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pomt-13678 | Says Sen. Pat Toomey "even tried to shut down the federal government in order to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood." | mostly false | /pennsylvania/statements/2016/aug/02/majority-forward/attacking-pat-toomey-did-he-try-shut-down-governme/ | The latest ad from the PAC Majority Forward goes after Pat Toomey’s stances on abortion. It accuses the senator of voting against Planned Parenthood, being against a woman’s right to choose and supporting the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In one segment, Majority Forward, which bills itself as an organization with a goal of increasing voter registration and turnout and is associated with the pro-Democrat Senate Majority PAC, claims Toomey "even tried to shut down the federal government in order to eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood." Planned Parenthood was a major point of contention last year, and Toomey has long been an opponent of the organization. But did Toomey really try to shut down the federal government? The dispute over Planned Parenthood peaked last September after a series of undercover videos of its executives and technicians discussing aborted fetuses had been released by the Center for Medical Progress. House and Senate Republicans, primarily Tea Party figures, responded by calling for Congress to defund the organization. The debate caused complications as legislators worked toward a spending deal needed to keep many government programs running. Planned Parenthood gets about $450 million each year in federal funds, mostly out of funding from Medicare and Medicaid. On September 24, the Senate voted on a spending bill containing language to defund Planned Parenthood. Toomey was one of 47 senators who voted in favor of the bill -- not enough for it to pass. On September 30, the day before the deadline for the government shutdown, the Senate passed a spending deal that didn’t contain language to defund Planned Parenthood. Toomey was one of 20 senators to vote no on the final bill, compared to 78 senators who voted yes. This came about a week after Toomey told New York magazine he didn’t think it was a good idea to cause a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood. A government shutdown was a possible result if the bill did not pass. "He voted against the continuing resolution that funded Planned Parenthood and the government," said Joshua Huder, senior fellow at Georgetown’s Government Affairs Institute. "Whether he was threatening to shut down the government may be rhetorical." Last year, after Toomey voted against the spending plan, he released a statement saying, "I have strongly supported efforts to permanently stop government shutdowns. Shutdowns are no way to conduct the nation’s business....It is now apparent that the government will not shut down, so the question before the Senate is whether taxpayers should be forced to fund Planned Parenthood’s outrageous extremist practices. I voted against that, and I am instead in favor of shifting Planned Parenthood’s funding over to health centers that provide essential services to women in need." Toomey’s campaign condemned the Majority Forward ad, saying the PAC was lying and said Toomey has fought to end government shutdowns. Majority Forward did not respond to a request for comment. Our ruling With Republicans calling to defund Planned Parenthood last year, a federal spending plan was pushed to the brink. Had a plan not passed before Oct. 1, the government would have shut down like it did in 2013. On September 30, a few days after voting for a failed spending bill that would have defunded Planned Parenthood, Senator Pat Toomey voted no on a final spending bill overwhelmingly approved by the Senate. So Toomey voted against a bill that averted a government shutdown. By doing so, he didn’t do the same thing as try to "shut down the government," as Majority Forward claims. We rate the statement Mostly False. | null | Majority Forward | null | null | null | 2016-08-02T10:53:54 | 2016-07-29 | ['Planned_Parenthood', 'Pat_Toomey'] |
snes-05769 | Numeric PLU codes used on produce stickers identify how food products were grown. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/plu-codes/ | null | Food | null | David Mikkelson | null | PLU Codes | 31 May 2012 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01595 | McDonald’s hamburgers are only 15 percent ‘real beef.’ The other 85 percent is meat filler cleansed with ammonia, which causes stomach and intestinal cancer. | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2014/sep/03/facebook-posts/blogger-claims-mcdonalds-burgers-are-made-85-perce/ | An unsavory Facebook meme is reigniting alarm about the content of Big Macs. According to the meme, the patties at McDonald’s are skimpy on real beef and heavy on "meat filler," which the meme links to cancer. Meat filler is also called "pink slime" -- a nickname the beef industry insiders consider pejorative -- and made waves with consumers several years ago after a 2011 episode of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution and an 11-part ABC News investigation. McDonald’s said back then that it pulled the product from its grills. But a meme circulating this summer suggests otherwise. The claim has been around in some form since 2002. One of the most recent versions, sourced from an anonymous blogpost on Raw For Beauty, says "McDonald’s hamburgers are only 15 percent ‘real beef,’ the other 85 percent is meat filler cleansed with ammonia, which causes stomach and intestinal cancer." We wanted to know more about this "meat filler," what place, if any, it has in McDonald’s burgers, and if it is linked to cancer. Big Mac smack First, McDonald’s says it no longer uses the "meat filler" in question. This claim has been debunked numerous times since 2011, and it has also been addressed multiple times by McDonald’s. In an FAQ about its meats, the fast food giant acknowledged that it once used "pink slime" -- or the industry preferred term, "lean, finely textured beef" -- in its products but has since stopped the practice: "McDonald’s USA had begun the process of removing it from our supply chain prior to widespread media coverage on its use and it was completely removed from our supply in 2011. While select lean beef trimmings are safe, we decided to stop using the product to align our global standards for beef around the world." As for what exactly is in the patties, McDonald’s writes, "Our burgers in the US are made using only 100 percent USDA-inspected beef. There are no preservatives, no fillers, no extenders and no so-called ‘pink slime’ in our beef. The only thing added to our burgers is a bit of salt and pepper during grilling." The "pink slime" rumor oozed its way to Down Under, too, forcing McDonald’s Australia to release a video and tell a concerned customer, "Rest assured, Dana, it’s not true. Our