Some claims have been more careful in their wording about her role than others. We could not reach a Bill Clinton spokesman, but we previously interviewed a Hillary Clinton spokesman on the same topic. The CHIP program provides health care coverage to more than 8 million children, according to Medicaid. Created in 1997, when it was known as the State Children's Health Insurance Program, it promotes health coverage for low-income children by providing federal funding to states. The late-Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass. received much of the credit for CHIP, because he shepherded the legislation through a Republican-controlled Congress. Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch was the lead Republican cosponsor. In 2007, Kennedy told the Associated Press that Hillary Clinton played a critical role. "The children's health program wouldn't be in existence today if we didn't have Hillary pushing for it from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue," Kennedy said. Nick Littlefield, a senior health adviser to Kennedy at the time, agreed. "She wasn't a legislator, she didn't write the law, and she wasn't the president, so she didn't make the decisions," Littlefield told the Associated Press. "But we relied on her, worked with her and she was pivotal in encouraging the White House to do it." Shortly after the legislation passed, the New York Times reported, "Participants in the campaign for the health bill both on and off Capitol Hill said the first lady had played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in lining up White House support." The Washington Post The Fact Checker examined her claim in an ad that she worked with Democrats and Republicans to get the law passed and concluded that was questionable. While she worked behind the scenes on the legislation, the Fact Checker wrote that there was no evidence she worked with members of both parties and instead worked with White House staff and Kennedy’s office -- not Hatch. "The White House wasn't for it. We really roughed them up" in trying to get it approved over the Clinton administration's objections, Hatch told the Boston Globe in 2008. "She may have done some advocacy (privately) over at the White House, but I'm not aware of it. Hatch added "I do like her," referring to Hillary Clinton. "We all care about children. But does she deserve credit for SCHIP? No -- Teddy does, but she doesn't." Our ruling Bill Clinton said Hillary Clinton sought to expand health care piecemeal including the "Children's Health Insurance Program." Clinton did work behind the scenes to create the program to offer healthcare to children. He avoided specifying how much credit she should get for that and whether she worked with both parties to make that happen. We rate this claim Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/b271dc16-ef63-49f3-ada2-0ba27d396bd6 | null | Bill Clinton | null | null | null | 2016-07-26T23:29:13 | 2016-07-26 | ['None'] |
snes-05458 | A driver in Las Vegas shouted "Allahu Akbar" as she deliberately struck multiple pedestrians with her vehicle, and police have been instructed to suppress that detail of the story. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/female-killer-las-vegas-shouted-allahu-akbar/ | null | Religion | null | Kim LaCapria | null | FALSE: Female Killer in Las Vegas Shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ | 21 December 2015 | null | ['Las_Vegas', 'Takbir'] |
para-00057 | Australia changed its Extradition Act just over a year ago to make it easier to extradite Australians to the United States for so-called political crimes. | half-true | http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/aug/23/julian-assange/sydney-sing-sing-extraditing-julian-assange/index.html | null | ['Terrorism'] | Julian Assange | Michael Koziol, Peter Fray | null | From Sydney to Sing Sing: extraditing Julian Assange | Friday, August 23, 2013 at 2:46 p.m. | null | ['United_States', 'Australia'] |
pose-01308 | We will end the sanctuary cities that have resulted in so many needless deaths. Cities that refuse to cooperate with federal authorities will not receive taxpayer dollars, and we will work with Congress to pass legislation to protect those jurisdictions that do assist federal authorities.” in the works https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/promise/1400/cancel-all-funding-sanctuary-cities/ None trumpometer Donald Trump None None Cancel all funding of sanctuary cities 2017-01-17T09:12:55 None ['United_States_Congress']
pomt-07969 The governor has made a commitment to billions of dollars in debt and new spending without any explanation of how he plans to pay that money back." | pants on fire! | /virginia/statements/2011/jan/21/brian-moran/democrat-brian-moran-says-gov-bob-mcdonnell-has-no/ | For the better part of a decade, the General Assembly has been stalled in debate over how to fund Virginia’s growing transportation needs. The Senate has largely argued the state needs to dedicate new long-term revenues, such as a gas tax increase, to building roads. The Republican majority in the House has stood steadfast against tax hikes, insisting that the state scrape up transportation money by borrowing, earmarking budget surpluses during good years, increasing traffic fines and fees and a blend of other ideas. The fight may return as the main event in this winter’s General Assembly session. Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican, has proposed accelerating a borrowing plan approved in 2007, saying he wanted to issue $600 million in bonds annually over three years instead of $300 million annually over six years. And it didn’t take long for Brian Moran, chairman of the state Democratic Party, to attack. Moran, in a statement released after the governor’s State of the Commonwealth address on Jan. 12, argued McDonnell has made a "commitment to billions of dollars in debt and new spending without any explanation of how he plans to pay that money back." No explanation? We decided to check that out, particularly because PolitiFact Virginia discussed a payback plan in a Dec. 30 article. After a quick search, we found our answer. The Virginia Transportation Act of 2000 created the Priority Transportation Fund to help the state borrow money for roads, rail and public transportation. The bill directed that one-third of the state’s revenue from insurance premium taxes go into the fund. That portion is roughly equal to the fraction of auto insurance premiums compared to total insurance premiums each year. A 2007 transportation bill again placed one-third of the insurance premium tax revenue in the fund. Moran, who represented Alexandria in the House from 1996 to 2008, voted for both of the bills. McDonnell noted that fact when he introduced his stepped-up borrowing plan on Dec. 8. Moran e-mailed his statement saying McDonnell has offered no pay-back plan on Jan. 12 at 9 p.m. That was more than an hour after McDonnell completed his address to the legislators, saying the Virginia Department of Transportation "already has the money necessary for debt service from the insurance premium tax you approved in 2007." When we called Moran, he acknowledged the governor would be accelerating the debt issuance "as long as the premium revenue is sufficient to pay." Ric Brown, the state’s secretary of finance, told us that one-third of the insurance tax premium will net about $131 million for the 2011 budget year, up from $128 million in 2010. That should more than cover the accelerated borrowing, he said. When the state last borrowed for roads, in the spring of 2010, Brown said the bonds carried a 3.2 percent interest rate over 25 years. For every $100 million borrowed, he said, the state pays $3.2 million per year to cover interest and about $1.8 million in principal payments. So each year the state is paying about 5 percent of the bond’s total cost. Brown said interest rates for Virginia’s debt are similar to the ones seen last year and have hovered between 3 percent and 3.5 percent for the past several months. Let’s say Virginia issues $1.8 billion in 25-year bonds at the high end of that range, paying a 3.5 percent annual interest rate. When the interest and principal payments are combined, the state would be paying roughly 5.5 percent of the total bond value in annual payments. Our calculator shows the debt would cost Virginia $99 million a year. That’s well below the $131 million in revenue received from the insurance taxes. And during the first two years the state would pay less, of course, because the entire $1.8 billion in debt would not have been issued. Let’s review. Moran said the governor made "a commitment to billions of dollars in debt and new spending without any explanation of how he plans to pay the money back." With little effort, we found the explanation in five places easily available to Moran before he made his statement: the two bills voted for as a legislator; the governor’s written talking points when the new borrowing plan was announced; the governor’s State of the Commonwealth address; and at least one newspaper story. When we called Moran, he didn’t try to defend his claim. It’s absurd for Moran to say he was in the dark. We rate his claim: Pants on Fire. | null | Brian Moran | null | null | null | 2011-01-21T11:57:11 | 2011-01-12 | ['None'] |
pomt-05718 | Says opponent Beto O’Rourke "wants to legalize drugs." | half-true | /texas/statements/2012/mar/07/silvestre-reyes/silvestre-reyes-says-challenger-favors-legalizing-/ | A video posted by U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes of El Paso opens by showing a silent, grim-faced child. His image is followed by other kids individually saying "no." The words flash on screen: "Beto O'Rourke," challenging Reyes in the 2012 Democratic primary, "wants to legalize drugs." "Legalizing drugs is not the answer," a narrator says. "Even our children understand." Does O’Rourke, a businessman and former member of the El Paso City Council, want to legalize drugs? Marijuana, certainly, we learned. But a news article in the Feb. 28, 2012, El Paso Times quotes O’Rourke saying he has not advocated the wholesale legalization of drugs. The article quotes Reyes defending his ad by pointing to a book and a 2011 San Antonio Express-News op-ed column that O’Rourke co-wrote with Susie Byrd, a member of the El Paso City Council. Their Dec. 4, 2011, column says the prohibition of marijuana has resulted in a lucrative but violent marijuana economy entwining Mexico and the United States. "Mexican drug cartels smuggle many things into the U.S., but marijuana is the most profitable portion of the cartel's portfolio," the column says. "Marijuana has the larger customer base with the most stable demand and steady prices. And, the Mexican cartels own the value of the marijuana from farm to market." El Paso, the column continues, "bears daily witness to the violence that the marijuana economy inflicts on Juarez, our neighbor on the U.S./Mexico border. Since 2008, more than 9,000 people have been murdered in Juarez. The violence stems at least in part from a declared war between the two largest cartels for control of the El Paso/Juarez trade corridor." Meanwhile, they write, Americans, including high-school students, continue to use marijuana. "At some point, we must challenge our elected leaders to enact laws that reflect reality," the column says. "We must come to a reckoning, much the same way we did 80 years ago, and repeal a prohibition that does more harm than good. If Washington won't do anything different, if Mexico City won't do anything different, then it is up to us — the citizens of the border who understand the futility and tragedy of this current policy first hand — to lead the way." In December 1933, the federal prohibition of the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcoholic liquors, which had been in place since early 1919, was repealed on ratification of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. Alcohol consumption had persisted in the intervening years while federal efforts to enforce prohibition cost 150 lives and billions of dollars, according to a December 5, 1933, New York Times report. We did not track down O’Rourke’s just-published book, "Dealing Death and Drugs, the Big Business of Dope in the U.S. and Mexico." But we noticed the subtitle underneath the title on a portion of a Kindle version of the book: "An Argument to End the Prohibition of Marijuana." A Nov. 21, 2011, El Paso Times news article about the book quotes O’Rourke opining on possible benefits from legalizing marijuana: "We can do a much better job of keeping marijuana out of the hands of kids and keeping marijuana proceeds out of the hands of cartels that use those proceeds to murder, kill and terrorize with impunity, corrupt public officials, recruit people and arm themselves." Reyes also has offered as backup for his claim a resolution supported by O’Rourke when he was on the El Paso City Council. According to a news account on newspapertree.com, an online El Paso newspaper, the council in January 2009 unanimously endorsed the resolution, which included language added at O’Rourke’s suggestion urging the federal government to come to the aid of bordering Juarez by "supporting an honest open national debate on ending the prohibition on narcotics." The story says Mayor John Cook later vetoed the resolution, saying that as amended, it would not be taken seriously in Washington. O’Rourke, talking to reporters about the resolution before the veto, said: "I’m not advocating legalization, but I’m saying that we should at the very least have a conversation about ending prohibition. And that it is looking like one of the more attractive solutions out there right now to an otherwise intractable problem that’s getting worse by the day." He added that the nation needs to rethink its drug war, which is "not working." After declaring his House candidacy, O’Rourke defended the resolution in what appears to be a classroom speech, according to an undated video of his remarks brought to our attention by Reyes’ campaign. In the recording, O’Rourke recaps his rationale for advocating the resolution and says that he said at the time that "given what’s going on in Juarez, given what’s at stake, I think that we owe ourselves an honest and open conversation about our drug laws and potentially, potentially, ending the prohibition on these drugs -- namely and most importantly marijuana." Reyes’ campaign also pointed out a "declaration" presented by O’Rourke and others at the U.S.-Mexico border on May 17, 2010, bemoaning conditions in Juarez and urging "repeal of the ineffective U.S. marijuana drug laws in favor of regulating, controlling and taxing the production, distribution, sale and consumption of marijuana by adults." In a telephone interview, O’Rourke told us that he favors ending the legal prohibition on marijuana but has not been telling voters he will push such a change. He said that is "not a priority of this community; it doesn’t reflect the desires of people I seek to represent as my constituents." Asked why he doesn’t describe himself as favoring legalization of marijuana, O’Rourke replied: "That word (legalize) is so charged and weighted from years of popular culture references." Our ruling O’Rourke favors ending laws against marijuana and has urged a national conversation about legalizing other illegal drugs. But Reyes’ claim leaves the misimpression that O’Rourke favors legalizing all illegal drugs. We rate his statement Half True. | null | Silvestre Reyes | null | null | null | 2012-03-07T06:00:00 | 2012-02-26 | ['None'] |
pomt-02823 | The Affordable Care Act alters the "sensible doctor-patient-relationship-centered health care program ... we see today." | false | /punditfact/statements/2013/nov/24/sarah-palin/sarah-palin-says-fewer-people-will-be-covered-sens/ | Any time former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin weighs in on the health care debate, our ears perk up as fact-checkers. The 2008 vice presidential candidate brought us "death panels" (our 2009 Lie of the Year) and helped circulate the inaccurate statement that the Affordable Care Act is government-run health care. On Fox News Sunday, Palin continued her criticism of the law and expressed skepticism that "30 million more people will receive health care coverage under Obamacare." Palin then made a bold statement regarding the health care law and the doctor-patient relationship. "There will be fewer people being covered under a sensible doctor-patient-relationship-centered health care program under Obamacare than what we see today," she said. "I guarantee you that." That sounds like other statements PolitiFact has checked in the past. We decided to investigate. Government, health care and you We reached out to Palin’s camp in hopes she could clarify her statement, particularly what she meant by a "sensible doctor-patient-relationship-centered health care," but she didn’t get back to us. It sounds like previous claims made by the law's opponents, namely that Obamacare puts the government between Americans and their doctors. In the past, PolitiFact said that assertion was False. The health care law overwhelmingly relies on the private sector to provide coverage to the millions of Americans currently without health care by offering subsidies to help people obtain private insurance. There is an expansion of Medicaid, but reliance on that joint federal-state program has shrunk as several Republican governors have chosen not to increase their Medicaid rolls. Obamacare primarily sets guidelines for minimum coverage of care and created marketplaces for plans to be bought and sold to the uninsured. As PolitiFact noted when former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said last year that "Obamacare puts the federal government between you and your doctor," if that were the case, we would expect doctors to be up in arms. Instead, the American Medical Association, the largest doctor advocacy group in the country, has been supportive of the law. There are other instances when the federal government seeks to improve overall quality of care through bureaucratic means. In 2020, for example, a 15-member panel called called the Independent Payment Advisory Board can recommend changes in reimbursement rates and other cost-saving measures for Medicare. Some have said this will lead to rationing, but we have repeatedly found those concerns exaggerated. Recent reports Now, there are recent reports that insurance companies are shrinking their networks, including excluding certain hospitals from coverage. This is particularly the case for insurance plans sold on the new state and federal marketplaces created by Obamacare. In certain instances, as noted by the Washington Post, it has meant some families forced to change doctors or purchase more expansive, and expensive, plans outside the government-run insurance marketplaces. The limitations are happening in attempts to keep costs down. One insurance company, Anthem, told the Post "the network still covers 74 percent of all primary-care providers and 78 percent of specialists," and the smaller networks would drive down the cost of their plans. Some of this maneuvering was going on for years, and a trend already taking place in the industry may have just been accelerated by the law. In the spring of 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported that insurance companies in California offered a narrower list of providers to thousands of customers. So there is some volatility in the market, and that will continue to be the case as doctors, patients, insurance companies and regulators adjust to changes in the law and the massive amount of new customers now buying insurance. Our ruling Palin said the health care law changes "a sensible doctor-patient-relationship-centered health care program." It's valid to be worried about people potentially seeing changes in their coverage, including some people who will be forced to switch doctors. But that’s a far cry from Palin’s actual words, which suggest some sort of government intervention in the doctor-patient relationship. That's not the case. We rate Palin’s statement False. | null | Sarah Palin | null | null | null | 2013-11-24T16:08:08 | 2013-11-24 | ['None'] |