beef patties are all 100 percent export quality Aussie beef, free of preservatives, additives, fillers and binders." Despite rising costs of beef, McDonald’s has no plans to reintroduce lean, finely textured beef (the preferred industry term term for what critics call "pink slime"), said McDonald’s spokeswoman Lisa McComb. Primer on "meat filler" But what exactly is lean, finely textured beef, and is it considered "real beef"? When Beef Products Inc., began making the product in 1991, the industry cheered it as revolutionary. Essentially, the goal is to get every piece of meat off of the bone, and then sanitize it so it is safe to eat. Here’s how the process works: About 25 percent of the carcass remains after taking whole muscle cuts (sirloins, briskets, ribs, etc). The remaining fat trimmings with bits of meat still attached are then put through a heat and centrifuge process, which separates the fat and produces 93 to 97 percent lean meat, according to BPI. Because the trimmings often are more susceptible to contamination, the meat is then treated with ammonium hydroxide gas to kill pathogens, like salmonella and E. coli. The U.S. Department of Agriculture does not require ammonium hydroxide to be included in the ingredients, considering it part of the process rather than part of the meat. The resulting meat has a finer texture. "That’s why you wouldn’t have a hamburger that would be made from nothing but LFTB – the texture would be softer," said Eric Mittenthal, a spokesperson for the American Meat Institute, a national trade association. The lean beef typically comprises no more than 15 percent of a burger, which consumers actually prefer over 100 percent coarse muscle meat, according to Edward Mills, a professor of meat science at Pennsylvania State University. At 25 percent, most people will notice an obvious difference in taste. So a burger with 85 percent of the lean product -- the amount pinpointed in the meme -- is not realistic. Several meat science professors we interviewed consider this product to be "real beef," even if consumers don’t. That perspective aligns with the U.S. Department of Agriculture definition of meat, which is meat "derived from advanced meat/bone separation machinery which is comparable in appearance, texture and composition to meat trimmings and similar meat products derived by hand." Under this definition, lean, finely textured beef -- the official term for "pink slime" -- is real beef, and a hamburger containing it could still be labeled 100 percent beef. The USDA does not require disclaimers of lean, finely textured beef in meat labels, but some companies, such as food giant Cargill, have opted to sticker their products if it includes this product. A cancer link? Now let’s look at the potential health effects of eating this kind of beef. Could it really lead to stomach and intestinal cancer? PolitiFact Georgia looked into a claim that "pink slime" is safe and rated it Mostly True. A 2009 New York Times piece detailed how the much-lauded sanitation process behind lean, finely textured beef was not as effective in killing pathogens as BPI said -- even as the meat spread to school cafeterias through the federal school lunch program. Between 2004 and late 2009, the product tested positive for salmonella 36 times out of 1,000, a rate four times greater than other suppliers, the Times reported. The story also quoted a USDA scientist referring to the product as "pink slime." Gerald Zirnstein wrote to USDA colleagues in 2002, "I do not consider the stuff to be ground beef, and I consider allowing it in ground beef to be a form of fraudulent labeling." The story raised a lot of eyebrows, spurring petitions and additional coverage from Oliver’s food show and others. McDonald’s joined Taco Bell and Burger King in no longer using meat treated with ammonium hydroxide in 2012, the Daily Mail reported. But meat experts said BPI’s product is just as safe -- or unsafe -- as all other beef products. The poultry industry has used meat from fat trimmings for 40 years, said Ted LaBuza, a professor of food science at the University of Minnesota. And ammonium hydroxide is used in many food products, such as puddings and cheese, and at levels 10 times higher than in meat, said Mittenthal and Mills. We could not find any studies to suggest that ammoniated beef can lead to stomach cancer or other intestinal disease. Even if you eat a burger with lean, finely textured beef every day, "you wouldn’t even come close" to posing a serious hazard to your health -- at least, not because of the ammonium hydroxide, said Mills. And it’s fairly common to use ammonia and other chemicals -- such as citric acid, which can leave a sour flavor -- to treat meat, LaBuza said. Chances of becoming sick are actually lower with beef from McDonald’s compared to a local butcher, who is beholden to less stringent standards than fast food restaurants, he said. Our ruling An Internet meme accuses McDonald’s of using hamburger meat that contains only 15 percent "real beef," with the rest made up of a "meat filler cleansed with ammonia, which causes stomach and intestinal cancer." McDonald’s stopped using the "filler" in question -- lean, finely textured beef or its somewhat misleading nickname "pink slime" -- back in 2011. When the product was on the grills, the burger most likely contained nowhere near 85 percent of meat filler, as experts said most consumers would notice a difference in taste after 25 percent. What’s more, the lean beef does not have any documented links to cancer. We rate this claim Pants on Fire. | null | Facebook posts | null | null | null | 2014-09-03T17:57:43 | 2014-08-27 | ['None'] |
tron-03080 | Hillary Clinton Was Disbarred, Her Law License Revoked | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/hillary-clinton-disbarred-law-license-revoked/ | null | politics | null | null | null | Hillary Clinton Was Disbarred, Her Law License Revoked | Mar 21, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02629 | Did Southwest Airlines Change Their Slogan After United Airlines Controversy? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/southwest-airlines-slogan/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Did Southwest Airlines Change Their Slogan After United Airlines Controversy? | 12 April 2017 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02376 | Queen Elizabeth Upset Meghan Markle’s Ex-Husband Is Making Royal-Inspired Sitcom? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/queen-elizabeth-upset-meghan-markle-ex-husband-sitcom-show/ | null | null | null | Holly Nicol | null | Queen Elizabeth Upset Meghan Markle’s Ex-Husband Is Making Royal-Inspired Sitcom? | 6:54 am, October 6, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-09791 | Health insurance companies deny "1 out of 5 treatments prescribed by doctors." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/18/health-care-america-now/tv-ad-overstates-health-insurance-denials/ | Supporters of health care reform have portrayed insurance companies as insensitive and too quick to deny claims. In a recent television ad, Health Care for America Now, a group supporting the Democrats' health care reform bill, says insurance companies get wealthy by denying those claims. The group's ad mockingly explains "how to get rich" by showing a "book" written "by America's health insurance companies." Chapter 3 reads, "Deny 1 out of 5 treatments prescribed by doctors." A news release issued by HCAN attributed this statistic to a study released Sept. 2, 2009, by the California Nurses Association titled, "California's Real Death Panels: Insurers Deny 21% of Claims." (We checked another claim from the ad, about insurance companies paying CEOs $24 million per year, and rated it Barely True.) In a news release summarizing the findings, the nurses' group — an influential union — explained that researchers from its staff and its affiliate, the National Nurses Organizing Committee, examined data disclosed by insurers to the California Department of Managed Care, the state agency that regulates HMOs. The researchers reported that from 2002 through June 30, 2009, six of the largest insurers operating in California rejected 47.7 million claims for care, or 22 percent of all claims. According to the nurses' group, during the first six months of 2009, PacifiCare denied 39.6 percent of claims; Cigna denied 32.7 percent; HealthNet denied 30 percent; Kaiser Permanente denied 28.3 percent; Blue Cross denied 27.9 percent and Aetna denied 6.4 percent. But the California Department of Managed Care told us the study was misleading. Lynne Randolph, the department's deputy director of communications, said that what the nurses' group portrayed as denials are not necessarily what most consumers would think of as denials. Most patients probably think of a denial as when their claim is rejected because the plan doesn't cover a treatment or a particular doctor, or because the patient has hit a limit on coverage. But Randolph said that a sizable chunk of the denials counted by the nurses' group — though the exact amount is unclear — are for other reasons that are simply part of the health care bureaucracy that do not really affect a consumer's care. For instance, a claim might be denied because it was sent to the wrong insurer. (This is a common occurrence in California, Randolph and other experts said, because the state has many complicated business relationships between health plans and groups of doctors, and it's easy for claims to be unintentionally misdirected.) In fact, a patient may never even know that a given claim has been sent to the wrong place. Yet in the data used by the nurses' group, these claims are counted as denials. For that matter, any claim denied during a given quarterly report is counted as a denial, even if that claim is eventually paid during a subsequent quarter. Claims could also be counted as denied because information on the form was missing or incorrect, even if that is later corrected and the claim is paid. And a claim sent simultaneously to two payers is counted twice, meaning that the same claim might be counted as both a completed payment and a denial. Asked whether the nurses' group remains comfortable with its 1-in-5 estimate, spokesman Charles Idelson said it is. He noted that in the wake of the study's release, the state attorney general's office announced an "independent inquiry into how health maintenance organizations review and pay insurance claims submitted by doctors, hospitals and other medical providers." And he added that the group has received hundreds of reports from Californians about denied payments. "There's no doubt that these type of denials are occurring," Idelson said. Idelson added that even if the caveats cited by Randolph are valid, the fact that one of every five claims is denied at some stage adds to an administrative burden that hikes the cost of health care without improving care for patients. Randolph and Idelson actually agree on one point: Reliable statistics on why denials are made are not currently available. While the department undertakes periodic audits by sampling claims data, Randolph said, officials do not have good data on the causes of denials, forcing them to speculate. Idelson said he hopes the attorney general's investigation provides a better handle on the reasons for denials. The nurses' union numbers are significantly higher than other studies of denial rates. In 2007, America's Health Insurance Plans — a group representing insurers — conducted an internal survey of data from 19 health plans to determine the percentage of claims denied for "reasons that could affect consumers, including non-covered services, authorization issues, or network issues." The survey found that 2.36 percent of claims were denied. Specifically, 1.2 percent were denied due to non-covered services, 0.36 percent were denied due to benefit limits having been met, and 0.34 percent were denied due to pre-authorization, referral or utilization review issues. Smaller percentages were denied for the provider not being in the patient’s network, for issues with eligibility or pre-existing conditions and for issues related to experimental or unapproved treatments. A second study was produced by the American Medical Association, the main group representing doctors. The 2008 National Health Insurer Report Card found that for the biggest health insurers, rejection rates ranged from 2.65 percent to 6.8 percent — higher than AHIP's figures, but well below the nurses' study. It should be noted that all three groups have vested interests in the health care debate. In fact, it's also worth noting that the nurses' group has clashed with California's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who appointed the head of the California Department of Managed Care, although the department is mostly staffed by civil servants. Meanwhile, the state attorney general who is overseeing the investigation sparked by the nurses' report is Democrat Jerry Brown, a former governor who is running for an open gubernatorial seat next year. Now that we have the politics out of the way, let's recap. The Health Care for America Now ad said that insurers "deny 1 out of 5 treatments prescribed by doctors." But that claim is based solely on one study in one state, and in our view it doesn't provide enough evidence to back up the claim. The independent state agency that collected the data used in the nurses' study has raised significant doubt on the group's interpretations of that data. Many "denials" that were counted were not really what most people would consider a denial. And studies by other groups show much lower denial rates. So we rate this claim False. | null | Health Care for America Now | null | null | null | 2009-09-18T15:57:01 | 2009-09-15 | ['None'] |
snes-05662 | A photograph shows a biennial astronomical event in Ireland known as "Heaven’s Trail." | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fauxtography-space-heavens-trail/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Heaven’s Trail Viral Photo | 9 June 2015 | null | ['Republic_of_Ireland'] |
pomt-14787 | California has more kids in poverty ... than virtually any other state. | mostly true | /california/statements/2015/dec/04/common-sense-kids-action/does-california-have-most-children-poverty/ | A coalition of health and education advocates wants to keep alive an income tax on the wealthiest Californians through an extension of part of Proposition 30. Voters approved that measure in 2012 to pay for schools and balance the state’s budget. The income tax is due to expire in 2019. Common Sense Kids Action, a child advocacy group, stated in September that the tax on the wealthy should be extended, citing continued health and education needs for California’s large number of impoverished children. "California has more kids in poverty and greater income inequality than virtually any other state. The Invest in California’s Children Act asks the wealthiest to pay a little more so we can make the investments every California kid needs to have a great start in life," the advocacy group said. It said this in a press release unveiling one of multiple proposals to extend Proposition 30 that California voters will likely decide in November 2016. Here, we wanted to fact-check whether California has more kids in poverty than any other state, an eye-opening claim. Staff at Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services help clients in north Sacramento. Photo by Andrew Nixon/Capital Public Radio Our research The facts are pretty clear: California does have the most children under the age of 18 in poverty at 2.05 million, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau report on the topic. That’s far more than Texas, the state with the next highest number of children in poverty with about 1.7 million. "The fact that the state has the most children in poverty is mainly driven by the fact that it is the most populous state," said Caroline Danielson, who studies poverty at the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a nonpartisan research group. At nearly 39 million, California’s population dwarfs second place Texas, which is home to about 27 million people. Third place Florida, with its nearly 20 million people, has about 650,000 children in poverty. To get a deeper understanding of child poverty in California, we wanted to see what percent of the state’s children are impoverished and how that compares with other states. The answer, it turns out, is hard to find and depends on what poverty measurement you look at. The census bureau’s standard reports show 22.7 percent of California’s children live in poverty. But fourteen other states had higher child poverty rates. The top three are New Mexico at 29.5 percent; Mississippi at 29.4 percent; and Louisiana at 27.9 percent, according to the bureau. California ranks as the most impoverished state in the bureau’s "supplemental poverty measure," which researchers consider more meaningful because it accounts for cost of living. That measure, however, does not distinguish between child and adult poverty. To hone in on the state’s child poverty rate, PPIC, created a California Poverty Measure. Through that analysis, which takes into account cost of living and government assistance programs, PPIC found California’s child poverty rate for 2012 was 24.9 percent, higher than the census bureau’s rate. The institute only studied California’s child poverty rate, so we can’t compare it with other states. And if that comparison were possible? "I would suspect that California’s child poverty rate would be in the top five in the nation," Danielson said. Our ruling Common Sense Kids Action says "California has more kids in poverty ... than virtually any state." The census bureau shows in its most recent standard report that California, indeed, has more people under 18 in poverty than any other state. But that doesn’t necessarily mean California has a bigger problem with child poverty — per capita — than all other states. There are 14 states, led by New Mexico and Mississippi, with higher child poverty rates, at least by the official measure. In conclusion, the statement is literally accurate. But it should be noted that California’s population is so large it leads the nation in practically everything. We rate the claim Mostly True. MOSTLY TRUE – The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Common Sense Kids Action | null | null | null | 2015-12-04T00:00:00 | 2015-09-21 | ['None'] |
pomt-06202 | The Fed created $15 trillion in the bailout process and $5 trillion went overseas. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/dec/09/ron-paul/did-fed-create-15-trillion-during-bailout-and-send/ | For Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul, the causes of this country’s economic problems are both simple and profound. The government spends far too much, and the reason it can get away with this lies in the power of the Federal Reserve Bank to create more dollars out of thin air. As this argument goes, this drives down the value of the dollar, which creates an invisible tax paid by every business and household. Paul often speaks of the recklessness of the Fed, and at a house party in Rochester, N.H., he backed up this point by saying, "The Fed created 15 trillion dollars in the bailout process. Five of them were going overseas." We are checking both parts of that claim: that the Fed created that much money and about a third ended up outside our borders. To back up both points, the Paul campaign cited a report from the Government Accountability Office from July 2011 that assessed a handful of emergency loan programs run by the Federal Reserve between 2008 and 2010. The campaign highlighted tables 8, 20 and 30 in that report. Table 8 is the most comprehensive and contains the biggest numbers. At first blush, it appears Paul understates the situation. Between December, 2007 and July, 2010, more than $16 trillion passed from the Fed to the biggest banks, both domestic banks and subsidiaries of foreign-owned institutions. Tally up the amounts that went to subsidiaries, and about $6 trillion went to banks such as Barclays and the Royal Bank of Scotland. But Mark Calabria, director of financial regulation studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, says that doesn’t mean that much money was created or left the country. "Paul presents half the picture," Calabria said, "And you could argue that it’s misleading." This is a case, Calabria says, where you can be factually correct and, in his words, "incoherent". Two big missing pieces put the accuracy of Paul’s statement on very shaky ground. It’s incorrect to say the Fed created $16 trillion because that’s a running total of lending, and the running total ignores a key reality. The dollars