pomt-15314 | Obama keeps talking about getting rid of all nuclear weapons. He’s already significantly reduced our capabilities there. | mostly false | /punditfact/statements/2015/jul/17/dick-cheney/cheney-obama-wants-get-rid-all-nuclear-weapons-has/ | Fox News host Sean Hannity found a partner in outrage over the Iran nuclear deal in former Vice President Dick Cheney. On July 14, the pair blasted the White House’s agreement (full text) as a betrayal of Israel, saying the agreement had loose restrictions on Iran that will endanger the world. At one point, Hannity asked Cheney if he thought the deal would incentivize other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, to move forward with their own nuclear programs. Cheney said he would be surprised if they didn’t because they will feel "they have no choice." The United States under President Barack Obama is no longer an ally they can trust, he said. "For one thing, we haven’t kept our word to them in the past," Cheney said. "Secondly, we’re dramatically reducing our own capabilities. Obama keeps talking about getting rid of all nuclear weapons. He’s already significantly reduced our capabilities there. This last week, he announced a 40,000-man reduction in the United States Army. He’s not a man of his word." When we looked into Cheney’s characterization of the U.S. nuclear program under Obama, experts called it "ridiculous" and said that Cheney neglected important caveats Obama gave in talking about his dream for a world free of nuclear weapons. (PunditFact tried to reach Cheney through his speaker’s bureau, but he did not respond to our inquiry.) Here’s what’s missing from Cheney’s claim that Obama "keeps talking about getting rid of all nuclear weapons" and is "significantly" reducing the country’s nuclear capabilities. ‘A world without nuclear weapons’ Obama entered the White House in 2009 having made a slew of campaign promises about reducing the nuclear arsenal of the United States and the world. (Several of these promises have been monitored by PolitiFact.) The Norwegian Nobel Committee highlighted his "vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons" in awarding Obama the 2009 Peace Prize. The award followed Obama’s major speech on how he would address nuclear weapons in Prague on April 5, 2009. The new president said the United States had a moral responsibility to act on reducing the threat of nuclear weapons in the 21st century as the only country to have used nuclear weapons. Obama said: "So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons." Bingo for Cheney? Not necessarily. There was more. "I'm not naive. This goal will not be reached quickly –- perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. We have to insist, ‘Yes, we can.’ Now, let me describe to you the trajectory we need to be on. First, the United States will take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons. To put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same. Make no mistake: As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies –- including the Czech Republic. But we will begin the work of reducing our arsenal." Obama reinforced his dream in a 2012 speech in Seoul and a 2013 address in Berlin. In the latter speech, he told the crowd: "Peace with justice means pursuing the security of a world without nuclear weapons — no matter how distant that dream may be. And so, as President, I’ve strengthened our efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, and reduced the number and role of America’s nuclear weapons. Because of the New START Treaty, we’re on track to cut American and Russian deployed nuclear warheads to their lowest levels since the 1950s." So Obama had a dream, but it’s one that he couched with a significant caveat. Cheney has a point that a world without nukes is Obama’s end-goal, a position that some conservatives say isn’t realistic because the weapons cannot be uninvented. On the other hand, the United States will not be first to eliminate its arsenal, Obama pledged. Experts told PunditFact this is not a new vision among U.S. presidents. "The goal of working for the elimination of nuclear weapons has been U.S. policy since the Kennedy administration," said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. "Obama didn’t invent it." At the 2009 United Nations Security Council Summit about nuclear disarmament, Obama quoted Ronald Reagan, who said, "We must never stop at all until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the Earth." While Obama did not reiterate this vision in a White House address or press conference about the Iranian nuclear deal, he did bring it up again on page 11 of his national security strategy paper released February 2015. ‘Significantly reduced’ nuclear capability? Cheney’s second point — that the country’s nuclear weapons arsenal has been "significantly reduced" under Obama — drew more scorn from the experts. "It is clearly incorrect to say that President Obama has reduced the U.S. nuclear weapons capability," said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, which supports reducing American and Russian nuclear stockpiles. "We’d like for him to be doing more, and we’re disappointed that he’s not." In fact, the United States will spend hundreds of billions in the next 10 years to modernize its aging strategic nuclear force, which consists of submarines that launch ballistic missiles, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers. Nuclear warheads will also be refurbished, and new and improved facilities around the country will be constructed. In all, the United States will spend about $35 billion a year on these improvements, or $350 billion through 2025, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The current nuclear force is comprised of about 1,550 long-range warheads. As the upgrades began, many supporters of disarmament grew confused about Obama’s shift in nuclear priorities. The New York Times quoted Sam Nunn, a former senator who influenced Obama’s view on nuclear nonproliferation, in September 2014 as saying Obama’s "vision was a significant change in direction. But the process has preserved the status quo." According to Kristensen’s 2014 analysis, Obama has cut the number of nuclear weapons by a smaller percentage than any American president since the end of the Cold War. Obama’s 10 percent reduction over six years trails even George W. Bush’s 50 percent, according to Kristensen. Under the New START Treaty with Russia -- an arms control agreement that was approved in bipartisan fashion by the then-Democratic-led Congress in December 2010 -- the Obama administration has reduced the number of deployed warheads and launchers slightly. Under the treaty, neither country is allowed to possess more than 1,550 nuclear warheads and 700 intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments. "Those are modest reductions that in no way are ‘dramatically reducing our own capabilities,’ " Kristensen said, adding that the policies Obama is pursuing on nuclear weapons have been approved by the United States Strategic Command and the Pentagon. Our ruling Cheney said, "Obama keeps talking about getting rid of all nuclear weapons. He’s already significantly reduced our capabilities there." Since campaigning for office, Obama has frequently mentioned that, in an ideal world, there would be no nuclear weapons. However, Cheney ignores that Obama has consistently acknowledged that this dream may not be achievable in his lifetime, and that the United States won’t give up its nuclear weapon arsenal as long as its enemies possess them. Experts also said Cheney overstates the arms reductions occurring during Obama’s presidency. Reductions are happening under a 2010 treaty with Russia, but the United States is also spending billions on modernizing its arsenal, and it is taking fewer weapons out of service than under any previous president in the post-Cold War age. Cheney’s statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so we rate the claim Mostly False. | null | Dick Cheney | null | null | null | 2015-07-17T10:10:20 | 2015-07-14 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
snes-02472 | President Trump signed an executive order permitting people to hunt the national bird. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-hunting-bald-eagles/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Dan Evon | null | President Trump Signs Executive Order Allowing the Hunting of Bald Eagles? | 8 May 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01383 | Weeks after accepting a quarter-million-dollar campaign contribution from a hospital board chairman, Greg Abbott went to court against victims of a drug-taking neurosurgeon. | mostly true | /texas/statements/2014/oct/15/wendy-davis/wendy-davis-says-greg-abbott-fielded-250000-donati/ | CORRECTION, 5:22 p.m., Oct. 15, 2014: This story has been amended to remove the incorrect original declaration that the $250,000 donation was given before the suits were filed. According to copies of the filings provided by Zac Petkanas, a spokesman for Davis, one of several suits singled out by Davis as the basis of her ad was filed in January 2014, before the donation the next month. This change led us to change our rating of the statement from Half True. (See the original fact check here.) In a TV ad, Wendy Davis said Greg Abbott took a hefty campaign donation before siding with a hospital against patients injured and killed by a drug-taking surgeon. Davis, the Fort Worth state senator and Democratic gubernatorial nominee, consistently depicts Abbott, the state attorney general and Republican choice for governor, as an unethical insider beholden to powerful interests. The narrator of the ad, titled "Operation," says: "He was a Texas surgeon, performing operations while reportedly using cocaine. Two people died, others were paralyzed. Doctors spoke out," the narrator says, "but the hospital did nothing to stop him. Families and victims sued the hospital. "Then, weeks after accepting a quarter-million-dollar campaign contribution from the hospital's chairman, Greg Abbott got involved, using his office to go to court -- against the victims." Abbott solicited and accepted the donation, we confirmed, and the state intervened in lawsuits pitting patients against the hospital, though he got involved to defend a state law. Senator’s backup By email, Davis spokesman Zac Petkanas said Davis based her claim in part on a July 30, 2014, news story in the Dallas Morning News stating that not long after the chairman of the board of the Baylor Health Care System, which owns the Baylor Regional Medical Center at Plano, donated $250,000 to Abbott’s campaign, Abbott weighed in on federal lawsuits against the hospital where a neurosurgeon allegedly had done damage to patients. News report and interview of donor We confirmed from Abbott’s campaign finance filings with the state and an interview with the board chairman and donor, Temple businessman Drayton McLane, that McLane donated $250,000 to Abbott’s campaign in January 2014. That donation, the News story said, came after McLane gave the campaign $100,000 in 2013. Before the six-figure contributions, the story said, McLane’s biggest donation to Abbott had been $25,000. Abbott’s campaign recorded the $250,000 donation as arriving Jan. 23, 2014 -- the very date one of the relevant federal lawsuits were filed against the hospital. Then again, we realized with a nudge from Petkanas after this article initially appeared, one of the several lawsuits was filed Dec. 27, 2013, weeks prior to McLane's contribution. His $250,000 check, a photo of which McLane’s office emailed to us, was dated Jan. 21, 2014. The News story said Abbott and McLane had each told the paper the two had not discussed the lawsuits. McLane also said he didn’t know about the case before contributing the $250,000, the paper said, and he stressed he had no personal financial interest in the nonprofit hospital system; the chairman’s post is unpaid. By phone, McLane told us he’s known Abbott since before Abbott, originally a Houston lawyer, won election as a Harris County state district judge in 1992 and gave the $250,000 after Abbott asked him for a large contribution. McLane said he hadn’t spoken with the Republican nominee since. Asked what he expected for the eye-catching contribution, McLane said: "I’m not expecting to get anything back. I believe in strong good government. Unfortunately, on both sides, there are heavy contributions." On top of not knowing about the lawsuits described by Davis before making his donation, McLane said, he hadn’t long been chairman of Baylor Scott & White Health, which owns the Plano facility, having become chairman when healthcare systems merged in October 2013; McLane previously chaired Scott & White Healthcare. Abbott in court As noted in the News, the federal suits against the Baylor system and Plano hospital challenge the constitutionality of a state law requiring the plaintiffs to prove Baylor acted with actual intent to harm patients -- which the suing plaintiffs/families call an impossibly stiff burden. Petkanas of Davis’ campaign provided copies of several lawsuits filed on behalf of patients and families, each one alleging a neurosurgeon, Christopher Duntsch, was permitted by the Plano hospital to perform surgeries under the influence of illegal drugs and alcohol, causing harm. Those suits also challenge action by state lawmakers in 2003, while overhauling laws regulating lawsuits seeking damages, to delete a definition of "malice" in the law, hence "eliminating a common-law right arbitrarily in light of the purposes of the statute leaving only an impossible condition before liability will attach," the lawsuits say. A spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, Lauren Bean, emailed us the state’s nearly identical March 24, 2014, filings in three plaintiff challenges to the law. In the filings, the state said it has a statutory right to intervene in a case when the constitutionality of a state law is at issue. On March 31, 2014, a week after the state filed its request, U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis granted the request to intervene "for the purpose of defending the constitutionality of Texas law," Solis wrote. His order said no parties to the litigation objected. It’s undisputed an attorney general may seek to get involved in a federal suit to defend a state law, but some lawyers told us it’s up to the official to do so -- or not. Attorney Kay Van Wey, who represents some plaintiffs in the suits against the hospital, said by email Abbott’s move was unusual and unreasonable, though she didn’t object, she said, because there is no legal way to do so; we didn’t divine what she meant by that. Van Wey further said Abbott "is defending a law that essentially gives immunity to hospitals for credentialing dangerous physicians. The law, as it now stands, denies access to the courts for good, taxpaying Texas citizens, who through no fault of their own, were butchered by a highly dangerous surgeon. "Even if we prove the hospitals were grossly negligent in hiring and retaining a dangerous surgeon," Van Wey said, "...it isn't enough under the current state of the law. In Texas, we have to prove ‘malice,’ meaning we have to prove the hospital had a subjective intent to harm the patient. That is considered to be an impossible standard. It is clearly an erroneous and completely unfair law. He didn't have to intervene in our lawsuits. He chose to." The News story quoted Bean saying McLane’s contributions played no role in his decision to intervene in the suits. Besides, Bean said, the "state is not defending the hospital or the doctor in this case — or their alleged conduct. If the hospital or doctor have violated the law, then they will be held accountable, and nothing in the state’s court filings opposes the plaintiffs," patients and families, "on that front," she said. Bean gave us the agency’s full response sent to the News. In it, Bean said the state "will not be putting on any defense of any action by the hospital or any doctor. The state will not put on any evidence or make any argument whether the hospital’s actions or the doctor’s actions violate the law. The state does not condone, support or defend the actions of the hospital or doctor. The only thing the state will argue is that the law is not unconstitutional." Outside lawyers An Austin lawyer who helped write the 2003 change told us he believes the attorney general was bound to defend the revised law as Abbott is doing. Michael Hull emailed: "The AG intervention is consistent with federal and state law. The AG is defending the constitutionality of a statute. His office has not taken a position on the facts alleged in the petition nor has the AG chosen to defend the hospital or the doctor." Hull later said such constitutional challenges are rare, "but when challenges do occur, it is common for the AG to defend the constitutionality of the statute." Hull and Michael Guajardo, the Dallas president of the Texas Trial Lawyers Association, each pointed out any litigant is required to notify the state of a federal challenge to a state law’s constitutionality We asked if that formal notice touched off Abbott’s intervention. Not so, Bean said, adding the attorney general’s office has no record of receiving the notice, which court filings say was sent by certified mail. Instead, Bean said, Jonathan Mitchell, the state solicitor general, learned of the suits from a March 10, 2014, news story in the Texas Lawyer magazine. Petkanas, told we hadn’t uncovered proof the McLane donation prompted Abbott to enter the lawsuits, said by email the ad didn’t assert a cause and effect -- only that McLane gave his campaign donation before Abbott intervened. Our ruling Davis said that weeks "after accepting a quarter-million-dollar campaign contribution" from a hospital board chairman, Greg Abbott went to court against victims of a drug-taking neurosurgeon. Davis’ statement needs clarification – that Abbott’s intervention was limited to defending the constitutionality of Texas’ tort-reform laws. That makes this statement Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Wendy Davis | null | null | null | 2014-10-15T17:22:58 | 2014-09-17 | ['None'] |
snes-02075 | Indonesian villagers performed a rite that brought a dead woman back to life after three years in the grave. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/woman-comes-out-of-grave/ | null | Junk News | null | David Emery | null | Woman Comes Out of Grave and Walks After Being Dead for Three Years? | 13 July 2017 | null | ['Indonesia'] |
pomt-02129 | Says U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue flip-flopped on releasing his tax returns. | mostly true | /georgia/statements/2014/may/09/karen-handel/handel-attacks-perdue-tax-returns/ | In politics, being the rich guy can have its advantages and disadvantages. Case in point, Republican U.S. Senate candidate David Perdue, a former CEO of several large corporations who has risen to the top of the polls. He’s portrayed himself as a by-the-bootstraps candidate offended by the ways of Washington, endearing himself to conservatives. Perdue has also spent a lot of his own money on television ads ridiculing his opponents. One of those opponents, former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, recently challenged her fellow candidates to release their income taxes. A Perdue spokesman called it "voyeurism," and Handel criticized his decision. "David Perdue Flip-Flops Again, Refuses to Release Tax Returns," the Handel campaign said in an April 22 press release. Did Perdue flip-flop? PolitiFact Georgia thought we’d conduct our own audit. When Perdue entered the race in July 2013, Channel 2 Action News political reporter Lori Geary asked him how open he would be about releasing his financial information. "Everything," Perdue said in the interview. "I have no problem in that. … I’m going to be totally transparent." Perdue did not specify whether that included releasing his tax returns. The television report did not say whether he was asked about releasing his tax returns. Four months later, in November, Perdue filled out a financial disclosure report with the U.S. Senate, as required by law. The disclosure forms, though, do not require a candidate to add up his or her entire wealth. The report shows Perdue was a board member of five corporations, collecting nearly $900,000. He held stocks and bonds in about 150 companies. His assets in more than 40 of those companies and entities ranged between $100,000 and $1 million. That doesn’t include the 18 individual retirement accounts Perdue listed in the report and other assets that he and his wife own. A separate report Perdue filed in February shows he owns 2 acres on the wealthy sand of St. Simons Island. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported Perdue’s net worth, after examining his disclosure, at between $11.9 million and $48 million. In recent years, political candidates -- particularly wealthy politicians -- have been pressured to unveil their income taxes in addition to the reports they’re required to fill out. For example, Mitt Romney, the GOP’s 2012 presidential nominee and a former corporate CEO, responded to those demands by releasing his 2011 return and a summary of returns from the prior 20 years. Critics complained the summary didn’t offer enough details about his finances. President Barack Obama’s tax returns are available online dating to 2000. On April 14, the AJC reported Handel was releasing her taxes and encouraged her Republican opponents to do the same in an "effort to promote government transparency." The challenge was seen as directed at Perdue. Two candidates, U.S. Reps. Phil Gingrey and Jack Kingston, agreed to do so. Perdue did not. One week later, on April 21, Handel hammered Perdue, citing the Channel 2 interview. "David fails to realize that this is an election, not an auction, and that he has an obligation to the voters of Georgia to be transparent and forthcoming about the millions of dollars he is spending to try to buy this election," Handel campaign manager Corry Bliss said. "One can only assume that David has a lot to hide since he has changed his mind on releasing his taxes." Perdue campaign spokesman Derrick Dickey countered: "In the time since his first interview as a candidate last year, David has produced detailed personal financial information for the public. After going through that process, at this point it seems that anything more only satisfies some folks’ voyeurism." Perdue’s cousin, former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue, once used a similar line when pressured to release his tax returns. Sonny Perdue said he preferred to release his tax records during campaign season, not while governing. "I think that's an absolutely appropriate thing to do rather than a sort of voyeuristic sort of thing, " Sonny Perdue told the AJC. Brian Galle, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Department of Justice’s tax division, said Senate disclosure reports have information that isn’t included in tax returns and vice versa. The disclosure reports contain information about the assets held by a candidate. Galle said tax returns include potentially embarrassing information, such as whether the candidate has lost money through bad financial dealings and how much money -- or little money -- he or she gave away through the charitable contributions category. Galle, an assistant professor at Boston College Law School, said he believes candidates should release their tax returns to the public. "It ought to be routine," he said. On May 1, the Perdue campaign invited two AJC reporters to look at 10 years of the candidate’s tax returns as part of an article on his business record. It showed Perdue earned $55 million and paid $21 million in taxes, or 38 percent, over that period. Over the 10 years of tax returns reviewed by the AJC, Perdue donated about $1 million to charities, or just under 2 percent of his income. The Associated Press also reported it has looked at Perdue’s returns, along with Gingrey’s and Handel’s. Kingston and Michelle Nunn, who’s leading the polls among Democrats vying for the Senate, have said they would release their returns, but neither has done so. Another GOP candidate, U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, declined, directing reporters to his disclosure reports. Handel campaign spokesman Dan McLagan, noting the Perdue campaign’s initial comments about voyeurism and its subsequent decision to show the candidate’s tax returns, said Perdue had "flip-flopped-flipped." "It’s a high level of difficulty, and I think (Perdue) missed the dismount," McLagan said. To sum up, Perdue agreed to release his financial information when he announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate in July 2013. A few months later, Perdue filled out a federal financial disclosure report. In April, Handel criticized Perdue for not releasing his tax returns a week after she challenged her Republican opponents to do so. Perdue has since shown his returns to the AJC and AP. Perdue did show his returns, but only a few weeks after Handel’s challenge. And a pledge of total transparency means your taxes are open to inspection to the public, not just a few reporters. We rate Handel’s claim Mostly True. | null | Karen Handel | null | null | null | 2014-05-09T00:00:00 | 2014-04-21 | ['None'] |