in those loan programs went out and came back in through a revolving door. Orice Williams Brown, managing director financial markets at the GAO, gives as an example a bank borrowing $10 billion at night, repaying it the next morning and then borrowing it again in the evening. The running tally would count that as $20 billion borrowed. "But if you look at it, it’s the same $10 billion dollars," Brown said. The GAO did figure out what the total would look like if you accounted for this churn of dollars. That’s in Table 9, which the Paul campaign did not cite. The grand total there is about $1.1 trillion which is a lot of money but much less than $15 trillion. The other missing piece is the current status of those loan programs. Also not cited by the Paul campaign, the GAO reported that after all that lending, the total amount still outstanding is $13 billion dollars. The money was created out of thin air, but when it was repaid, it no longer existed. This is where the Federal Reserve is different from any other bank in the US. "I think you’re creating money, because you’re certainly loaning it out," said Calabria. "But I also think you’re extinguishing it later." Calabria says at the end of the day, those tables in the GAO report don’t tell you much about the creation of money in any enduring respect. For that, you would look at the money supply. A common measure of the dollars in circulation is called the M2, and there’s no question it has gone up a lot. According to data from the Federal Reserve, we now have $2.1 trillion more floating around than we did four years ago. If one is concerned about the value of the dollar, this is an important figure. It isn’t the $15 trillion Paul mentioned, and it has just about nothing to do with the GAO report, but it is a real issue for anyone who cares about diluting the power of the dollar. In addition to the accuracy problems we just described, there’s another weakness in Paul’s assertion that $5 trillion went overseas. Whatever money was lent went to banks in the US that are owned by foreign banks, there is no way to know if any of those dollars went overseas, said John Makin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "If it went to a New York branch, it hasn’t gone overseas," Makin said. "Maybe it has, but it would be difficult to disentangle that." This is the consensus among economists. Dollars are fungible. A dollar in one account in New York might allow a dollar in another account in London to be put to use, but the reverse could also be true. If the banks had been doing a lot of lending -- that is, actually putting those dollars to work to rebuild the economy as the Fed intended -- one might be able to look at where those dollars ended up, Makin said. But for the most part, the banks have been sitting on their cash, he said. The GAO study tells us nothing definitive about where the money went. The only people who would know would be officials at the banks themselves. Not only is Paul’s number exaggerated, it isn't supported by the source his campaign cites. Our Ruling Apart from anything Paul said, it is true that the Fed has created about $2 trillion. But that's not what we're assessing. When Paul says the Fed created $15 trillion, he is misstating the work of the GAO, and he fails to account for the special power of the Federal Reserve to destroy the dollars it creates. His assertion that a great deal of money went overseas might be true, but no one knows, and again, Paul misinterprets the source he used. For that reason, we rate his statement Mostly False. | null | Ron Paul | null | null | null | 2011-12-09T10:14:56 | 2011-11-30 | ['Federal_Reserve_System'] |
pose-00783 | Develop specialized charter high schools with a focus on science, technology, engineering and math | in the works | https://www.politifact.com/georgia/promises/deal-o-meter/promise/813/develop-a-plan-for-more-specialized-charter-school/ | null | deal-o-meter | Nathan Deal | null | null | Develop a plan for more specialized charter schools | 2011-01-06T16:27:46 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00928 | Says Debbie Wasserman Schultz "voted repeatedly to send terminally ill patients to prison." | mostly false | /florida/statements/2015/feb/26/drug-policy-alliance/pro-pot-group-says-debbie-wasserman-schultz-repeat/ | As U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., weighs a potential presidential bid in 2016, a long list of politicians are considering whether to run for his Senate seat. That includes U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Weston, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, according to a Politico report on Feb. 17. (She’s not a lock on the Democratic side. A Tampa Bay Times Florida Insider Poll suggests U.S. Rep. Patrick Murphy of Palm Beach County and newly elected U.S. Rep. Gwen Graham of Leon County could also be strong contenders.) One group was quick to attack Wasserman Schultz’s potential candidacy: The pro-pot lobby. Last year, she opposed Florida’s medical marijuana ballot initiative, which received almost 58 percent support, two points shy of passage. She also voted against a congressional amendment supported by advocates for medical marijuana. "She’s voted repeatedly to send terminally ill patients to prison. And we’re certainly going to make sure Floridians know that — not to mince words," Bill Piper, national affairs director with the Drug Policy Alliance, told Politico. Did Wasserman Schultz repeatedly take votes to send dying patients to prison? Politico reported in a follow-up article that Wasserman Schultz offered to change her opposition if Orlando lawyer John Morgan, the force behind the Florida ballot initiative, stopped bashing her, which she denied in an interview with the Sun Sentinel. Morgan hopes to get a revised version on the ballot in 2016. Wasserman Schultz’s marijuana voting record The Drug Policy Alliance pointed to several of Wasserman Schultz’s votes, including on a congressional amendment that banned the use of federal money to interfere with state medical marijuana laws. The goal of the amendment, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., was to prevent federal agents from raiding retail operations in states where medical pot is legal. (We looked at a similar claim by another pro-pot group about her vote in 2014.) Wasserman Schultz, one of 17 Democrats in the House to vote against the amendment on May 30, 2014, said she didn’t want to "limit the executive branch’s ability to enforce current federal law at their discretion." The language was attached to another bill and signed into law in December. (She voted against similar failed amendments four times between 2005 and 2012.) Her vote on those amendments "was very much focused on patients, and the fear of arrest they and their caregivers live under," Piper told PolitiFact Florida. He also argued that the Florida ballot measure -- which Wasserman Schultz opposed -- would have protected patients using medical marijuana. Last year, she said the Florida ballot initiative was "written too broadly and stops short of ensuring strong regulatory oversight from state officials." Piper also pointed to Wasserman Schultz’s "no" vote on an April 2014 congressional amendment on a spending bill for Veterans Affairs. The amendment, which failed, would have allowed VA doctors to talk to their patients about medical marijuana in states in which it is legal. But it’s a stretch to say that her "no" vote means she wants dying patients to go to prison. Wasserman Schultz spokesman Sean Bartlett told the Washington Post at the time that she felt it was premature to vote on the amendment. She wanted to wait for the results of a study approved by the federal government to look at marijuana’s potential effects on post-traumatic stress disorder. Do feds put terminally ill patients in prison? Do these votes mean she repeatedly voted to send terminally ill patients to prison? That’s a stretch. Even before her 2014 congressional votes, there were reasons that users were not a priority for the feds. In 2013, U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Cole issued a memorandum to federal attorneys telling them to focus on cartels or other criminal organizations. Beyond that, the Justice Department said it was content to allow state and local agencies "to address marijuana activity through enforcement of their own narcotics laws." The pro-pot lobby has pointed to cases of growers prosecuted for serving ill patients, including transplant recipient Jerry Duval, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Duval was a state-registered caregiver but prosecutors argued he peddled pot to non-patients. One high-profile case remains pending -- initially dubbed Kettle Falls 5, named for defendants in eastern Washington. Prosecutors say the five defendants were conspiring to manufacture and distribute marijuana, and they were also charged with possessing firearms. One defendant, Larry Harvey, told USA Today that the pot he grew was for personal medical use. On Feb. 18, the Justice Department dropped the charges against Harvey, 71, who was recently diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer. However, the charges remain for his wife, two other relatives and a family friend. Law professors we interviewed told us that the federal government hasn’t focused on individuals who simply use marijuana for their own medical needs, and that was true even before the congressional amendment passed. "The feds don't send people to prison for using marijuana," Vanderbilt law Professor Robert Mikos told PolitiFact Florida. "They do deny some benefits to users (like access to some VA services). And the law authorizes prison for users. But the law is not enforced so rigidly." George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, an adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that the amendment passed last year "may well constrain federal prosecution of medical marijuana suppliers in states where their activities are legal." However, he added, the fact that the Kettle Falls case is still going forward shows such prosecutions still can happen. Our ruling Wasserman Schultz "voted repeatedly to send terminally ill patients to prison," Piper said. She voted against amendments to ban the federal government from interfering with state medical marijuana laws. In theory, advocates believe that the amendment -- which passed late in 2014 after multiple attempts -- prevents the feds from going after sick marijuana users in states that allow medical marijuana. However, even before the amendment passed, dying patients who simply smoked joints that they obtained legally were not being hauled off to prison en masse by federal agents. Instead, the federal government focused on major suppliers or distributors. Saying Wasserman Schultz voted to send people to prison significantly exaggerates the issue. The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/20f4b2f1-a33c-45f8-b2cb-8f8dad9c3b5b | null | Drug Policy Alliance | null | null | null | 2015-02-26T12:02:24 | 2015-02-19 | ['None'] |
pomt-11755 | Only 20 percent of our current graduates from Texas high schools go ahead and achieve either a national certificate or a community college degree -- or a college degree. | mostly false | /texas/statements/2017/dec/05/tom-luce/tom-luce-understates-share-texas-students-succeedi/ | Former gubernatorial hopeful Tom Luce, the Dallas lawyer long associated with Ross Perot and the landmark 1984 overhaul of state education laws, recently declared that few Texas students succeed in formal schooling past high school, we learned from a reporter’s tweet. Luce, the lead witness at a mid-November 2017 hearing held by the Texas House Select Committee on Economic Competitiveness, said: "Here are the facts: Only 20 percent of our current graduates from Texas high schools go ahead and achieve either a national certificate or a community college degree -- or a college degree. Now stop and think about that: Just 20 percent of our youngsters achieve one of those three credentials." Luce went on to say the state should be at 80 percent instead. That 20 percent figure was familiar. In March 2016, the state’s commissioner of higher education, Raymund Paredes, told lawmakers that just 20 percent of Texas eighth-graders earn a college degree or other advanced certificate within 11 years (or six years after high school). That conclusion tied to a research approach initially laid out in a February 2012 report commissioned by the Houston Endowment stating that researchers conducted a "cohort analysis of every student who started 8th grade in a Texas public school in 1996, 1997, and 1998," subsequently tracking progress over 11 years. By phone, Luce told us he got his figure from that same longitudinal research posted by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Luce also provided a document headlined: "Given current trajectory, Texas at risk for decreasing educational attainment." The document states that 20.9 percent of the state’s eighth-graders in 2005 later earned a certificate or degree from a Texas college or university within six years after high school graduation--with achievement rates varying by ethnicity and economic status. A Coordinating Board staff spokeswoman, Kelly Carper Polden, responded to our emailed inquiry about educational attainment after high school by pointing out a page in the agency’s April 2017 Texas Public Higher Education Almanac indicating that by 2016, of every 100 students enrolled in eighth grade in fall 2005, 74 had graduated from a public high school, 54 had enrolled in higher education in the state and 21 had received a Texas higher education degree or certificate within six years of leaving high school. Of the 21, the almanac says, one student received a certificate, four received an associate degree and 15 received a bachelor’s