goop-01048 | Justin Theroux Dating Petra Collins Following Jennifer Aniston Split? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/justin-theroux-petra-collins-dating-jennifer-aniston-split-friends/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Justin Theroux Dating Petra Collins Following Jennifer Aniston Split? | 8:41 pm, May 6, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00110 | Army Directive About Balancing Lactation Support and Readiness | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/army-directive-balancing-lactation-support-readiness/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | Army Directive About Balancing Lactation Support and Readiness | Jun 17, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00565 | In Muslim countries, under the Sharia, there is a death penalty for blaspheming Mohammad. | half-true | /punditfact/statements/2015/jun/11/pamela-geller/anti-muslim-activist-pam-geller-says/ | In a recent interview on CNN, Chris Cuomo invited Pamela Geller to speak on his show about the recent threats against her life after Geller hosted a cartoon drawing contest depicting the prophet Muhammad. Geller said she decided to hold the contest as a response to the terrorist attack on Charlie Hebdo in France. "They’re just cartoons," Geller said about the contest. "We’re holding this exhibit and cartoon contest to show how insane the world has become — with people in the free world tiptoeing in terror around supremacist thugs who actually commit murder over cartoons. If we can’t stand up for the freedom of speech, we will lose it." The topic of free speech was revisited during Geller’s segment with Cuomo, during which Geller pointed out that free speech is often curtailed in Muslim countries: "In Muslim countries, under the Sharia, there is a death penalty for blaspheming Mohammad." Is that true? Well, yes and no. First, a bit of background on what Sharia law actually entails. The Sharia is tied in to Islamic law as derived from both the Quran and Mohammad’s teachings. Essentially, it translates to the "right path" or "the way." However, as Professor Khaleel Mohammed at San Diego State University pointed out, "that way is not always defined (and can) be considered similar to Jesus saying ‘I am the way, the truth and the life...’ In Islam, the Sharia is this abstract." Stemming from the Sharia are multiple interpretations of this "way," and they are embodied in the fiqh. Geller said that "in Muslim countries, under the Sharia, there is a death penalty for blaspheming Mohammad." In an email interview with PunditFact, Geller elaborated on her statement: "The death penalty can result from blasphemy charges in majority-Muslim countries including Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan (where the death penalty is often enforced against ‘blasphemers’ by lynch mobs), Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen. Kuwait and the UAE recognize Sharia rules for blasphemers, and that can lead to death (too)." To assess Geller’s claim, we turned to the "Compendium of Blasphemy Laws" compiled by the Human Rights First organization, the Library of Congress’ "Laws Criminalizing Apostasy," as well as other sources. We compiled a chart to see how different countries handle blasphemy. Out of 50 countries listed with a Muslim majority, we only found five with definitive state laws stating that in cases of blasphemy against Islam, Allah, or Mohammad, the punishment was death - Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Brunei. (Brunei’s death penalty against blasphemy will not go into effect until this October.) In addition, another six countries have laws in which death is the punishment for apostasy, or the denouncement of one’s religion. (Since blasphemy may fall under the category of apostasy in some instances, these laws are also included.) These countries are Morocco, Mauritania, Yemen, the Maldives, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. That’s 11 out of 50 countries. And even in these instances, laws are not absolute. Take Qatar. Under its penal code, apostasy is to be judged according to the Sharia, which states that the punishment is death. Blasphemy could also fall under this category. Yet, "Qatar has not imposed any penalty for this offense since its independence in 1971," according to the Library of Congress’ "Laws Criminalizing Apostasy." Other countries are even more clear. In Tajikistan, with a Muslim population of 96.7 percent, the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and speech. While not many countries on the list go so far as to guarantee these rights, the majority do not have capital punishment officially listed for either blasphemy or apostasy. In many instances, when individuals are killed for either of those crimes, it is through extrajudicial means. Private citizens, and not the state, kill people they believe committed blasphemy or apostasy. "Remember, (when we hear) about ‘Islamic law,’ it often has little to do with actual Islamic law... in fact (these ‘laws’) are on-the-spot creations of warlords," Mohammed said. The majority of countries who have laws detailing punishment against blasphemy or apostasy have either imprisonment or a fine, and not death, as the worst outcome. Our ruling Geller said that "in Muslim countries, under the Sharia, there is a death penalty for blaspheming Mohammad." At best, that is an overgeneralization. Yes, there are countries who prescribe the death penalty, and they often do cite the Sharia as the cause for it. But out of 50 countries with Muslim majorities, there are only 11 where this is in some way sanctioned by state law. In addition, not all countries with the death penalty use it. The death penalty is not applied universally, and can be mitigated in cases when the accused repents. Geller’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details and takes things out of context. We rate her statement is Half True. | null | Pamela Geller | null | null | null | 2015-06-11T16:49:21 | 2015-06-04 | ['Sharia', 'Islam', 'Muhammad'] |
abbc-00379 | The Coalition released its policy to "fix" Queensland's Bruce Highway in July 2013. | in-between | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/bruce-highway-promise-check/5516240 | null | ['federal-government', 'abbott-tony', 'liberals', 'road-transport', 'industry', 'business-economics-and-finance', 'brisbane-4000', 'qld', 'australia'] | null | null | ['federal-government', 'abbott-tony', 'liberals', 'road-transport', 'industry', 'business-economics-and-finance', 'brisbane-4000', 'qld', 'australia'] | Promise check: $6.7 billion to fix the Bruce Highway | Sun 8 May 2016, 7:37am | null | ['Coalition_(Australia)', 'Queensland'] |
tron-00445 | Life Changing Experience with a Baby Sea Lion | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/sea-lion-encounter/ | null | animals | null | null | null | Life Changing Experience with a Baby Sea Lion | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05584 | Says "today unemployment has been running near 12 percent or more for the last four years" and the Legislature hasn’t done much to lower it. | half-true | /oregon/statements/2012/apr/02/tim-knopp/how-much-oregon-legislature-blame-deschutes-county/ | Former House Majority Leader Tim Knopp, R-Bend, surprised hobby political watchers on filing day when he announced he’d take on fellow Republican and state Sen. Chris Telfer, R-Bend, for the Central Oregon district. Knopp left the Oregon House in 2005, after serving three terms. He said that when he left the Legislature, the state, and Central Oregon, were in much better shape. For example, unemployment in the area was 6 percent. "Today unemployment has been running near 12 percent or more for the last four years and the Legislature has stalled on critical job legislation, additional PERS reforms, school choice expansion, and efforts to protect small businesses, seniors and veterans," Knopp writes on his campaign website. On one level, this is a statement of fact. When Knopp left the House, unemployment was much lower. On another level, he’s criticizing his opponent, Telfer, for failing to do anything about unemployment. Is that fair? How much of the high unemployment can be blamed on the Legislature? On the flip side, can he take credit for lower unemployment? In a phone interview, Knopp confirmed he is calling out the Legislature and, specifically, Telfer, for failing to focus on jobs. Knopp criticized Telfer for running for state treasurer after winning her state Senate seat in 2008; there wasn’t much jobs action in 2011, he said, and just a little more in 2012. "There are 27 counties that are doing better than Deschutes County right now," Knopp said. "We need to do better and the focus needs to be on jobs, and that’s a good portion of why I’m running." Senate District 27 is wholly within Deschutes County. Central Oregon includes Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook counties. You can see by the unemployment numbers that Bend/Deschutes suffered during the recession. 2005 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Bend area 6.1 4.5 6.2 12.7 14.3 13.9 11.6 Oregon 6.5 5.1 5.2 9.9 11 9.9 8.8 Knopp is correct that when he left office in January 2005, unemployment for both Bend and Deschutes County were at 6 percent. Jobless figures started creeping up in 2008. The recession officially started in December 2007 and ended in June 2009. Oregon tends to lag the nation in downturn and recovery. Knopp is largely correct in saying that in Deschutes County, unemployment hovered at 12 percent or more for the last four years. (We will give him the 11.6 percent in January 2012, although we should note that it’s dropped to 11.3 percent in February 2012.) But again, just how much sway do state legislators have in the face of a global recession? We turned to the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, where they have a good description of the region’s economic history. Basically, Central Oregon has enjoyed large growth. Employment grew 4.8 percent per year, on average, from 1983 through 2007. By contrast, Oregon grew 2.4 percent per year. The region benefited from more people moving in and a boom in housing. Then the bubble burst, spectacularly. Tom Potiowsky, who did two tours as Oregon state economist, says Deschutes County was caught up in the national housing frenzy. Home prices soared. Anyone could get a loan, with hardly any credit. He doesn’t know how legislators could have foreseen that and stopped the building boom -- or, in the aftermath, shed the oversupply of homes. "Deschutes County was probably one of the hardest hit counties in the housing problem," he said. Richard Read, a reporter at The Oregonian, wrote in May 2009 of Bend’s rise and fall: "Fair or not, Bend -- the nation's sixth-fastest-growing metro area early this decade -- soared the highest and crashed the hardest of any community in Oregon. The city's volcanic housing market of just a few years ago has collapsed into a sea of foreclosures, bankruptcies and plant closures." Here’s the evidence. Residential construction permits went from 922 in 2005 to 220 in 2008, and to 97 in 2010, according to Deschutes County. Carolyn Eagan, regional economist with the employment department, says that the jobless rate peaked in 2009, "but we still have a lot of people who were unemployed in fields that were related to housing that continue to look for work." We’re not sure what the Legislature could have done. Certainly some lawmakers, including Knopp, will argue that they could have done something to buck up the area. Knopp was in office during the 2001 recession. Unemployment crept up to 8.2 percent in Bend, but Oregon’s economic analysts say that recession didn’t affect the area that much. "Both the 1990 and 2001 recessions had little net impact on local employment, partially due to continued strong population growth and also the industrial structure … However the collapse of the housing bubble brought extreme levels of job loss to the region." In 2010, PolitiFact Oregon analyzed a similar claim by then-GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley, who said that unemployment rose 65 percent under the watch of former Gov. John Kitzhaber. We found that while Kitzhaber didn’t help the situation -- businesses could have used help navigating land-use regulations -- there wasn’t much a governor could do about the 2001 recession. (We gave it a Half True.) We think the same way here. Knopp appears to be as responsible for a 6 percent unemployment figure as Telfer is for a 12 percent unemployment rate, and that’s not very much. His figures are correct, making the statement partially accurate, but there’s important information missing: The context of a global recession. We rate the statement Half True. | null | Tim Knopp | null | null | null | 2012-04-02T17:21:26 | 2012-03-06 | ['None'] |
goop-02112 | Khloe Kardashian, Kylie Jenner Are “Delivery Room Divas”? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/khloe-kardashian-delivery-room-divas-kylie-jenner/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Khloe Kardashian, Kylie Jenner Are “Delivery Room Divas”? | 11:14 am, November 30, 2017 | null | ['Khloé_Kardashian', 'Keeping_Up_with_the_Kardashians'] |
obry-00038 | Incumbent Republican Senator Rob Portman is continuing to apply pressure to former Democratic Governor Ted Strickland in the Ohio Senate race. In a recent Facebook post on his campaign’s page, Portman made numerous claims pertaining to the effectiveness of Strickland’s political history. “After 12 years in Congress, Ted Strickland was ranked as one of the most absent and ineffective members of Congress and never authored a single bill that became law. Under Governor Ted Strickland, Ohio lost over 350,000 jobs and ranked 48th in job creation,” said Portman. Strickland served as the representative for Ohio’s 6th Congressional District from 1993-94 and 1997-2006. According to GovTrack — a nonpartisan, open data website that tracks the work of the U.S. Congress — from January 1993 to December 2006, Strickland missed 364 out of 6,954 roll-call votes. Strickland missed 5.2 percent of the votes held during his congressional career, noticeably worse than the 2.9 percent lifetime average among all the representatives serving during December 2006. | verified | https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2016/11/29/portman-claims-strickland-ineffective-in-congress-as-governor/ | null | null | null | Max Beyer and Riley Vetterkind | null | Portman claims Strickland ineffective in Congress, as governor | November 29, 2016 | null | ['Ted_Strickland', 'United_States_Congress', 'Ohio', 'Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Congressional_district'] |
snes-00671 | An optical illusion allows a 3D arrow to appear as if it is always pointing in the same direction (with its mirror reflection showing the opposite direction), even when it is rotated 180 degrees. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/real-video-arrow-always-points-right/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Is This a Real Video of an Arrow That Always Points to the Right? | 2 May 2018 | null | ['None'] |
vees-00216 | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Website posts story about Robredo succeeding Duterte | misleading | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-website-posts-misleading-story-about-r | null | null | null | null | Leni Robredo,false news | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Website posts MISLEADING story about Robredo succeeding Duterte | May 08, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00543 | Alex Rodriguez’s Ex-Wife ‘Furious’ Over Jennifer Lopez ‘Engagement,’ | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/alex-rodriguez-jennifer-lopez-engaged-ex-wife-cynthia-scurtis/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Alex Rodriguez’s Ex-Wife NOT ‘Furious’ Over Jennifer Lopez ‘Engagement,’ Despite Report | 4:15 pm, July 31, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01309 | U.S. Pays $1 Billion into Green Climate Fund, Top Polluters Pay Nothing | truth! & misleading! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/u-s-pays-1-billion-green-climate-fund-top-polluters-pay-nothing/ | null | environment | null | null | ['climate change', 'foreign leaders', 'international'] | U.S. Pays $1 Billion into Green Climate Fund, Top Polluters Pay Nothing | Jun 7, 2017 | null | ['United_States'] |
chct-00056 | FACT CHECK: Is Twitter Blocking Posts That Use The Phrase 'Illegal Alien'? | verdict: false | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/09/14/fact-check-twitter-block-illegal-alien/ | null | null | null | Shane Devine | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 2:44 PM 09/14/2018 | null | ['None'] |
afck-00353 | Mmamoloko Kubayi, African National Congress member of parliament: “The success of the youth incentive scheme in a short period of time…has been nothing short of remarkable and it has created more than 133,000 job opportunities for our youth.” | unproven | https://africacheck.org/reports/sona-unemployment-claims-unpacked/ | null | null | null | null | null | SONA unemployment claims unpacked | 2014-06-26 06:16 | null | ['None'] |
vogo-00243 | Statement: “The referendum (Proposition B) on the ballot costs almost $100 million over the next few years to implement,” mayoral candidate Bob Filner wrote in an editorial published April 28 by U-T San Diego. | determination: mostly true | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/mayor-2012/the-pension-initiatives-initial-costs-fact-check/ | Analysis: One of the most prominent issues separating Filner from his election rivals is Proposition B, the pension initiative. Filner opposes it. His three rivals support it. | null | null | null | null | The Pension Initiative's Initial Costs: Fact Check | May 8, 2012 | null | ['Bob_Filner', 'U-T_San_Diego'] |
snes-01255 | A federal judge ruled that three items of Sharia law are now deemed to be legal in the state of Texas. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shariah-law-legal-texas/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | Did a Federal Judge Rule Three Items of Sharia Law Are Now Legal in Texas? | 7 January 2018 | null | ['Texas'] |
pomt-12646 | More than half of Planned Parenthood facilities are in rural or medically underserved areas. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/mar/24/carolyn-maloney/ny-rep-maloney-most-planned-parenthood-clinics-are/ | During debate on the Republican health care bill, U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., spoke passionately about the impact it will have on women’s health and especially on Planned Parenthood. "We all know by now that the recent CBO analysis has bad news for millions of Americans, but it has some especially bad news for women," Maloney said on the House floor on March 16, 2017, the same day that the House Budget Committee approved the bill. "The GOP plan makes Planned Parenthood ineligible for any reimbursement from Medicaid or Medicare for one entire year," Maloney said. "More than half of Planned Parenthood facilities are in rural or medically underserved areas." Maloney was right that the bill restricts funds for Planned Parenthood. The American Health Care Act has a provision that won’t allow states to use direct spending of federal funds on prohibited entities. Planned Parenthood is a prohibited entity under the bill because it is a provider that is "primarily engaged in family planning services, reproductive health and related medical care" or "provides for abortion" in any situation besides saving the life of the mother, incest or rape. We were intrigued, however, by the claim that half of Planned Parenthood facilities are in rural or underserved areas. It’s a tricky thing to measure, but the evidence suggests the claim is sound. Our research Maloney’s spokeswoman Jennifer Bell pointed us to data from Planned Parenthood’s website. Statistics there show that 54% of Planned Parenthood facilities are located in health professional shortage areas, rural or medically underserved areas. This percentage was calculated by the Health Resources & Services Administration Shortage Area Database system. The HRSA is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The HRSA's programs help provide health care to people who are geographically isolated, or economically or medically vulnerable. The agency identifies areas where health care is difficult to come by. Planned Parenthood matched up their locations to the HRSA data. Mark Holmes, an associate professor in health policy and management at the University of North Carolina, told us the government system of identifying underserved areas is reliable. "The HRSA database for shortage areas is pretty accurate. In terms of additional context, there are multiple types of shortage areas," he explained. Holmes said some shortage areas are designated as a "population" shortage area. "This area is okay in general, but for certain kinds of populations, they may have a tough time getting the care they need," he said. He used an example of "low-income" populations. "Medicaid beneficiaries may live in an area with lots of providers, none of whom take Medicaid, so then although it looks like the area is well-served, there is actually a considerable shortage," Holmes said. "In Planned Parenthood’s case, I don’t think that is a problem because so many of Planned Parenthood’s clients are lower income, according to their data." We ran this by two other health care experts, and they said that the claim was accurate. Our ruling Maloney said, "More than half of Planned Parenthood facilities are in rural or medically underserved areas." That claim is supported by data from Planned Parenthood and the federal health care database. Experts familiar with the data told us that there is enough evidence to show Maloney was on target with her claim. We rate this claim True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Carolyn Maloney | null | null | null | 2017-03-24T11:45:45 | 2017-03-16 | ['None'] |
pomt-15329 | Limberbutt McCubbins (a five-year-old cat) is a candidate in the 2016 presidential election. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/14/limberbutt-mccubbins/can-a-cat-run-for-president/ | Editor’s note, July 15, 2015, 10:50 a.m.: After we published this report, we received additional details from the Federal Election Commission that may prove a devastating blow to Limberbutt’s fledging candidacy. According to the FEC, Limberbutt must raise or spend $5,000 to be considered an official candidate by the commission. We’ve added that new information to this fact-check. Limberbutt McCubbins is running for president, and the five-year-old feline isn’t pussyfooting around. Besides launching a campaign website and accompanying social media accounts, Limberbutt has caught some media attention (though some seem unaware of his animal nature), nabbed an endorsement, and even inspired a line of campaign swag. "Limberbutt McCubbins is a candidate we can all get behind! Meow is the time!" the kitty’s website announces. After thousands of fact-checks devoted to policy issues and the major presidential candidates, we thought it would be fun to look into how far this candidacy has gone and how far it can go. Registering with the FEC At the time of this report, Limberbutt and 477 others have submitted a statement of candidacy to the Federal Election Commission. So far, the cat has followed all the rules of the election process. Virtually anyone can file the paperwork but only those who have spent or received $5,000 on their campaigns are considered official candidates, an FEC spokesperson told us. These regulations, however, say that they apply to "individuals," not animals. High schooler Isaac Weiss, a friend of Limberbutt’s owner Emilee McCubbins, filed the cat’s statement of candidacy on May 6, 2015. Limberbutt’s a Democrat, and Weiss registered his campaign organization, "The Committee for the Installation of Limberbutt," on the same day. "It only took us about 20 minutes to fill out the forms, which surprised us," Weiss told the Miami Herald. "And it surprised us even more that nobody from the FEC got back to us about Limberbutt being a cat after reporters started doing stories." The FEC is not responsible for checking out a would-be candidate’s qualifications, according to the spokesperson. (We’ll get to this later.) Limberbutt has yet to file the mandatory quarterly report disclosing his receipts and disbursements (neither has Donald Trump). But the form isn’t due until July 15, so "there’s still time," Weiss told PolitiFact. Constitutional requirements Even if Limberbutt complies with election regulations, the question of his eligibility looms. For one, he’s only 5 years old, 30 years too young to run for president. Weiss, for his part, is confident Limberbutt faces no legal hurdles in his bid, claiming that Limberbutt is 36 in cat years. "The Constitution doesn't say it has to be human years," he told the Herald. Unfortunately for Weiss, we found no reliable scientific method for converting cat years into human years nor legal framework allowing the practice. Article II of the Constitution states that "no person" under age 35 who’s not a natural-born citizen can be president. (We’ve looked into the eligibility of Ted Cruz, who was born in Canada.) Does that mean cats are exempt from the age requirement? Probably not, said Michael Gilbert, a professor of election law at the University of Virginia. "In jest, the expression of one thing (persons must meet certain requirements to be president) implies the exclusion of all others (nonpersons don’t have to meet any requirements to be president) — an underage Pakistani cat could win in 2016," Gilbert said. In seriousness, Gilbert is "quite sure that any court that considers the matter will interpret the Constitution to require federal officeholders to be human beings." Constitutional law scholar Sarah Duggin of Catholic University pointed out several other issues with Limberbutt’s candidacy in the text: The 14th Amendment restricts citizenship to human beings; the 25th Amendment stipulates he must be able to discharge his powers and duties to a vice president; and, if Limberbutt is elected, the 20th Amendment gives Congress the burden of handling a situation where "the president-elect shall have failed to qualify." "I suspect that there might also be a strong case for arguing that cats are aliens, and it's very hard to argue that cats are subject to anyone's jurisdiction -- just kidding," she added. In sum, Limberbutt fails to meet the constitutional requirements. Ballot access Historically, at least 33 unqualified candidates have made it onto ballots, experts told us. The requirements for getting your name listed vary from state to state and from the party primaries to the general election. "It’ll be harder to get on the primary ballot than on the general," said Richard Winger, publisher and editor of Ballot Access News. That’s because primary ballots often require would-be candidates to sign a written declaration that they meet the constitutional requirements and/or they are a registered member of the party. General election ballots are often more lax -- some require a few thousand signatures, and others a filing fee. The most crowded presidential ballot (16 candidates) was Colorado’s in 2012, said Winger. He noted that in 1972, the Socialist Workers Party’s underage slate appeared on 20 state ballots. More than 3,000 voters in six states cast ballots for the party’s 2004 presidential candidate, who was a citizen of Nicaragua. If Limberbutt re-declared as a third-party candidate in the general election, he would need 5,000 signatures to appear on the ballot in his homestate of Kentucky. Weiss, the cat’s campaign manager, told us he needs to meet with other members of the organizing committee when the school year starts to determine if they’ll pursue that option. Even if he gets the support, Winger doubts if the Bluegrass State will permit voters to choose Limberbutt in November 2016, and "no court would make them do it." Political animals Limberbutt’s not the first non-human candidate to run for office. In a few local and international elections, some animals have even won. Limberbutt’s most famous predecessor was a boar hog named Pigasus the Immortal, the Youth International Party’s 1968 presidential candidate. Its slogan: "They nominate a president, and he eats the people. We nominate a president, and the people eat him." "Pigasus was definitely satire and fun, and incredible street theater, but there was also a political message of course," said Katherine Sibley, who studies social movements at St. Joseph’s University. "They wanted to show the police, those at the convention, protesters in Chicago and Americans at large, that things had gotten pretty insane and violent in America." No efforts were made to get Pigasus on a ballot that year, as he and supporters were arrested at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. The charges were dropped, and the pig dropped off the radar. Rumors that he had become a meal for the Chicago police have never been confirmed, said Sibley. Limberbutt’s candidacy, meanwhile, was inspired by a more passive form of youth revolt. Weiss and his friends registered the cat after being bored by "what seemed to them like about the umptheenth (presidential) announcement," reports the Herald. Can Limberbutt claw his way to the White House politically? On one hand, he’s effectively polling at the same rate as Democratic rival Lincoln Chafee, and there’s some speculation Bernie Sanders could pick him as a running mate. On the other, we still haven’t heard anything about his economic pawlicy. Our ruling McCubbins, a five-year-old cat, said, "Limberbutt McCubbins is a candidate" in the 2016 presidential election. Yes, this is the first time we're fact-checking a claim made by a cat. (Though we have fact-checked a terrier who supported Mitt Romney in 2008.) Limberbutt’s campaign manager has filed official paperwork, but the FEC doesn’t deem him formally a candidate, because he hasn’t spent or received $5,000. (This is also the case for some human candidates.) Experts told us it’s very unlikely that he’ll appear on any ballots as a candidate, and it’s even more unlikely that his candidacy will stand in a court of law. We rate Limberbutt’s claim Half True. | null | Limberbutt McCubbins | null | null | null | 2015-07-14T16:37:25 | 2015-07-09 | ['None'] |
pomt-07089 | Says critics who say he cut Medicaid are wrong; his budget added $1.2 billion to the program | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2011/jun/24/scott-walker/governor-scott-walker-says-critics-are-wrong-he-cu/ | Gov. Scott Walker got a friendly reception during a June 21 turn on CNBC’s "Squawk Box," but he was asked to respond to the notion that his budget was balanced on the backs of the poor and schoolchildren. In an exchange with Walker, the show’s co-anchor Becky Quick noted that critics say Walker cut Medicaid-funded health programs by $500 million and public education by $800 million. The Republican governor disagreed, calling the critiques "Madison math" -- his shorthand for common-sense-defying arithmetic. "This budget actually adds $1.2 billion more for Medicaid, to make sure the neediest, the poorest of the poor, seniors, needy families and children are the ones taken care of," Walker responded. He also said his education cuts were offset by employee benefit savings his budget allowed. But even as he spoke, the budget was on Walker’s desk after legislators gave approval to a 2011-’13 Medicaid plan that Walker’s own budget documents had pledged would "reduce expenditures by over $500 million in the next biennium." That sounds like an open and shut case. But, as you might expect, there is more to this story. It’s as much a case of "Medicaid math" as "Madison math." To understand both, you need to remember that Medicaid costs are driven by many factors, from how many people are eligible for the program to the cost of treatment and what recipients are asked to contribute in co-pays. So, when spending adjustments are made, it does not necessarily change the benefits to the individuals. In this case, projections called for a need to spend at least $1.8 billion more in the two-year budget to keep the program running as it currently does. The Medicaid funding gap amplified the size of the overall state deficit Walker said he was facing, but ultimately he did not put all of the money into his plan. The budget Walker introduced did increase baseline spending for Medicaid by $1.2 billion. But it also made cuts -- though little is yet known about their impact on the state-federal program that cares for low-income families with children under 19, the elderly, disabled and others. Charles Morgan, the top expert on health services at the nonpartisan Wisconsin Legislative Fiscal Bureau, explains it this way: "They first fully funded it but then reduced it. It depends on what you are comparing it to, the gross funding or the base. Total funding is up, but there is a funding reduction." Many Medicaid-funded health services are an entitlement, and enrollment soared as the economy cratered. Therefore, the normal "cost to continue" the program would have required an increase of $1.8 billion to $2 billion compared to the $1.2 billion that Walker and legislators added, according to Fiscal Bureau figures, outside analysts and our own calculations. Part of the challenge was that federal stimulus funds for Medicaid have dried up. In the end, Walker, trying to plug that shortfall, won approval from the Legislature for his Health Services Department to find $466 million in budget savings over two years through as-yet-unidentified changes. Many of the changes likely will need approval by federal authorities. Some other states have made or proposed dramatic across-the-board cuts, limited enrollment or dropped certain medical procedures. But it’s not clear yet whether Wisconsin’s actions will go that far, or rely on more cost-sharing by clients, tighter enrollment rules, less money for hospitals, doctors and other health care providers, or other moves. The details will determine which group views the moves as "cuts." The impact of one Wisconsin cost-saving move is clear, however: The budget approved by legislators caps enrollment in Family Care, the long-term care program that gives seniors options rather than nursing-home living. That could save $265 million by blocking new enrollments. Dennis Smith, Walker’s Health Services chief, put it this way after Walker’s budget came out: "Despite a historic 23% increase to the Department's budget, Wisconsin's Medicaid program still faces a serious fiscal challenge over the next two years as we identify over $500 million in cost savings. To meet our goals, and balance the Medicaid budget, we have to find ways to be more efficient and cut costs." In future years, those savings would continue to grow, totaling $1.2 billion in all funds by fiscal year 2016-’17, according to the governor’s original budget plan, which was adjusted only modestly by legislators. How have similar moves been portrayed in the past? Two years ago, Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle, Walker’s predecessor, made a very similar move -- increasing the Medicaid budget but trimming $600 million from the "cost to continue" price tag. His top budget administrator bluntly called it "cuts of over $600 million to Medicaid." Media accounts called it "cost cutting," as did some major actors in the budget drama, such as the Wisconsin Medical Society. We give a lot of weight to the independent Fiscal Bureau and history. But there are well-informed partisan voices on this topic -- and previous PolitiFact rulings on a somewhat similar claim to consider as well. As we have already seen, "cost cutting" did not equal a real-dollar decrease in Walker’s Medicaid budget proposal. (The 2011-’13 budget, as adjusted by lawmakers, was sent to the governor’s desk on June 16, 2011.) George Lightbourn, a former top administration official under two Republican governors, said the bottom line was the program would receive a big funding increase, a remarkable reality in a budget that made actual deep cuts in other areas. It could only be a "cut" if the state had been in a position to take a business-as-usual approach to the budget -- and it wasn’t, said Lightbourn, president of the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Institute. Jon Peacock, a Medicaid expert at a liberal advocacy group, the Wisconsin Budget Project, agreed with the Fiscal Bureau -- he said the two statements could accurately co-exist. Peacock said it was appropriate for Walker to use realistic projections of the Medicaid "cost to continue" in his budget -- and appropriate for his budget to be judged on not fully funding that. "As an analogy, imagine that Social Security spending was going to increase by 5 percent because the number of people eligible was increasing 2 percent and the average benefit per person was increasing 3 percent (tied to the cost of living)," Peacock wrote. "If the President or Congress decided to provide a total spending increase of 1 percent, by cutting the benefits by 1 percent, rather than increasing them 3 percent -- lawmakers could correctly argue that they were increasing spending, and seniors could correctly argue that the program was being cut." Finally, we turned to PolitiFact National and PolitiFact state sites, which have dealt with a claims regarding a similar program, Medicare, which like Medicaid is an entitlement program. PolitiFact consistently has rated as Barely True Republican claims that federal health care reforms supported by President Barack Obama and Democrats "cut" Medicare. Here was PolitiFact’s rationale: "It's important to note that the law does not take $500 billion out of the current Medicare budget. Rather, the bill attempts to slow the program's future growth, curtailing just over $500 billion in future spending over the next 10 years. Medicare spending will still increase..." It’s not a totally clean comparison to the Wisconsin situation: Walker’s cut is in two years, not 10, and it’s not clear yet here whether benefits will be cut to get the savings. But it’s in the ballpark. Let’s get to the bottom line. In the wake of his controversial budget proposals, Walker co-hosted a CNBC program and disagreed with a critique that he made cuts to the state’s Medicaid program. Walker ridiculed the idea as "Madison math." Experts are not united on this one, but Wisconsin’s nonpartisan official budget scorekeeper thinks both the cuts and the increase are accurate claims. Media accounts have portrayed past moves as cuts, as well. What’s more, when Walker introduced his budget, he also described the changes as cuts. So, Walker made a generally accurate statement about the increase, but by dismissing the talk of cuts he left out a lot of context and important details on his budget move. That’s a Half True. | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2011-06-24T09:00:00 | 2011-06-21 | ['None'] |
pomt-02891 | Wendy Davis is "fighting to bring ... Bloomberg-style gun control to Texas." | half-true | /texas/statements/2013/nov/08/greg-abbott/davis-not-pushing-gun-control-bloomberg-has-favore/ | Austin political consultant Steven Rivas drew our attention to a claim on a donation web page for Greg Abbott’s gubernatorial campaign saying state Sen. Wendy Davis is "fighting to bring California values to Texas" including "Bloomberg-style gun control." Setting aside how much California agrees with New York’s gun-control advocate mayor Michael Bloomberg, we thought Texans would want to know Davis’ views, as her bid to become governor is the first statewide campaign for the Fort Worth Democrat. Davis hasn’t, so far, focused on gun control in her campaign. Abbott, a Republican who’s served as Texas’ attorney general since 2002, says on his campaign site that he’ll fight federal limits on gun rights. Abbott campaign spokesmen Matt Hirsch and Avdiel Huerta told us by email that Davis, a former Fort Worth City Council member elected to the Senate in 2008, had "voted twice against campus carry," "voted to prohibit gun shows in Fort Worth," supported background checks for gun buyers and had opposed a measure to remove cities’ abilities to restrict guns in municipal buildings; they also provided citations and backup materials. Asked for specifics on "Bloomberg-style," Huerta sent a March 26, 2013, PolitiFact fact-check that said, "Bloomberg is pushing for universal background checks on all firearm purchases." In addition, Bloomberg, a powerful advocate for gun control both locally and nationally, has long urged and in some cases helped enact measures including strengthening punishments for those who illegally possess guns, registering gun offenders and banning military-style weapons. He also focuses on "straw" purchases -- those made by people who intend to re-sell the weapons to illegal buyers -- and has been criticized for his city administration’s sting operations in other states to uncover such transactions. Bloomberg co-founded and co-chairs Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group that launched a $12 million, 13-state ad campaign March 23, 2013, promoting expanded background checks. Group spokeswoman Erika Soto Lamb told us by email that "Bloomberg-style" could fairly be defined as "common-sense gun reforms that will save American lives by keeping guns out of dangerous hands." Universal background checks -- requiring private sellers everywhere (not just at gun shows) to run background checks -- are a prime example and the group’s priority, she said. Davis on gun shows Hirsch of Abbott’s campaign emailed us citations from news stories saying that as a member of the Fort Worth City Council in 2000, Davis supported making sure all buyers faced background checks at gun shows in city-owned facilities and that she recently told the Texas Tribune she still held that view. A Sept. 11, 2013, Tribune news story Hirsch emailed to us said Davis was a gun owner and quoted her as saying of the gun show restrictions, "I haven’t pursued it as a senator because I know it’s like spitting in the wind" and "But I still believe it’s the right thing. And if I were governor and a bill came to my desk that provided for background checks at gun shows, I would sign that." Hirsch also cited a Sept. 18, 2013, commentary by Georgia writer Brandon Howell, posted on the conservative Daily Caller website, that went further, saying Davis also "sought banning gun shows on city-owned property." A Fort Worth ordinance Davis proposed in 2000 could have barred some gun shows from city property, but was tabled along with a related proposal, according to news stories starting in 2000 about a months-long city government debate on gun control that year. An Aug. 9, 2000, news story in the Dallas Morning News said her ordinance would have placed restrictions on shows "including provisions that would allow only licensed dealers to sell firearms on city premises." According to the story, Davis said that another option was requiring background checks on gun buyers at the shows. A July 19, 2000, News story said Davis also supported the other tabled proposal, a resolution by which the council would have asked the federal government to require background checks of gun show buyers. Bloomberg supports background checks on gun show buyers, evidenced notably when he sent New York investigators to gun shows in states as far away as Nevada in 2006, 2009 and 2011 to find evidence that private dealers would sell to buyers who wouldn’t pass background checks. In a July 25, 2012, fact-check, PolitiFact gave a Half True rating to his claim that "you can sell guns without a background check at a gun show, forty percent of guns are sold that way, same thing on the Internet." Davis on campus carry Legal gun owners’ ability to take their weapons onto college campuses doesn’t appear to be an issue Bloomberg emphasizes, based on our check of the Nexis news archive. Mayors Against Illegal Guns has supported college leaders calling for tighter gun restrictions on campuses nationwide, but doesn’t name the issue among its principles or in the primary categories on its scorecard for lawmakers. New York state bans weapons on campuses. Hirsch, turning to Davis’ tenure as a state senator, cited her 2009 vote against a proposal to allow Texas concealed-handgun license holders to carry handguns on college campuses. That proposal passed the Senate by 20-11 and cleared a House committee, but it died toward the end of the legislative session short of reaching the full House. Hirsch also specified Davis’ 2011 vote on legislation intended to let such license holders carry guns inside campus buildings. Senators including Davis voted 19-11 not to bring the proposal up for floor consideration, and it then died (a similar measure failed to pass in the 2013 session). To our inquiry, Davis campaign spokeswoman Rebecca Acuña told us by email that Davis voted for three pro-gun measures, supported two others and was quoted in a Jan. 13, 2013, Fort Worth Star-Telegram news story as saying, "Americans have the right under the Second Amendment to own firearms, and that is not going to change." Acuña said Davis wants to protect Second Amendment rights on firearms "for honest citizens by assuring that they are kept out of the hands of criminals." One of the Senate votes Acuña cited was related to campus carry issues. In the 2013 session, Davis was among the "yea" votes when the Senate approved, 27-4, a proposal to allow college students with concealed-handgun licenses to store handguns in locked vehicles on campus. The measure became law and took effect Sept. 1, 2013. The Daily Caller item Hirsch provided to us described that as "an easy vote" for Davis because the proposal passed by such a wide margin. Davis told the bill’s author, according to an April 30, 2013, Star-Telegram news story, that "she planned to support his bill but said she wanted his assurance that ‘you will not allow that opening, that broad opening to become a part of what you’re passing out of here today.’ … ‘You understand that there are many of us in the Senate chamber who are concerned about the broader impacts of carrying on campus.’ " The story said Davis later issued a statement saying that "it is important that the local control of colleges and universities over their campuses be preserved with regard to carrying guns on campus." Davis on concealed-carry measures and cities’ abilities to restrict guns Bloomberg and his group have long opposed letting states recognize out-of-state concealed-carry permits. New York City, where Bloomberg is nearing the end of his 12-year stretch as mayor, issues concealed-carry permits in limited circumstances. And Bloomberg favors expanding at least some concealed-carry restrictions; after the Feb. 26, 2012, death of Trayvon Martin in Florida, Bloomberg said in an April 11, 2012, speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., that George Zimmerman, who shot Martin, should never have been allowed to carry a concealed weapon because of his legal history. Huerta sent us part of a May 24, 2001, Star-Telegram news story in which council members including Davis "criticized a bill passed by the state Senate that would ... give the Legislature the sole right to regulate whether" concealed-handgun license holders "can take their weapons to such locations as city halls, libraries or parks." The story quoted Davis as saying, "I think it's a terrible idea" and "Once again, it's an example of the state getting involved in an issue that should be within the city's jurisdiction." Acuña cited Davis’ 2013 votes on three measures simplifying the process to get a concealed-carry license. Davis voted for a proposal to prohibit state officials from requiring applicants’ Social Security numbers that became law and takes effect Jan. 1, 2014, and for two measures that became law effective Sept. 1, 2013, cutting the number of instruction hours needed and eliminating the need to take a proficiency test. The Senate approved the measures by votes of, respectively, 25-6, 29-1 and 27-4. Acuña also noted that Davis voted for a measure allowing the state’s attorney general to get an injunction against a city or county that breaks state law by restricting ownership, transport, licensing or other actions regarding firearms, ammunition and supplies. The Senate approved it 24-6; it became law and took effect June 14, 2013. It’s not a new restriction on cities, but rather a specific way to enable the enforcement of existing state law that bars such local restrictions. So is Wendy like Mike? The mayoral group’s spokeswoman named universal background checks as "Bloomberg-like." So does the NRA, it turns out. Spokesman Andrew Arulanandam of the NRA’s lobbying arm told us by phone, "AG Abbott is correct in his assessment," based on Bloomberg’s federal-level push for expanding background checks and Davis’ remarks to the Texas Tribune favoring "background checks at gun shows." At the Texas State Rifle Association, which is affiliated with the NRA, spokeswoman Alice Tripp told us by phone that she agreed with Abbott based on Davis’ 2000 push for background checks at gun shows. "Bloomberg seems to attack firearm ownership in that kind of parental way," she said. Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, told us by email her group hopes Davis "will come out in support of common-sense gun reform, including background checks," and said that to her group, "Bloomberg-style gun control" is not a pejorative term. The groups did not have scorecards or endorsements for specific candidates this far ahead of Texas’ Nov. 4, 2014, general election. Our ruling Abbott said Davis is "fighting to bring" "Bloomberg-style gun control to Texas." Like Bloomberg, Davis supports background checks for all buyers at gun shows. She has opposed campus-carry measures, but voted to allow concealed weapons locked in vehicles while warning the author not to take it any farther. She has opposed letting the state tell cities or colleges they can’t regulate guns on their property, but voted to let the state pursue injunctions against cities that overstep limitations currently in state law. She joined most of the Senate in voting for three laws simplifying concealed-handgun permit applications. Davis has taken some actions Bloomberg might approve, and others he might not. However, she doesn’t appear, so far, to be "fighting" for tighter gun control if elected governor. We rate Abbott’s partly accurate statement as Half True. HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Greg Abbott | null | null | null | 2013-11-08T14:04:46 | 2013-11-07 | ['Texas'] |
snes-05327 | President Obama permitted the first-ever Satanic ceremony at a State Capitol. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/obama-allows-satanic-ceremony/ | null | Politicians | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Obama Allows Satanic Ceremony at State Capitol | 22 January 2016 | null | ['Barack_Obama'] |
tron-00579 | All Taco Bell Restaurants Closing in Summer 2015 | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/all-taco-restaurants-closing-in-summer-2015/ | null | business | null | null | null | All Taco Bell Restaurants Closing in Summer 2015 | Jun 1, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00275 | Four Questions about President Obama’s Birth Certificate | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/four-questions-about-president-obamas-birth-certificate/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | Four Questions about President Obama’s Birth Certificate – Fiction! | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03062 | The crime rate in some Atlanta neighborhoods has dropped by 35 to 51 percent. | false | /georgia/statements/2013/oct/02/city-atlanta/atlanta-erred-claim-drop-crime/ | Atlanta officials had some explaining to do last month when an audit concluded the city mismanaged federal grants designed to combat crime in poor neighborhoods plagued by illegal drug activity. The city disagreed with some of the findings and noted that crime was down significantly in the neighborhoods the program was designed to help. Mayor Kasim Reed’s Office of Communications put out a press release, noting the program had enjoyed some success. "From 2009 to 2013, in the Pittsburgh and Mechanicsville neighborhoods, crime is down 42 and 35 points, respectively. In English Avenue and Vine City, major crimes are down 51 percent and 50 percent, respectively, between 2007-2011," the city said in a press release. PolitiFact Georgia was curious about the numbers. Did crime really drop by these percentages in those neighborhoods, as the city claimed? From 2007 to 2010, the city of Atlanta received slightly more than $1.1 million in U.S. Justice Department grants for its now-defunct Weed and Seed program. The Justice Department questioned the city’s spending of nearly $400,000 in grant money. "Weed" is used to represent the campaign to weed out criminals and drug dealers while "seed" represents the effort to plant seeds of revitalization. "Four elements make up the two-pronged Weed and Seed strategy," the Justice Department said in its report. "Law enforcement; community policing; prevention, intervention, and treatment; and neighborhood restoration." The four neighborhoods that received help from the Weed and Seed program are located on the city’s south side. Pittsburgh and Mechanicsville are located near Turner Field. English Avenue and Vine City are located near the Atlanta University Center and the Georgia Dome. All four neighborhoods have had trouble with crime, drug dealers and mortgage foreclosures. Carlos Campos, a spokesman for the city, agreed to assist PolitiFact Georgia when we questioned the crime numbers and asked for more details. Campos called us back a couple of days after our initial inquiry. He said the city’s numbers in the press release were incorrect. They were way off base for Mechanicsville. Campos sent PolitiFact Georgia a statement with the corrected statistics: Neighborhood Claim Actual Change Mechanicsville down 35% up 35% Pittsburgh down 42% down 37% Vine City down 50% down 44% English Avenue down 51% down 45% Campos said the numbers in the original press release were not vetted with the Atlanta Police Department’s Tactical Crime Analysis unit beforehand. Campos took the blame for the incorrect numbers. "It is worthy to note that major crimes are down for 2011 compared to 2007, collectively, in those four neighborhoods served by Weed & Seed by 21 percent, according to APD’s numbers," the city said in a statement. The city posted the statement and the corrected crime statistics in a news release on its website. Again, the city of Atlanta claimed crime was down between 35 and 51 percent in four neighborhoods that received help from its Weed and Seed program. The decrease in crime was not as great as the city claimed in three of the four neighborhoods. In Mechanicsville, the city said crime had declined 35 percent, but it was actually up 35 percent. Campos conceded the crime stats initially presented to the public and news organizations were incorrect. The crime decrease cited by the city in its original statement was not as dramatic as officials said. The city did issue a follow-up press release with the correct numbers. But that came after the initial, incorrect information was broadcast to the public and only after PolitiFact Georgia questioned the initial numbers. PolitiFact has had others who’ve offered mea culpas when we’ve inquired about the accuracy of their claims. In those instances, PolitiFact will still report our findings and note the speaker admitted to making an error. The city fessed up, but that does not erase the initial error. We rate the city’s initial claim False. | null | City of Atlanta | null | null | null | 2013-10-02T00:00:00 | 2013-09-23 | ['Atlanta'] |
pomt-00857 | The stock market has almost tripled since April of 2009. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/mar/17/jim-webb/james-webb-says-stock-market-has-tripled-value-200/ | Many Americans believe that the economic recovery has only recently picked up steam. But one group that is widely seen as benefiting in recent years are investors in the stock market. This is a point that former Sen. James Webb, D-Va. -- a potential longshot candidate for president who’s been taking an economic-populist approach -- made during an interview on ABC’s This Week. On the March 15, 2015, edition of the show, host George Stephanopoulos brought up a comment by Webb that "powerful financial interests spending billions to elect people who think the current drift toward a permanent aristocracy is OK." Webb explained his thinking this way: "If you see what has been happening to our country over the past 20 or 25 years or so, with the economic model -- first, the model itself has broken apart. ... The employment model that was based on full-time employment, manufacturing-based, taking care of your working people, (it) fell apart a lot, when the manufacturing sector itself was hurt so bad in the past 20 years. "But the other thing is … if you have capital, if you have assets, you're doing pretty well. The stock market has almost tripled since April of 2009. If you don't -- and this is particularly true right now with the generation that is coming into full adulthood -- they don't have that model anymore. They are doing part-time jobs, consultancy jobs, they've got student loans to pay off." We wondered whether Webb was right that "the stock market has almost tripled since April of 2009." So we looked back at the historical data. First, some background on the stock market. Companies that are publicly traded allow ownership shares to be sold on one of several stock exchanges. The values of a single share can rise or fall over time. Several different indexes are commonly used to measure the overall value of the market. We looked at four: the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is a smaller group of blue-chip stocks; the Standard & Poors 500, which offers a larger and broader mix of stocks; the NASDAQ Composite, which includes a lot of fast-growing technology stocks; and the Wilshire 5000, which includes the broadest list of publicly traded companies. The following table summarizes the growth of these three measurements between April 1, 2009, and today. Measure April 1, 2009 March 16, 2015 Increase (multiple) Dow Jones Industrial Average 7,762 17,977 2.3 times higher Standard & Poors 500 811 2,081 2.6 times higher NASDAQ Composite 1,552 4,930 3.2 times higher Wilshire 5000 8242 21949 2.7 times higher These numbers show that Webb is definitely right for the NASDAQ Composite (in fact, he underestimates a bit) and that he’s just about on target for the S&P 500 and the Wilshire 5000 if you round the figures upwards. Webb’s claim that the stock market "almost tripled" overshoots the increase for the Dow, which is 2.3 times higher now than in April 2009. Still, Lawrence J. White, an economist at New York University’s Stern School of Business, warned that comparisons like Webb’s are sensitive to the choice of start and end dates, among other issues. "For example, if one takes the Dow Jones Industrial Average and instead makes the comparison with its previous high in 2007, the increase is only 25 percent -- not the more-than doubling that occurred from its low point in 2009," he said. "And if one nets out inflation from that 25 percent increase, the 'real' increase in the stock market has been only about half of that increase." Our ruling Webb said that "the stock market has almost tripled since April of 2009." There are different ways to measure "the stock market." For three of the four most common yardsticks, Webb is basically right; for the other one, he’s off base, but not dramatically so. And it's worth noting that the period Webb chose maximizes the increase; a longer time horizon makes the gain more modest. The statement is accurate but needs additional information, so we rate it Mostly True. | null | Jim Webb | null | null | null | 2015-03-17T16:13:24 | 2015-03-15 | ['None'] |
pomt-06303 | The United States' regulations "are among the most difficult in the world." | false | /florida/statements/2011/nov/16/rick-scott/rick-scott-us-regulations-are-most-difficult-world/ | Republican Gov. Rick Scott repeated a familiar politician's mantra when he bashed "overregulation." In a Nov. 14, 2011, press release, Scott criticized President Barack Obama for accusing America of being "lazy" in attracting investment: "Obstacles to job creation in America are a result of policy, not of motivation," Scott said. "Our business taxes are among the highest in the world. Our regulations are among the most difficult in the world. If you need evidence, look no further than the companies who have moved their oil rigs from the Gulf coast to foreign countries in the last year because of the regulatory environment. Just last week, yet another major medical device manufacturer announced they were cutting more than 1,000 jobs because of new Obamacare taxes. "The president's comments indicate a belief that more taxes, more regulation and more government is the solution, yet those are the very things standing in the way of those of us who are trying – very energetically – to recruit businesses and jobs to our states." Scott made a few strongly-worded claims in that statement, but for this Truth-O-Meter we will explore whether "our regulations are among the most difficult in the world." Scott has portrayed himself as a slayer of regulations. He promised to freeze all regulations in Florida during his 2010 campaign. We went in search of data about the U.S. and overregulation. We found several measures that contradicted Scott's statement: • The World Bank publishes an annual "Doing Business" ranking that examines the business climate in 183 countries. In its most recent report, released in October 2011, it gave the U.S. an overall ranking of fourth, behind Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand. The U.S. scored particularly high compared to other countries in getting credit (4), protecting investors (5) and starting a business (13). • The conservative Heritage Foundation, together with the Wall Street Journal, publishes an annual "Index of Economic Freedom," which in 2011 placed the U.S. 9th out of 179 countries with a score of 77.8 out of 100. This index looks at several factors including government spending, property rights and business freedom. On business freedom -- on which the U.S. scored 91 -- Heritage wrote, "The overall freedom to create and run a private enterprise, regulated primarily at the state level, is strongly protected. However, new regulatory uncertainty hampers business expansion and employment creation." Heritage's index relies heavily on the World Bank's report. • The libertarian Cato Institute publishes an "Economic Freedom of the World" report that stated that ranked the U.S. 10th among 141 countries in 2009. "The world's largest economy, the United States, has suffered one of the largest declines in economic freedom over the last 10 years, pushing it into tenth place. Much of this decline is a result of higher government spending and borrowing and lower scores for the legal structure and property rights components," the report said. The report shows that "the U.S. is still more free by comparison to much of the world," said Ian Vásquez, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, in an e-mail to PolitiFact. "But that measure only captures regulations that can be compared across countries and misses a lot. There is no good global index on this issue. Bottom line, the statement is probably true about some regulations, but not overall in the world." What experts told us We sent Scott's claim -- and the examples he cited about oil rigs moving overseas and job cuts at a medical manufacturer -- to several experts. (Scott's press release didn't identify the medical manufacturer.) None of them fully defended Scott's statement that the United States' regulations are among the most difficult in the world. Several referred us to the World Bank report we mentioned above, while others warned that comparing regulations among countries can be difficult. The U.S.'s ranking "is a far cry from 'most difficult," wrote Lawrence J. White of New York University in an e-mail, pointing to the World Bank ratings. James Gattuso of the Heritage Foundation said that the trends in the World Bank report are mixed for the U.S. and pointed to an Oct. 28 Wall Street Journal report (subscription required to view full article) that said that although the U.S. is ranked fourth, it has dropped in some categories in recent years including on paying taxes and ease of registering property. And the cost of starting a business measured as a percentage of per capita income as well as the cost to import have increased. Paul Portney, an economics professor at the University of Arizona, was chief economist for the White House Council on Environmental Quality in 1979-80 under President Jimmy Carter. He sent us an answer as it pertains to environmental regulations, which is relevant here because half of Scott's evidence cited in his press release related to oil rigs moving from the Gulf to foreign countries due to regulation. "The U.S., like many of the world's developed countries, does have stringent environmental regulations. Ours are in general about as stringent as those in Europe and Japan, though I'd say that Europe's are now tougher than ours. In some respects, though, we go beyond what other countries do (an example is the regulation of auto emissions, though that is more the doing of the State of California than federal standards). Compared to China, India, Russia and Brazil--the rapidly developing countries of the world--our standards are much tougher, and that has no doubt played some role in the relocation of industry to those places. However, you have to remember that there are benefits that accompany the higher costs of regulation in the U.S. My guess is that few Floridians would be willing to tolerate Beijing, Mumbai, Moscow or Rio de Janeiro air quality, to take but one example. ... I'd say that there are other, more important factors that affect business location than regulatory burdens, even while acknowledging that we can and must streamline our regulatory process." Gov. Scott responds Scott spokesman Brian Burgess e-mailed us a response. "I hope you aren’t missing the forest for the trees…but the phrase you have chosen to zero in on is rather vague, not really quantifiable, and simply refers to the difficult long-term outlook that American job creators are facing." Burgess directed us to the Florida chamber's small business survey which stated "The top issues facing Florida’s small businesses continue to include government regulations, access to capital, healthcare, taxes." Burgess also stated in an e-mail that federal regulations have been on the rise in recent years and that thousands more are in the works -- but that wasn't what Scott said. As for the World Bank study, Burgess wrote that the World Bank study notes that it is limited in scope and quoted from the preface: "It does not attempt to measure all costs and benefits of a particular law or regulation to society as a whole. Nor does it measure all aspects of the business environment that matter to firms and investors or affect the competitiveness of an economy." Burgess concluded: "In short, the governor’s comment is based on his own experience in international business, his conversations with other business owners, entrepreneurs and other job creators in Florida and throughout the world, and the hard data that shows that the U.S. regulatory environment has grown progressively worse in recent years and is projected to continue down that path – an outlook that makes the United States regulatory environment among the most difficult in the world. The statement was worded carefully because the subject matter is difficult to quantify. Even World Bank admits as much." Our ruling Scott said "our regulations are among the most difficult in the world." As his evidence, he cites companies moving their oil rigs from the Gulf Coast overseas and a medical device manufacturer cutting more than 1,000 jobs "because of new Obamacare taxes." Even if some companies move overseas or cut jobs and attribute those actions to overregulation, that doesn't mean that regulations in the U.S. are among the most difficult in the world. The reports we found ranked the U.S. between 4th and 10th for business climate. Scott, along with other political or business leaders, certainly can point to concerns about the number, cost or impact of regulations. But Scott hasn't proven that our country's regulations are among the most difficult in the world. In fact, the evidence we found points in the opposite direction. We rate this claim False. | null | Rick Scott | null | null | null | 2011-11-16T15:23:38 | 2011-11-14 | ['United_States'] |