degree or more. On point to Luce’s focus on high school graduates, Polden also told us that 27 percent of eighth-graders in fall 2005 who went on to graduate from high school had completed a Texas college degree or certificate by 2016. Graduates going to college out of state We recognized, though, that the provided percentages don’t take into account post high-school achievements outside Texas. Polden said the almanac figures do not fold in such students "because we don’t consistently have that data." We wondered how to account for students ultimately earning certificates or college degrees out of state. According to a February 2017 board document, about 5 percent of Texas high-school graduates in recent years enrolled the subsequent fall at an out-of-state college. By phone when we asked, David Gardner, the board’s deputy commissioner for academic planning and policy, estimated that at least 30 percent of all high school graduates who were in eighth grade in fall 2005 have since earned a post-high-school degree or certificate. Gardner said too that many students have accumulated college credit but not yet landed a degree. John Wyatt at the agency emailed us a pie chart indicating another 3 percent of high school graduates had completed a degree or certificate out of state by 2016. That chart indicates that 70 percent of those graduates hadn’t attained a post-high-school degree or certificate by 2016. SOURCE: Email, John Wyatt, director of external relations, THECB, Dec. 1, 2017 Another agency’s analysis We also queried the Texas Education Agency, which oversees public schools. By email, spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson told us how to generate an agency report gauging students who went on to get degrees from Texas institutions. Upshot: Some 24 percent of the state’s 2008-09 high-school graduates earned a Texas community college or four-year college degree by 2015-16: SOURCE: Report, "2015-16 Texas Public Schools State Summary," Texas Education Agency (fetched from website, "Education Summary - Statewide," Texas Public Education Information Resource, TEA and THECB, Nov. 29, 2017) We circled back to Luce, who said by phone that if 27 percent of high school graduates got a Texas college degree or certificate within six years of graduation, that’s "still a problem." Our ruling Luce said: "Only 20 percent of our current graduates from Texas high schools go ahead and achieve either a national certificate or a community college degree -- or a college degree." This claim has an element of a truth in that a minority of Texas high school graduates shortly earn college degrees or other certificates. But Luce's 20 percent figure is incomplete and inaccurate. Notably, it's limited to students landing degrees in Texas only, leaving out students who attended college out of state. In contrast, we found that some 30 percent of high school graduates landed a college degree or other post-high-school certificate within six years of graduation — which leaves Luce's percentage off by 50 percent. The number closest to what Luce cited applies to eighth-graders enrolled in fall 2005; 21 percent of them ultimately earned a college degree or other educational certificate from a Texas institution. We rate Luce’s statement at the hearing Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Tom Luce | null | null | null | 2017-12-05T17:25:25 | 2017-11-15 | ['Texas'] |
goop-02476 | Britney Spears’ Boyfriend Sam Asghari Did Buy Her Boob Job, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/britney-spears-boob-job-boyfriend-sam-asghari-breast-implants-gift/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Britney Spears’ Boyfriend Sam Asghari Did NOT Buy Her Boob Job, Despite Report | 4:19 pm, September 11, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04989 | Says stimulus money went to buy electric cars from Finland as a payback to Obama supporters. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/jul/20/mitt-romney/romney-ad-says-stimulus-money-went-buy-electric-ca/ | In the presidential battle over who sent more jobs overseas, Mitt Romney and his supporters are fond of citing the example of Fisker Automotive, the maker of a high-end plug-in electric sedan. In an ad called "Where did all the money go," the Romney campaign suggests President Obama has a lot of explaining to do. "Where did all the Obama stimulus money go? Friends, donors, campaign supporters, special interest groups. Where did the Obama stimulus money go? Solyndra. $500 million taxpayer dollars. Bankrupt. So where did the Obama stimulus money go? Windmills from China. Electric cars from Finland." The day after that ad launched, Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus expanded on the attack in Philadelphia. "President Obama took half a billion dollars of your taxpayer money and gave it to Fisker Automotive because they promised to create jobs at their Wilmington plant.... " Priebus said. "But they didn't create jobs for you. Their factory in Delaware... was supposed to be open today, but instead it's closed. And Fisker is still building their cars in Finland." There’s a few things to check here. Did stimulus money go to Finland? What is the financial deal between the United States and Fisker and did it produce jobs in the U.S.? Was that deal a payback to special friends of the Obama administration? PolitiFact tackled many of these questions in some detail last April. Back then, an ad from the conservative group, Americans for Prosperity asserted "The Obama administration admitted the truth, that $2.3 billion of tax credits went overseas ... Half a billion to an electric car company that created hundreds of jobs in Finland." What Fisker got In 2009, an American car company, Fisker Automotive, won a total of $528 million in loan guarantees to build two high-end electric hybrids, the Karma and the Atlantic (originally named Nina). The ultimate goal was to build the Atlantic at a defunct auto plant in Delaware. Work on the Atlantic is currently on hold, and the Delaware plant has yet to open. The engineering and design for the Karma was done in the United States, but according to the U.S. Energy Department, the plan from the beginning was to build the cars in Finland. Fisker Automotive told ABC News this work employed about 500 Finnish workers. Company spokesman Roger Ornisher told PolitiFact that the plant has produced over 1,500 Karmas so far. Not stimulus dollars The claim about American stimulus dollars paying for jobs in Finland is flawed in several important respects. First, the money did not come from the stimulus. This nuance seems to slip through the cracks again and again, so the correct information bears repeating. That money came as a loan -- not a grant or a tax credit -- through the Energy Department’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program. That program predates the Obama administration. It was not part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, also