tron-00766 | Michael Richards defends his racial slurs in court | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/michael-richards/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Michael Richards defends his racial slurs in court | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13409 | Says "Marco Rubio would take away a woman’s right to choose for victims of rape or incest." | mostly true | /florida/statements/2016/sep/23/patrick-murphy/rubio-would-not-allow-rape-or-incest-exceptions-ab/ | U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy said Sen. Marco Rubio has a zero-compromise position on abortion. In a new campaign ad that started appearing Sept. 20, 2016, Murphy’s campaign said Rubio, the Republican incumbent, refuses to give ground on the issue, even in extenuating circumstances. "Marco Rubio would take away a woman’s right to choose for victims of rape or incest," the ad said. It included video of Rubio saying, "I don’t require there to be an exception for rape or incest." Murphy has faced criticism that he’s a conservative in Democrat’s clothing, so his ad touted his own support for abortion. The ad goes on to say Rubio wouldn’t allow the procedure for pregnant women with Zika. Rubio has previously confirmed he would oppose allowing a woman who has contracted the virus to abort a fetus that potentially had severe microcephaly. He said he preferred "to err on the side of life" rather than allow the procedure. But what has Rubio said about allowing exceptions for rape and incest victims? We checked his record and found that even though Rubio strongly opposes abortion, his stance on granting exceptions is a bit more nuanced than Murphy described. Rubio’s record Rubio’s history against abortion is well documented. He has advocated for further restrictions on abortion, including banning the procedure after 20 weeks of pregnancy. But allowing abortions for rape and incest victims is a trickier subject, which came up while Rubio was running for the GOP presidential nomination. During an Aug. 6, 2015, Republican debate in Cleveland, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly pointed out Rubio favored a rape and incest exception to abortion bans, which Rubio refuted. "I have never said that. And I have never advocated that," Rubio said. "What I have advocated is that we pass law in this country that says all human life at every stage of its development is worthy of protection. In fact, I think that law already exists. It is called the Constitution of the United States." Rubio reiterated this view after that debate on Glenn Beck’s radio show, saying he personally supported banning abortion unless the mother’s life was endangered. "Now I recognize that other people don’t hold that view, and in order to save lives in this country, I have supported bills that had to have exceptions in them," he told Beck. Now back to running for re-election to the U.S. Senate, Rubio has supported legislation that contained rape and incest exceptions at least twice. Back in November 2013, he was one of 40 cosponsors for a Senate bill called the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act." The bill, which stalled in committee, banned abortions at 20 weeks or greater but includes exceptions, including rape and incest. Rubio also cosponsored a similar version in 2015 that required adult women to obtain counseling or medical treatment for the rape 48 hours before the abortion, with separate criteria for minors about reporting the rape to law enforcement. We also found examples of bills Rubio supported that did not appear to contain a rape exception. In 2000, then-state Rep. Rubio voted for a Florida ban on late-term abortions. The original version of that bill didn’t contain a rape exception, though it allowed a doctor to take steps to save the life of the mother. It became law in May 2000, but court decisions ended state enforcement of the ban. Another example is a 2013 U.S. Senate bill Rubio cosponsored that was similar to those earlier proposals but pertained to the District of Columbia. That bill made an exception to save the life of the mother, but not for rape or incest. Rubio’s own "Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act," which he introduced in 2015, would have made it illegal for a minor to cross state lines for abortions to get around parental notification laws. Rubio’s bill included an exception in order to save the mother’s life, but not if the mother was a victim of rape or incest. Recent rhetoric Rubio’s clear preference is that an abortion not be performed, but he is willing to support anti-abortion legislation that includes an exception for rape and incest. He says as much in the very soundbite Murphy’s ad uses. The clip is from a November 2015 event with pastors in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. If you review it in full context, Rubio says he prefers essentially all abortion to be illegal, but is willing to vote for legislation containing exceptions. It begins with Rubio stating his position, referring to the aforementioned Cleveland debate (the words plucked out by the Murphy campaign are in bold): "I’ve taken great criticism for it. You know, I stood up on a debate stage and was challenged about the fact that I don’t require there to be an exception for rape or incest, and this is a tough position," he said. Rubio stresses the word "require," and then continues: "And I’ve said, listen, I will vote for bills that have exceptions, because they save lives, and (a) 20-week abortion ban has exceptions. And I’ll vote for anything that saves lives. But I don’t require. That is not a majority position, even in the Republican Party. But I just don’t feel this is a political issue, I really don’t, but I will support those that have exceptions, because I’m in favor of anything that protects life." That same month, he told the Associated Press,"I, as president, will sign a bill that has exceptions," he said. "I've supported bills that have exceptions." Rubio has often repeated similar statements, sometimes turning the subject to falsely accuse Hillary Clinton of supporting late-term abortions. But his Republican primary opponents continued to attack him on the issue into 2016. In February, he told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that as president, "if they pass a law in Congress that has exceptions, I’ll sign it because I want to save lives." But he still thought the unborn always deserved protection, even in the event of a "crisis pregnancy." Still, he understood that was not the popular position among the general electorate. "That’s why any law that limits abortions that passes will almost certainly have exceptions. And I’ll sign it with exceptions," he said. Our ruling Murphy said, "Marco Rubio would take away a woman’s right to choose for victims of rape or incest." Rubio has been a staunch opponent of abortion for years, but his position is subtly shaded. He thinks abortion should not be allowed unless the mother’s life is endangered. But he is willing to support legislation that contains exceptions allowing the procedure for victims of rape and incest. He has backed measures both with and without exceptions. Rubio has said if he had his way, he’d prefer to ban almost all abortions. But his record shows he’s willing to give at least a little ground on the issue, which Murphy has obscured in his ad. We rate the statement Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/7568d76f-0a7f-449a-9cf5-135c627ee132 | null | Patrick Murphy | null | null | null | 2016-09-23T06:00:00 | 2016-09-20 | ['Marco_Rubio'] |
pomt-06809 | The Republican National Convention "is a Super Bowl times four." | false | /florida/statements/2011/aug/12/reince-priebus/rnc-chairman-says-2012-gop-convention-super-bowl-t/ | Just how big of a deal is it that the Republican National Convention is coming to Tampa next summer? Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus tried to put it in perspective while speaking to local reporters on a swing through the area this month. "This is a Super Bowl times four. This is probably the biggest event that the Tampa Bay community has ever put on thus far," Priebus said. The line was something of an exclamation point to Priebus' visit, becoming the focus of a local TV story that aired on Fox and a dominant quote in news coverage offered by CNN, the Associated Press and the St. Petersburg Times. But is it true? PolitiFact Florida decided to fact-check Priebus' claim about national political conventions to see if they are indeed four times a Super Bowl -- an event Tampa is more familiar with having hosted it several times, as recently as 2009. Where to start was aided by the context Priebus provided to reporters. "Estimates are that $175 million outside dollars will be spent here during the convention," he said at one point. And at another time, he said: "There's going to be over 45,000 people here at one time. They're going to be here for over a week every day doing different things in the community -- events, parties, gatherings, fundraisers. It's going to be extraordinary." A note of caution before we go any further. We're typically wary of economic impact studies because they rely on assumptions to reach their conclusions and are often attempting to predict outcomes. On top of that, they're usually paid for by groups with something to gain by presenting the data in one form or another. So, read any numbers with some skepticism. That said, comparing the economic impact generated by a Super Bowl and a national political convention is valid and worthwhile, because you can chart the relative size and scope of one event to the other. The Super Bowl and national political conventions are true mega-events that dramatically impact the local communities where they are held. For a few days, money and people pour into the area. Some of the economic benefits are obvious. Hotel rooms are filled, and hoteliers can charge more for the rooms they rent. Visitors need places to eat and shop, so money is funneled into that sector of the economy. Some rent cars, others ride the Ybor City streetcar. They go to Busch Gardens, or maybe even (who knows?) the Mons Venus strip club. Other benefits are less apparent but equally important. Money is pushed into the local economy, through taxpayer subsidies or private sources, to provide security. Some of that money -- and we're talking millions of dollars -- goes to things like barricades, vehicles and riot gear. Other funds pay for the huge overtime bills police departments will bear. "You try, to the extent possible, to focus on the new spending in a lot of instances," said Patty Silverstein, an economic researcher that attempted to estimate the impact of the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver. "To be honest, it can become very difficult. You have to make some very grandiose assumptions." PricewaterhouseCoopers has been attempting to calculate the economic impact of the Super Bowl since 1998. According to its analysis, direct visitor spending has ranged from a low of around $115 million in 2004 in Detroit, to high of $202 million in Dallas in 2011. The analysis is based on the participating teams, the attributes of the local market, national economic conditions and other factors. Other figures, calculated either by the National Football League or the host city often peg the impact even higher -- between $300 million to $400 million, depending on the analysis. A study examining the 2009 Super Bowl in Tampa said it resulted in spending totaling $375 million. Compare that to even Priebus' own figure that $175 million will be spent on the Republican National Convention in Tampa. That would put the convention on par with Super Bowls according to PricewaterhouseCoopers but below a Super Bowl according to the more boosterish figures being created by the NFL and the local host committees. Either way, not four times greater. (A second note of caution about these dollar figures. Boosters describe the millions of dollars spent in the area as "new" money for the community. While that's a difficult figure to pinpoint, an even tougher figure to arrive at is how much money is not spent as a result of a mega-event, mainly by members of the local community who alter their spending habits. Many economists argue those losses negate much of the "new" spending, while others say that the local spending is not lost but merely reshuffled to a different time.) Victor Matheson, an economist at the College of the Holy Cross who has studied the economic impacts of both Super Bowls and political conventions, helped us compare the two events in other ways. More out-of-town visitors come for a Super Bowl, anywhere from 60,000 to 100,000 depending on the estimate, compared to around 50,000 for a convention. But convention guests stay longer, Matheson said -- about six days on average compared to about four, according to information provided by the NFL and a study from The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University. In the end, both events produce roughly the same number of visitor nights (guests multiplied by hotel nights): 300,000. So, not four times greater. And, Matheson said, the spending habits of a Super Bowl visitor and a convention visitor are typically around the same, about $400 a day. Also, not four times greater. The only measure that comes close when considering Priebus' claim is the number of event days -- the Super Bowl is one night, the convention is four. But even that's misleading. Anyone in Tampa, Jacksonville, Miami or any other city to host a Super Bowl knows that the week preceding the game is filled with related events and parties. We reached out to a spokesman for the RNC but did not hear back. Can Priebus claim a political convention is a "Super Bowl times four"? "No, he can't," said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College. Added Matheson: "By any reasonable estimate the Super Bowl generates roughly the same amount of outside expenditure, so he is way off." We see no reason to disagree. Though you can debate about the overall economic impact of mega-events like the Super Bowl or a national political convention, there's no debate about the relative size of one compared to the other. They're about the same. We rate this claim False. | null | Reince Priebus | null | null | null | 2011-08-12T11:42:32 | 2011-08-03 | ['Super_Bowl'] |
tron-02541 | Royal Couple, Prince William and Kate Middleton, Snub Obama With No Wedding Invitation | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/william-kate-wedding-invite/ | null | miscellaneous | null | null | null | Royal Couple, Prince William and Kate Middleton, Snub Obama With No Wedding Invitation | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Catherine,_Duchess_of_Cambridge', 'Prince_William,_Duke_of_Cambridge'] |
pomt-02251 | Federal money for Medicaid expansion "is guaranteed for a few years and then goes away." | mostly false | /virginia/statements/2014/apr/13/thomas-garrett-jr/state-sen-tom-garrett-says-medicaid-expansion-mone/ | State Sen. Thomas A. Garrett Jr. says Uncle Sam is doling disappearing dollars to entice states to expand their Medicaid programs. "This money is guaranteed for a few years, and then goes away," Garrett, R-Louisa, wrote in an op-ed that ran earlier this month in The Free-Lance Star and the Richmond Times-Dispatch. We looked behind the curtains to see if the money really does vanish. Garrett’s claim comes as the General Assembly is locked in a largely partisan debate over expanding Medicaid eligibility to 400,000 additional low-income and disabled Virginians. The stalemate is blocking passage of a two-year state budget. The Democratic-controlled state Senate and Gov. Terry McAuliffe support expansion, saying it will help the needy and most of the cost will be borne by the federal government under provisions of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Garrett opposes broadening eligibility, echoing arguments from the Republican-led House that Medicaid already is fraught with waste and that Washington can not be trusted to keep its funding commitment. The expansion would make Medicaid available to people earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $16,104 in a one-person household and $21,707 in a two-person household. So far, 26 states and the District of Columbia have decided to participate. Virginia's average cutoff for adult eligibility is 32.7 percent of the federal poverty line, according to the state's Medicaid agency. That breaks down to annual earnings of about $3,846 for a one-person household and $5,144 for a two-person household. Virginia evenly split its Medicaid costs with the federal government. Obamacare calls for the federal government to pay the entire cost of expansion through 2016. The U.S. match drops to 95 percent in 2017, 94 percent in 2018, 93 percent in 2019 and 90 percent in 2020 and beyond. Why does Garrett say "the money is guaranteed for only a few years and then goes away?" His legislative assistant, Paul Allen, said Garrett was referring to the drop in federal funding for expanded enrollment from 100 percent now to 90 percent in 2020. "While Tom said `it’s guaranteed for a few years, then goes away,’ he means guaranteed full funding with federal dollars," Allen emailed us. "The burden then falls back on Virginia to make up those federal cuts." Garrett did not make that distinction in two references to federal funding he made in his op-ed. In addition to the one we’ve discussed, Garrett wrote that "once the federal money is gone, two things happen: 1) Virginians will have to make up the shortfall and 2) those arguing for expansion will try increasing taxes, doubling down on a broken program." We should note that if Virginia opts for expansion by July 1, it would receive $2.9 billion in additional federal Medicaid money over the next two fiscal years, according to the state's Medicaid agency. Our ruling Garrett wrote that the federal money that’s being offered for Medicaid expansion "is guaranteed for a few years, then goes away." His aide says that Garrett simply means the 100 percent federal match is only guaranteed for a few years. And sure, some money will go away as the U.S. match shrinks to 90 percent in 2020 and beyond under the Affordable Care Act. But Garrett does not make that distinction in his sweeping statement, which he repeats a second time in his column. He creates a misleading impression that Obamacare cuts off all money for Medicaid expansion after states opt to increase their enrollments. We rate his statement Mostly False. | null | Thomas Garrett Jr. | null | null | null | 2014-04-13T00:00:00 | 2014-04-02 | ['None'] |
pomt-03826 | Wall Street megabanks that received bailouts in 2009 now get taxpayer-funded advantages not available to community banks in Ohio. | half-true | /ohio/statements/2013/mar/20/sherrod-brown/sen-sherrod-brown-says-taxpayers-give-big-banks-ad/ | Partisan division may be wide in Washington, but bipartisan work does go on. Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown was joined by Senate colleague David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, in working on legislation to address the issue of banks "too big to fail." Looking to prevent future economic collapse and taxpayer-funded bailouts, they have pushed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to detail the annual advantage that such banks continue to receive from the U.S. government. (Brown, Democrat of Avon, chairs the Senate's Consumer Protection Subcommittee of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, and has worked for years on the "too big to fail" issue. Vitter is ranking member of the Economic Policy Subcommittee of the Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.) "Most Ohioans would be surprised to know that the same Wall Street megabanks which received bailouts from taxpayers in 2009 also receive taxpayer-funded advantages today simply because of their 'too big to fail' status," Brown wrote in a newsletter to constituents. "This," he said, "gives them access to cheaper funding and more favorable borrowing terms than dependable Main Street institutions, like Huntington Bank or the Peoples Bank in Coldwater, Ohio." PolitiFact Ohio admits we were also surprised about the "taxpayer-funded advantages." We asked Brown's office for more information. His press office cited the explicit and implicit guarantee that the megabanks are, in fact, "too big to fail" -- and that the government will step in with a taxpayer-funded safety net during a financial emergency. The expectation of financial markets that megabanks have this government protection against failure is a subsidy that amounts to free insurance, Brown's office said. Because of this insurance, they said, megabanks can borrow money at lower rates than smaller institutions. The sources they cited include a study for the International Monetary Fund, which put the borrowing advantage at about 0.8 of a percentage point; the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, which says "too big to fail" banks enjoy subsidies that may lower their average funding costs a full percentage point relative to smaller competitors; and an analysis by Bloomberg View. Drawing on the IMF research, Bloomberg said the "taxpayer subsidy" for the 10 largest U.S. banks amounts to $83 billion a year. We looked further and found questions about Bloomberg's methodology figuring the size of what it referred to as a subsidy. Determining the size was one of the questions that Brown and Vitter put to the GAO. While its size may be in question, however, the existence of the implicit "too big to fail" guarantee is widely accepted as established fact. "Unsecured depositors and creditors offer their funds at a lower cost to TBTF banks than to mid-sized and regional banks that face the risk of failure," Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said in Washington in January. What remains unclear from Brown's citations is whether lower borrowing costs for big banks result in any present-day costs for taxpayers. But PolitiFact Ohio did find an economist who contends that by granting the too-big-to-fail guarantees, the government is "giving something away of value" that should be accounted for as lost revenue. "Private entities such as insurance companies and hedge funds would charge a fair value for such options," said James Thomson, a vice president and financial economist in the research department at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. "But not doing so, the government is forgoing revenues that could be used for other purposes. So yes, the implicit subsidy (or any subsidy) is equivalent to a tax expenditure - like investment tax credits, fair housing credits, and so on." Economists don't agree on the size of the guarantee, Thomson said, though researchers including economists at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. claim to have measured it, in addition to the IMF, Dallas Fed and Bloomberg among others.. The most telling testimony about "Too Big to Fail" might be that of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke to the Senate Banking Committee in February. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, pressed Bernanke about the "free insurance policy" for the biggest banks, using Bloomberg's figure of $83 billion. Video of the exchange is posted online. Bernanke readily conceded existence of the implicit guarantee, though he maintained it is built on false expectation. "The subsidy is coming because of market expectations that the government would bail out these firms if they failed," he said. "Those expectations are incorrect.... That's the expectation of markets, that doesn't mean that we have to do it." "I understand that we’re all trying to get to the end of 'too big to fail,'" Warren responded. But until it is ended, she said, "it is working like an insurance policy. Ordinary folks pay for homeowners insurance. Ordinary folks pay for car insurance. And these big financial institutions are getting cheaper borrowing to the tune of $83 billion in a single year simply because people believe that the government would step in and bail them out. And I’m just saying, if they are getting it, why shouldn’t they pay for it?" "I think we should get rid of it," Bernanke said. Finally, we note the final report of the Congressional Oversight Panel on the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), which said that the six biggest U.S. banks received a total of $1.27 trillion in government support during the financial crisis. The report notes the moral hazard and "distortion of the financial marketplace through [TARP's] implicit guarantee of 'too big to fail' banks." The report says: "It is not surprising that markets have assumed that ‘too big to fail’ banks are safer than their ‘small enough to fail’ counterparts. Credit rating agencies continue to adjust the credit ratings of very large banks to reflect their implicit government guarantee. Smaller banks receive no such adjustment, and as a result, they pay more to borrow relative to very large banks." The exact value of the "too big to fail" guarantee, or risk premium, or free insurance, remains in question -- and it is a question Brown and Vitter put to the Government Accountability Office. But the biggest banks that received bailouts in 2009 clearly do have a cost advantage in borrowing because of the implicit guarantee. And that advantage is not shared by smaller, community banks. That makes Brown’s statement partially accurate. However, at PolitiFact, words matter. Even if there is an implicit guarantee, it’s a stretch to call it a taxpayer-funded advantage the banks receive "today," because no money has actually been spent and no dollars change hands. And no money would be spent unless the banks fail. Even then, as Bernanke says, "that doesn't mean that we have to" bail them out. It might seem like a fine line, but there is a difference between a taxpayer-backed advantage and a taxpayer-funded subsidy. We rate Brown’s statement Half True. | null | Sherrod Brown | null | null | null | 2013-03-20T06:00:00 | 2013-03-04 | ['Ohio'] |
pomt-09124 | The White House has "refused" international help in dealing with the oil spill. | mostly false | /florida/statements/2010/jun/16/george-lemieux/white-house-refused-international-oil-spill-aid-fl/ | Florida Sen. George LeMieux continues to be a leading critic of President Barack Obama's handling of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. LeMieux, who was appointed to the Senate last year by Gov. Charlie Crist, has described Obama's response as "dereliction of duty," and said Obama appears more interested in photo-ops than solving the crisis growing in the Gulf. LeMieux also has pressed the federal government to add more skimmer boats off Florida's coast to collect encroaching oil. Now, LeMieux claims that offers of assistance from foreign governments are going ignored by President Obama and his administration. LeMieux let out his frustration in a posting on Twitter. "State Department reports today 17 countries have offered 21 times to send aid, including skimmers," LeMieux wrote on June 15, 2010. "Why has the White House refused help?" He repeated the same claim in a CNN interview on June 16. With such a scramble to contain the oil and prevent it from damaging Florida's beaches, we wondered if the federal government has been refusing offers of foreign aid. Since LeMieux says his information comes from the State Department, that's where we went to look. In a press briefing on May 19, reporters asked State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid of the possibility of international aid (The Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20). Duguid said that, at that time, 17 countries had offered some form of assistance. A reporter then asked why none of the offers had been accepted. "I don’t know that none of them have been accepted," Duguid said. "I know that BP has accepted some directly without going to the U.S. The offers were mostly for booms and dispersants. There are some offers of support which come in the form of 'If you let us know what you need, we'll be happy to see if we can provide that.' There are others that were for equipment that the U.S. or BP had in supply at the time and was not running short. So there were different types of offers, and I have an understanding that BP may have accepted one or two. I don’t have the details of that." So it was up to BP earlier? It’s not your decision?, a reporter asked. "The decision on what to accept is being done for the U.S. Government by the Coast Guard," Duguid said. "They are the authoritative agency to make those decisions. BP, being a private company, can accept the help that is offered to it directly. We don’t control that. However, the expertise that is there in the Gulf is working very hard to try and contain this spill and to cap that – cap the well." Another exchange between the State Department and reporters came a week later. State Department spokesman T.J. Crowley said 17 countries were still offering aid, as were four other entities -- the European Maritime Safety Agency, the European Commission’s Monitoring and Information Centre, the International Maritime Organization, and the Environment Unit of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the United Nations Environment Program. "My understanding is that two offers of assistance have been accepted thus far – I believe it's Mexico and Norway," Crowley said. "Those offers were actually accepted by BP as part of this Unified Area Command. But we also are working internationally. I think there's assistance flowing in through private as well as public sources, so this is something that we continue to evaluate. But I would defer probably to the Coast Guard in terms of explaining the process." A reporter then noted an apparent disconnect, with some governors calling for more booms while the federal government appears to be refusing some internationals offers for help. "Let me be clear, we are grateful for the assistance that we have been offered internationally," Crowley said. "It is something that we evaluate every day. But again, I would defer to others, particularly the Coast Guard, to go through where they are in the process of evaluating particular offers." Another series of questions followed June 9, and then again on June 14 and 15. On June 14, the State Department reported that booms from Canada had arrived in Alabama. Crowley then was asked to explain why it took weeks for some foreign offers of assistance to be accepted, and why others still hadn't. "First of all, the offers came in. Some of those offers were specific; some of those offers were general," Crowley said. "Secondly, the United States Government was looking to see what are immediately available sources of relevant equipment and technology there in the Gulf region." The State Department on June 14 released a list of the countries that offered to help -- Canada, Mexico, the Republic of Korea, Croatia, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and Vietnam. That's 17 countries. The State Department also detailed what offers had been accepted. From Mexico -- Two skimmers and 13,780 feet of boom (accepted in early May). From Norway -- Eight skimming systems (accepted in early May). From Netherlands -- Three sets of Koseq Rigid Sweeping Arms, which attach to the sides of ships and gather oil (accepted on May 23). From Canada -- 9,843 feet of boom (accepted on June 4). On June 15, Qatar, the 18th country, offered chains of containment boom and Sweden followed up on an earlier offer to provide skimmers. State Department officials also started making a distinction about the aid -- it wasn't coming for free. "There have been some questions about these offers of assistance. For the most part, they are offers to sell supplies," Crowley said. "And in determining whether to accept these offers, we look at the availability of domestic sources and also compare pricing on the open market. So that may be one of the reasons why, in some cases, we’ve been able to accept these offers and pursued them. In other cases, we’re holding them in abeyance as we continue to identify sources of important equipment that will be needed for this -- to handle this over the long term." The Washington Post reported about the decision to accept or decline foreign aid in its June 15 edition, noting that the decision to accept foreign aid came after weeks of delay, and that foreign governments were unsure if they should contact the government or BP. In some cases, the Post reported, the administration rejected offers because they failed to meet U.S. specifications: For example, the private consortium that serves as Norway's spill-response team uses a chemical dispersant that the Environmental Protection Agency has not approved. Japan was offering protective booms and the Swedish Coast Guard was prepared to send three ships that can each collect 370 barrels of oil an hour. The Norwegian Coastal Authority, the Post reported, has approved sending nearly a third of the nation's spill response equipment to the gulf if asked. Let's tie this all together. The State Department has received official assistance offers from 18 countries and another four groups. Some of those offers are vague, others are specific. Most all of them are offers to sell equipment or use the equipment. The State Department has accepted the offers of four countries -- Mexico, Norway, Netherlands and Canada -- and says it is reviewing and considering other offers. That's in contrast to LeMieux's statement, which is that the White House has "refused" international aid. But it's also clear the United States has either struggled to act on offers of foreign aid, or that processing the requests has been delayed. Japan, Sweden and Norway are all prepared to send resources or manpower to the Gulf should the U.S. sign off. Other countries also are willing to help, but have been kept on the sidelines. Taking that into account, we'll rate LeMieux's statement Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. | null | George LeMieux | null | null | null | 2010-06-16T17:44:10 | 2010-06-16 | ['None'] |
snes-01207 | Motorists in Mexicali, Mexico, shot footage capturing an extraterrestrial spacecraft. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ufo-footage-from-baja-california/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Arturo Garcia | null | Does This Footage Show a ‘UFO’ in Mexico? | 15 January 2018 | null | ['Mexico'] |
tron-00764 | Why I Can’t Vote For Obama by Huntley Brown | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/huntley-brown-obama/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Why I Can’t Vote For Obama by Huntley Brown | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03383 | The Senate immigration bill "unleashes a massive increase in overall immigration. … We're talking about a population increase under the Senate bill of over 70 million people in 20 years." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/09/dan-stein/dan-stein-says-senate-immigration-bill-would-add-7/ | As the immigration debate moves from the Senate to the House, supporters and opponents have been firing claims back and forth. A reader pointed us toward one claim raised by a critic of the bill on CBS’ Face the Nation. The "so-called path to citizenship amnesty program is a fraction of what the deal bills with," said Dan Stein, who heads a group that opposes the bill, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, on July 7, 2013. "Ultimately, it unleashes a massive increase in overall immigration ... . Essentially, it gives up on the American worker by simply suggesting that at every level of the labor market employers should be able to bring in foreign workers. We're talking about a population increase under the Senate bill of over 70 million people in 20 years -- 70 million people." The reader wondered whether the bill really "unleashes a massive increase in overall immigration" of "over 70 million people in 20 years." In asking us to check the item, the reader noted that such an increase in the immigrant population would amount to a 22 percent increase over the current U.S. population estimate of 316.3 million, an increase the reader said "sounds implausibly high." As support for Stein’s claim, Eric Ruark, FAIR’s director of research, pointed us to a paper by the Center for Immigration Studies. While the center has strong opinions on immigration policy -- it’s generally skeptical of expanding immigration -- the group’s study used data from two sources without a dog in the fight, the Congressional Budget Office and the Census Bureau. The paper noted that CBO, in a recent analysis of the immigration bill, projected that the U.S. will have 16.2 million more people in 2033 as a result of the immigration bill than it would if Congress passed no changes to the immigration system. CBO said this is "primarily because the legislation would loosen or eliminate annual limits on various categories of permanent and temporary immigration." Meanwhile, the Census Bureau has projected that the U.S. population -- on its own, and in the absence of an immigration bill -- was already set to rise from 316.3 million in 2013 to 365.3 million in 2033. That’s an increase of 49 million. If you add these two numbers together, you get a roughly 65 million increase in population. That’s pretty close to Stein’s 70 million figure. Stein’s comments suggested to us, and to the reader who urged us to check the claim, that it’s the immigration bill that caused the 70 million increase. But that’s not the case. In reality, roughly three-quarters of the 65 million population increase from 2013 to 2033 comes not from additional immigrants crossing the border and having children on U.S. soil, but rather from Americans already legally on U.S. soil having kids, and from immigrants coming to the U.S. legally under current laws. The Senate bill wouldn’t affect this population growth at all. Several population experts told PolitiFact that they had problems with Stein’s claim. "I don't see where the 70 million would come from -- certainly not from the countries mostly responsible for undocumented migration," said Douglas Massey, a professor at Princeton University's Office of Population Research. "Together, Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras account for around three-fourths of all undocumented residents, but the combined population of these countries is only around 150 million. So 70 million (moving here) would represent 47 percent of their combined population, which is simply not credible." In an interview, Steven A. Camarota, the author of the Center for Immigration Studies paper, declined to assess the adequacy of how Stein phrased the statistic. However, he said it’s not unreasonable to focus on the impact of immigration on the nation’s population growth, even if the number isn’t as high as 70 million. "The basic question remains: Is 16 million additional residents a lot?" Camarota said. "This is on top of the 19 million from current immigration levels. ... The key question is what are the costs and benefits of significantly increasing the size and density of the U.S. population as a direct result of federal policy? The country lacks even a terse discussion of this issue." Our ruling Stein said the Senate immigration bill "unleashes a massive increase in overall immigration. … We're talking about a population increase under the Senate bill of over 70 million people in 20 years." While credible estimates do say the U.S. population could grow by 65 million between 2013 and 2033, only about 16 million of that would be increases resulting from the Senate bill. The remaining 49 million, or three-quarters of the total, would come from natural population growth among people already in America and by immigration that’s deemed legal under today’s laws -- and thus would have nothing to do with whether the Senate bill passes or not. We rate the claim False. | null | Dan Stein | null | null | null | 2013-07-09T11:40:01 | 2013-07-07 | ['None'] |
pomt-08320 | The Recovery Act saved 60,000 jobs among law enforcement officials, firefighters in the state of Florida, plus another 20,000 educators. | mostly false | /florida/statements/2010/oct/29/charlie-crist/charlie-crist-claims-recovery-act-stimulus-saved-t/ | On the campaign trail for the U.S. Senate, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist defends his support for the federal stimulus by pointing to jobs saved by the emergency infusion. In a state that voted eight years ago to keep class sizes small, he’s especially fond of mentioning educators. He touted education jobs twice in a debate Oct. 24, 2010 — the second time adding detail about public safety workers. In the first few minutes, he said: "We utilized those moneys in order to stem the tide in losing jobs in the Sunshine State. 20,000 educators today would be out a job if we hadn't utilized the Recovery Act moneys. Another 60,000 of my fellow Floridians would be out of work today without the opportunity to be able to utilize those moneys in a responsible way." Before the debate with Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek had reached its halfway point, he added: "But I also agree with the congressman when he talks about the fact that the Recovery Act saved 60,000 jobs among law enforcement officials, firefighters in the state of Florida, plus another 20,000 educators." A comment that specific just begs for the Truth-O-Meter. Did the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 really save 60,000 jobs among law enforcement officials and firefighters, plus 20,000 educators? Crist’s campaign referred us to the governor’s office, where we caught up with press secretary Sterling Ivey. He sent us a link to the standard reference the governor would use for such data, the most recent Recovery Act Summary from the Florida Office of Economic Recovery. It breaks out two types of numbers for Florida: actual workers affected, and "jobs," measured in full-time equivalents. Quickly, things spiraled downhill for the "60,000" claim. The count for the Department of Justice — 935 jobs — would include some law enforcement officials, Ivey said. So would some of the 617 jobs attributed to the Department of Law Enforcement. Firefighters might be counted with Department of Homeland Security, but DHS claimed zero jobs in Florida funded by its $4.6 million award. As we looked at the document , Ivey summarized: "The numbers aren't going to add up for you." The educator claim fared better. A line item for "Education State Fiscal Stabilization" looked promising: It showed 19,767 jobs funded by the Recovery Act. Other state and federal education categories showed nearly 7,900 additional jobs. But Ivey couldn’t tell us how much of that work belonged to "educators" vs. other types of personnel. For that, we would have to ask the Florida Department of Education directly. The department was able to provide us with Recovery Act numbers for "instructional personnel," a reasonable synonym for "educators." In 16 categories, it identified 19,166 instructional full-time equivalent jobs affecting 31,003 employees for the quarter ending June 30, 2010. So, with a little rounding of the lower "jobs" number, Crist’s claim stands. And since he chose the word "educators," which refers to people, not jobs, he probably would have been safe even with the higher number. If he had widened his word choice to encompass all types of positions at the Department of Education, he could have touted support for 27,600 jobs or 42,600 workers. So how was Crist close — even conservative — on one number, and so woefully off on the other? Campaign spokesman Danny Kanner didn’t answer our request for an explanation. But the number of "actual workers" affected by Recovery Act funds in the quarter ended in June was near 80,000. Subtract from that about 20,000 educator jobs, and you have what sounds like a reasonable number for the rest: 60,000. Of course, there are two major problems here: 80,000 wasn’t the "jobs" number, it was the higher "actual workers" measure. "Jobs" totaled just 34,298. So a true statement would have been that the Recovery Act funded 20,000 jobs for educators and 14,000 other jobs. Or that it benefited 31,000 educators and 48,000 other Floridians. Either way, it’s simply inaccurate to attribute every non-education job or worker to law enforcement and firefighting. So how does the Truth-O-Meter rule? Crist absolutely mangled the claim about "60,000 jobs." He had a much better grasp on "20,000 educators." That makes him only a quarter right, so we rule his statement Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. | null | Charlie Crist | null | null | null | 2010-10-29T15:55:46 | 2010-10-24 | ['None'] |
snes-00917 | London closed 500 churches and opened 423 new mosques. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/london-closes-500-churches-opens-423-new-mosques/ | null | Religion | null | Dan Evon | null | Did London Close 500 Churches and Open 423 New Mosques? | 8 March 2018 | null | ['London'] |
pomt-01949 | The proposed Gogebic iron ore mine is "just up the hill" from the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore caves along Lake Superior. | false | /wisconsin/statements/2014/jun/23/al-jazeera-america/al-jazeera-america-documentary-says-gogebic-iron-o/ | Controversy over the proposed Gogebic Taconite mine in far northern Wisconsin plays out in familiar fashion in "Wisconsin’s Mining Standoff," a documentary airing on the Al Jazeera America cable network. Co-produced by Milwaukee-based 371 Productions and Al Jazeera for the network’s weekly Fault Lines program, the film calls the debate over the proposed mine "a battle for the very soul of the state….pitting those who wish to extract natural resources against those who wish to preserve them." The piece about the mine was broadcast for the first time June 14, 2014. Al Jazeera America, which launched in 2013, is available in 52 million homes. Fault Lines also airs internationally on the Al Jazeera English cable network, which is not available in the United States. (Al Jazeera doesn’t provide an online link to the segment.) The film is also being screened throughout Wisconsin by 371 Productions. The documentary opens with a panorama of hundreds of bundled-up folks tramping across frozen Lake Superior to view scenic ice caves. Those spectacular caves, in the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore about 20 miles west of Bayfield, are normally only accessible by kayak or canoe. When the lake froze over the winter for the first time since 2009, the caves received considerable attention, and a record number of visitors. Standing on the frozen lake, Al Jazeera correspondent Josh Rushing refers to the importance of tourism to northern Wisconsin, discusses the size of the proposed mine and raises a question that’s an important theme in the 25 minute documentary. "Will all of these tourists want to come here if there’s an iron mine just up the hill?" he asks. The "just up the hill" impression is reinforced by the editing of the piece. In the opening minute, the film moves back and forth from the ice caves to the Penokee mountain range where the mine would be built. It shows heavy equipment digging into the earth -- part of initial rock sampling now under way -- and huge trucks rumbling down a snow covered road, then switches back to the frozen lake and the ice caves. There’s one problem: The mine and the caves are more than an hour apart. Google maps says it’s about 54 miles from Cornucopia, the town near the caves, to Mellen, the community closest to the proposed mine site. It would take 70 minutes to make the trip, according to Google. It’s not like this was an out-of-town correspondent losing his bearings in the North Woods. The script was written by 371 founder Brad Lichtenstein, who is also listed in the credits as director, senior producer and a principal photographer. Milwaukee-based 371 proposed the topic to Fault Lines and did much of the work on the segment. The company produced the 2012 documentary "As Goes Janesville," which included footage of Gov. Scott Walker telling a wealthy supporter he would use a "divide and conquer" strategy against unions. When we asked the 371 Productions about the "just up the hill" statement, we didn’t receive a response from the company. Instead, we heard from Al Jazeera in New York, which issued a statement that said the film would be edited due to our inquiry. "While we consider Josh’s statement to be a figure of speech that helps viewers understand the area broadly as a tourist destination, we can also understand that some viewers might take his narration to imply an exact measurement of the distance between him and the mine site," the statement said. "Because of the potential for confusion, we are removing this line of narration." Impact on the lakeshore That aside, could the mine hurt the Apostle Islands lakeshore? The mine site is some 20 miles inland, but there is plenty of concern from neighbors and the nearby Bad River band of the Lake Superior Chippewa that the project could pollute the Bad River, which flows into Lake Superior. But the mouth of the Bad River is miles away from the caves and on the opposite side of the Bayfield peninsula. The state Department of Natural Resources is responsible for enforcing federal clean water rules. DNR hydrogeologist Larry Lynch, the agency’s top administrator overseeing the mine project, said it’s too early to study any impact that a mine could have on the Bad River watershed and Lake Superior, because the mining company has not provided a specific plan for the project. For instance, Lynch said, if Gogebic plans a waste water treatment facility, would water be discharged into the river? If so, would the trip downstream dilute that discharge before it reaches the lake? "It would be a very involved process, obviously," Lynch said of the DNR water quality review. Gogebic Taconite spokesman Bob Seitz said the company had not studied the potential impact of the mine on tourism. He noted the site itself might draw visitors to what is a remote part of the state. "I am confident an operating mine (or one under construction) would bring far more people to this area daily to use tourism related businesses than currently visit the immediate area," Seitz said in an email. "Mines also draw tourists to view the project. I would anticipate some kind of overlook like mines in other places have to draw visitors." Other statements The Fault Lines piece included several other statements similar to ones we have reviewed. The documentary states that the project "would start with a 4.5 mile pit and could eventually stretch 22 miles." In another spot, he describes the mine as a "half mile trench that could eventually stretch 22 miles through the wilderness." That’s similar to a claim from writer and musician Dan Kaufman that the mine "could be extended as long as 21 miles." We rated that Half True. While that is the size of the ore deposit that Gogebic holds the rights to, the first phase calls for a four-mile site to be mined. Tentative plans call for it to be not a single trench, but two separate pits. Any additional mining would require another permitting process and would be decades away -- and only if the company decides it’s worth the effort. And it would not be a single pit, but a series of excavations, Lynch and the company have said. The program also mentions the state law written to make it easier for the company to develop the mine. The law allows the company to fill in streams and ponds providing it re-creates the bodies of water elsewhere, the program notes. Kaufman’s statement on that subject was Mostly True because he left out the important point that a remediation plan would have to be included. Our rating Al Jazeera’s Fault Lines program about the Gogebic mine states that the proposed mine site is "just up the hill" from the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore caves. That statement, and the way footage from the caves is interwoven with scenes from the mine site, leaves the unmistakable impression that the mine would be close to the caves. But it’s more than 50 miles from the caves to the mine site. And Al Jazeera officials pledged to edit out the inaccurate statement after we asked about it. We rate the claim False. | null | Al Jazeera America | null | null | null | 2014-06-23T05:00:00 | 2014-06-14 | ['None'] |
goop-01285 | Angelina Jolie Demanding Brad Pitt Dump Jennifer Aniston Or Never See Kids? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/angelina-jolie-brad-pitt-dump-jennifer-aniston-kids/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Angelina Jolie Demanding Brad Pitt Dump Jennifer Aniston Or Never See Kids? | 9:51 pm, March 29, 2018 | null | ['Brad_Pitt', 'Jennifer_Aniston', 'Angelina_Jolie'] |
snes-02938 | Do Facebook 'Copy and Paste, Don't Share' Posts Make Your Account Hackable? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/facebook-copy-and-paste-dont-share-hackers/ | null | Technology | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Do Facebook ‘Copy and Paste, Don’t Share’ Posts Make Your Account Hackable? | 14 February 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08548 | Peter DeFazio "will sneak in a 1 percent tax on all banking transactions." | pants on fire! | /oregon/statements/2010/oct/01/chain-email/e-mail-claims-defazio-wants-tax-transactions/ | An intriguing e-mail landed in the inbox of Oregon PolitiFact. We couldn’t figure out who was circulating the message -- but it accused Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., of the unspeakable: a tax on everyday banking transactions. The e-mail, forwarded Sept. 24 by a reader, claims that DeFazio wants to levy a 1 percent tax on every financial transaction, like depositing a Social Security check or cashing a paycheck. The letter claims his proposed legislation had the blessing of President Barack Obama’s "finance team" and that Democrats are waiting until after the Nov. 2 election to pass H.R. 4646. (DeFazio faces opposition from relative unknown Republican Art Robinson this fall.) The e-mail repeats language from -- and links to a letter to the editor -- posted to the website of the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah. That letter reads, in part, regarding Obama:: "His plan is to sneak it in after the November election to keep it under the radar. This is a 1% tax on all transactions at any financial institution i. e. Banks, Credit Unions, etc. Any deposit you make, or move around within your account, i. e. transfer to, will have a 1% tax charged. If your pay check or your social Security or whatever is direct deposit, 1% tax charged. If you hand carry a check in to deposit, 1% tax charged, If you take cash in to deposit, 1% tax charged." But the letter on the Standard-Examiner website made no mention of DeFazio. How curious. We decided to check it out. And we learned that H.R. 4646 is indeed actual legislation whose subject has something to do with taxation. But that’s where the similarities end. The "Debt Free America Act" was introduced by U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah, D-Penn, in February 2010. He proposed a 1 percent tax on all money transactions, "including cash transactions, checks, credit cards, those processed through the Federal Reserve Bank, and those collected at the point of sale." Fattah’s idea was to use the money to pay down the national debt, and eventually replace the income tax. He has proposed similar legislation since 2004. H.R. 4646 had no support -- and certainly not from Obama’s "finance team" -- and is now dying a quiet death in committee. Yet the resolution continues to live online, where the DeFazio connection has been repeated by a former Hernando County (Fla.) commissioner. DeFazio did introduce, along with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and other House Democrats legislation in December 2009 to assess a 0.25 percent tax on stock transactions. HR 4191 would not affect retirement accounts such as 401(k)s, education accounts or health savings accounts. And regular investors would not be affected because the first $100,000 traded each year would be exempt. The idea was to make Wall Street shoulder more of the costs borne by Main Street. The bill is in committee. Penny Dodge, DeFazio’s chief of staff, says the congressman opposes H.R. 4646. An unamused DeFazio doesn’t know who is behind the e-mail attack. "It’s slanderous," DeFazio said of the electronic claim. "I have nothing to do with the bill, no one pays any attention to the bill. It’s chronically introduced, and never received any attention before this." He gets backup from Fattah, whose press secretary sent PolitiFact Oregon a statement: "There have been many misleading and flat-wrong assertions about my bill, H.R. 4646, the Debt Free America Act. Congressman Peter DeFazio is not a cosponsor of H.R. 4646 and it is completely inaccurate to say he is a proponent of the Debt Free America Act. The statement is not accurate -- and makes a ridiculous claim. We rate this Pants on Fire. Comment on this item. | null | Chain email | null | null | null | 2010-10-01T06:00:00 | 2010-09-30 | ['None'] |
snes-03118 | The remains of a Nazi soldier were found in the belly of a giant catfish. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nazi-remains-giant-catfish/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Were Nazi Remains Found in the Stomach of a Giant Catfish? | 18 January 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02130 | When Deborah took office, the (Sellwood Bridge) project had languished for years, with only $11 million in funds. With her leadership the remaining funding was secured that got the project moving forward. | mostly true | /oregon/statements/2014/may/08/deborah-kafoury/did-deborah-kafourys-leadership-take-sellwood-brid/ | Awful things happen when bridges collapse. The 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35W Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis, for instance, left 13 dead and scores more injured. The calamity was blamed on a 1960s design flaw in plates used to connect bridge beams. Closer to home, Multnomah County officials worried about the stability of the Sellwood Bridge for years. No one thought the bridge was about to fall down, but everyone knew it needed to be replaced. Cracks in the structure’s concrete and steel, along with extraordinarily high use -- it’s the busiest two-lane bridge in Oregon -- earned it a two on a federal bridge-safety scale of 100. The Claim Deborah Kafoury was a former state legislator and a Multnomah County commissioner when she stepped down in October 2013 to run for Multnomah County chair. She faces attorney Jim Francesconi and four other candidates in the May 20 primary. Her campaign website lists the Sellwood Bridge among her accomplishments. "When Deborah took office," it claims, "the project had languished for years, with only $11 million in funds. With her leadership the remaining funding was secured that got the project moving forward." We wondered if Kafoury deserved that much credit. The Analysis We called Mike Pullen, a Multnomah County spokesman, and asked about the $11 million figure. He emailed an internal budget document titled, "Sellwood Bridge Funding Plan." It was dated June 4, 2009, which was five months after Kafoury took office as a commissioner. The document listed four possible financing scenarios. Each added up to the $321 million the project was then estimated to cost. They differed in the amounts expected to be collected from various contributing sources. All four scenarios included $11 million budgeted but unspent in completing a federally mandated environmental impact statement. That backed Kafoury’s claim that only $11 million of the projected $321 million needed to build a new Sellwood Bridge was on hand when she took office. Did her "leadership" help vacuum up the rest? Construction is now well under way so we know who’s paying for what. By far the single biggest source is the $141.7 million coming from a $19-a-year Multnomah County vehicle registration fee. We started our check there. Kafoury, who had been a legislator for six years before winning election as a commissioner, told us in a telephone interview that she took the lead in lobbying for a new bridge during the 2009 legislative session. She focused primarily on House Bill 2009, which included a provision giving Multnomah and Clackamas counties the authority to divert increased vehicle registration fees to the bridge. (Clackamas County, on a public vote, later pulled out of the plan.) Kafoury said she traveled frequently to Salem, meeting with, among others, Senate President Peter Courtney, D-Salem, and state Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro. We called Courtney. "She drove me nuts over that bridge," he exploded. "I’m not making this up. To me, the Sellwood Bridge is Deborah’s bridge." Multnomah County commissioners are elected on a nonpartisan basis. Still, Kafoury is a Democrat, so naturally Courtney might support her. For balance, we called Starr, a Republican. "I was managing the funding package for that bill and, based on my conversations with her, the Sellwood Bridge was added to that package," Starr said. "As far as I’m concerned, she was the only person in Multnomah County I dealt with on that issue." Did Kafoury have as strong a hand in the bridge’s other significant funding sources? The city of Portland, through then-Mayor Sam Adams, had already come out in favor of building a new bridge. Adams caught considerable flak for proposing to spend city money on a bridge it didn’t own. Adams and Ted Wheeler, then county commission chair, were in talks about the bridge when Kafoury joined the commission. When Jeff Cogen succeeded Wheeler, those discussions continued. The aim was inking an intergovernmental agreement specifying the duties and contributions of each. "But until we had the money in hand from the vehicle registration fees, nothing was going anywhere," Kafoury said. "When I went to Salem and got the funding, I called Sam and asked him for a firm commitment. We’d never have gotten the IGA if I hadn’t gotten the money." Adams, now executive director of the City Club of Portland, did not dispute Kafoury’s statement. The city’s portion of the project, now with an overall budget of $307.5 million, is $74.5 million. One last piece of the bridge’s financing collage we looked at was a $17.7 million federal grant, awarded in December 2011. Kafoury did join a county delegation that traveled to Washington, D.C., earlier that year to lobby for the grant, according to her and other county workers. But the extensive time spent preparing the grant was substantially "staff-driven," the county’s Pullen said. Without that money, the county would have still been looking at a $20 million funding gap. The Ruling Kafoury, in her campaign for Multnomah County commission chair, cites construction of a new Sellwood Bridge as a major accomplishment. When she took her seat on the commission in 2009, she said, "the project had languished for years, with only $11 million in funds. With her leadership, the remaining funding was secured that got the project moving forward." Budget documents confirm that only $11 million was on hand in 2009, and efforts to replace the aging span had been going on for at least several years. It’s also clear that without a lot more money, the project was going nowhere. State legislators from both parties say Kafoury was instrumental in including the Sellwood Bridge in a huge transportation funding bill approved not long after she took office. Yet while that money was key to getting the city of Portland to commit cash, important discussions between the city and county not directly involving Kafoury took place both before and after she was elected. Kafoury also lobbied federal officials for a grant that closed a remaining funding gap, but work around that grant was largely staff-driven. Kafoury played a pivotal role in securing the bridge’s first big chunk of money, which was key to getting it going. But she wasn’t the only to show "leadership" on the project. Other legislators had to buy into the transportation bill, and leaders such as Adams, Wheeler and Cogen helped secure money from the city of Portland. We rate Kafoury’s claim Mostly True. | null | Deborah Kafoury | null | null | null | 2014-05-08T17:24:18 | 2014-04-15 | ['None'] |
pose-00758 | I wouldn't support creating new regional bureaucracies. Instead, I think as Georgia's needs continue to change, our current regional commissions will take on greater significance and influence in how our state moves forward. | not yet rated | https://www.politifact.com/georgia/promises/deal-o-meter/promise/788/oppose-new-regional-bureaucracies/ | null | deal-o-meter | Nathan Deal | null | null | Oppose new regional bureaucracies | 2011-01-06T16:27:46 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00728 | Westboro Baptist Church Fred Phelp’s Deathbed Confession “I’m Gay” | fiction! & satire! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/fred-phelps-gay/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Westboro Baptist Church Fred Phelp’s Deathbed Confession “I’m Gay” | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02130 | The restaurant chain Whataburger announced that it was closing its doors. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/whataburger-closing-its-doors/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Whataburger Closing Its Doors? | 28 June 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03692 | Says under his utility rate plan, "An estimated 50 percent of our residential households will see a decrease in their water and wastewater bills." | mostly true | /virginia/statements/2013/apr/22/dwight-jones/dwight-jones-says-his-budget-would-lower-water-bil/ | Richmond Mayor Dwight Jones sees his plan to overhaul the city’s water and wastewater rates as a glass half full. His plan cuts in half the base rates that all customers pay simply to have access to the city’s water system. It also more than doubles a second charge to customers based on the amount of water they use and flush into the sewer system. "Through this rate structure change, an estimated 50 percent of our residential households will see a decrease in their water and wastewater bills," Jones said in a March 12 news release announcing the plan. We wondered if the mayor was correct. Under his plan, the monthly base rate charged to all customers for water and wastewater service would drop from $49.40 to $26.11. Meanwhile, the second monthly payment based on the volume of water used would rise from $4.22 to $9.03 for every 100 cubic feet that comes into their taps or leaves their home as wastewater. That 100 cubic feet, listed as a "ccf" on a resident’s water bill, amounts to about 750 gallons -- roughly 15 bathtubs full. The new rates are part of Jones’ proposal for a Richmond budget that is scheduled for a City Council vote May 13. Jones said his rates are not aimed at generating more revenues but were designed to shift more of the burden of supporting the utility to the residents who use the most water. Tammy Hawley, a spokeswoman for the mayor, sent us a Department of Public Utilities chart breaking down the number of residential customers by their water use. The chart showed that 25,904 customers were billed for using 400 cubic feet or less each month in the 2012 fiscal year, the most recently completed budget cycle. That comes to about half of the city’s 51,832 residential customers. Another chart Hawley sent shows that anyone charged for using 400 cubic feet or less would see lower bills. That’s because the increase in their volume fee would be less than the savings they would get from the halving of the base rate. People right at that 400 cubic foot threshold now pay $66.28 a month. The new rates would drop their monthly bills to $62.23 -- a savings of $4.05. The less water they use, the greater their savings. For example, customers who use 200 cubic feet would save $13.67 each month. Their monthly bills, now $57.84, would drop to $44.17. City charts show that the biggest savers would be the 13.7 percent of customers who use "0 ccf" a month. That doesn’t mean these households don’t use water, just that they consumed less than the 750 gallons threshold necessary to trigger a volume charge, said Angela Fountain, a spokeswoman with the Richmond Department of Public Utilities. So these users, who only pay the base rate, would save $23.29 a month. But 750 gallons is precious little water to use in a month. Such a household would be limited daily to a 5-minute shower, one tooth brushing, one hand washing and several toilet flushes and monthly to two loads of laundry and several dish washings, according to estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey. We wondered if some of those households might be properties where no one is living but where someone still pays a water bill, such as a vacant apartment. Fountain said no one knows. "If we’re sending them a bill, then we believe the property is occupied, that someone is using water there," she said. "We can’t tell you how many people, how often they’re there. We just don’t have that information." So the mayor is correct that his plan cuts water and wastewater rates for half the city households. The unsaid part, of course, is that it raises rates for the other half -- those billed monthly for using 500 cubic feet or more. We should note that the average residential household uses 600 cubic feet in water and wastewater each month, according to Raftelis Financial Consultants, a group that examined the Richmond’s utility pricing in a March 2013 report. Such customers will see their bill rise from $74.72 to $80.29 -- a $5.57 increase. Our ruling The mayor said that under his plan, half of the city’s residences would see a drop in water bills. His carefully worded statement is accurate. The unspoken part is that 50 percent will see their bills increase. The mayor also omits that his proposal would lead to a modest rate hike for the average water user. The mayor is correct, but his statement benefits from additional information. We rate the claim Mostly True. | null | Dwight Jones | null | null | null | 2013-04-22T06:00:00 | 2013-03-12 | ['None'] |
Subsets and Splits
SQL Console for pszemraj/multi_fc
Filters dataset entries containing 'law' in categories, tags, or reason fields, providing basic topic classification but offering limited analytical insight beyond simple keyword matching.
Healthcare Related Entries
Retrieves sample records containing healthcare-related keywords but doesn't provide meaningful analysis or patterns beyond basic filtering.