known as the stimulus. In fact, it’s a program signed into existence by President George W. Bush in 2007 and first funded by legislation Bush signed in 2008. The only reference to this loan program in the stimulus is that it received $10 million for administrative expenses. The Bush administration was in charge when Fisker Automotive filed its application. The Obama administration was in charge when the company’s loan was approved. The stimulus bill had nothing to do with it. Not half a billion dollars Even as a loan, Fisker Automotive has not received anywhere close to half a billion dollars. So far, Fisker has drawn down about $193 million, and the Energy Department won’t release any more until the company completes more work. The government loan package came in two parts. An initial $170 million was for design and engineering to complete the Karma using at least 65 percent American-made parts. A second $360 million loan would be to open an American plant to build the Atlantic. Just about all of that second part is still in government hands. For those who would say that money is fungible and there’s no guarantee that some of the federal dollars were not used to pay Finnish workers, the company has an answer. It says it raised much more money from private investors; Ornisher told us the total is now over $1 billion. While Ornisher won’t say how much Fisker spent in Finland, he says it was "easily within" the amount of that private money. Fisker Automotive also says that the accounting firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers audits its accounts to ensure that all federal dollars are spent in the U.S. The jobs Ornisher says the Karma and Atlantic projects support some 500 Fisker employees in the United States. He says it’s much harder to estimate the number of jobs associated with the supply of parts -- 65 percent of which are supposed to come from American companies. Ornishers also says the company has sold about 1,000 cars in the U.S. and that provides work at some 45 retailers across the country. Political connections The ad hints darkly that a lot of this is tied to political friends of the president. During a campaign briefing, senior campaign adviser Ed Gillespie singled out the Fisker Automotive deal and one of its investors, John Doerr. "You know you have John Doerr, who raised a lot of money for President Obama (and) got appointed to an economic recovery advisory board. "And then, his firm had a big investment in Fisker Automotive, which got over half a billion dollars in loan guarantees from the Department of Energy, which did not result in jobs being created in America, but actually jobs being created overseas in Finland. But Kleiner Perkins (Doerr’s firm) did quite well." According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Doerr is a big Democratic donor -- over $175,000 since 2008. And Ornisher described Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers as "one of the major investors" in Fisker. But as the Washington Post noted, Kleiner has many partners, and some of them are hefty donors on the Republican side. One, Ray Lane, backed John McCain in 2008. Our ruling The Romney campaign ad said that stimulus dollars paid for jobs in Finland. There is nothing accurate in this claim. The federal loan guarantees the company received were not part of the stimulus, and there is no evidence that any government dollars paid for work done by Finnish workers. Ornisher, the company spokesman, told us the contract to produce the cars in Finland had been signed before the federal loan was approved. Also, measures were put in place to ensure that taxpayer dollars only went for work done in America. Fisker Automotive has yet to open the factory in Delaware but it also hasn’t received the large government loan needed to do that. The ad’s suggestion that the Fisker loan was a reward to a political supporter also falls flat. The program was approved initially by the Bush administration. We rule the claim False. | null | Mitt Romney | null | null | null | 2012-07-20T13:47:11 | 2012-07-18 | ['Finland', 'Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-09218 | John Mica's brother is an oil lobbyist and his daughter represents the natural gas industry. | half-true | /florida/statements/2010/may/18/heather-beaven/us-rep-john-mica-family-oil-ties/ | A relatively unknown Democrat looking to unseat longtime Florida U.S. Rep. John Mica is using the Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico as a way to play up Mica's family ties to the oil industry. Mica, R-Winter Park, has represented Florida's 7th Congressional District since 1993. The district, which covers the northeast coast of Florida, has been considered a safe seat for Republicans (John McCain carried the district by 7 percentage points in 2008). Democrat Heather Beaven, a Navy veteran, said in a May 12, 2010, e-mail to supporters that Mica's brother is a lobbyist for the oil industry and that his daughter represents an interest group that supports increased offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. "Brother of only Fla. lawmaker to support offshore drilling is an oil lobbyist," Beaven said in the e-mail, copying a headline from the Orlando Sentinel. Later, she said, "John Mica's daughter represents the Consumers Alliance for Affordable Natural Gas and the Citizens Alliance for Energy Security in support of increased access to offshore oil & natural gas." The e-mail includes other ties between Mica and the oil industry then asks "Disgusted yet?" An accompanying link directs supporters to Beaven's online campaign contribution page. In this item, we wanted to see if Beaven's description of Mica's family connections to the energy industry is accurate. Mica has been a longtime supporter of offshore oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, advocating for drilling well before gas prices neared $4 a gallon in 2008. Mica was the lone member of the Florida Congressional delegation to not sign a letter in 2003 to stop the federal government from surveying Florida coastal waters for oil and natural gas. In 2006, the Palm Beach Post reported that Mica was only one of two Florida House members to vote to allow gas drilling within 9 miles of Florida's Gulf Coast. That measure failed. Even now, Mica touts on his campaign website that he scored a 100 percent rating on the "Freedom From Oil Scorecard," published by the conservative political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity. Mica maintained his support for offshore oil drilling in a May 13 statement provided to PolitiFact Florida. My position on drilling for gas and oil remain the same. I have always advocated drilling based on sound science, technology and employing safe measures, taking into consideration depths and currents. Unfortunately most of the past restrictions on drilling have been based on politics rather than sound science and safe procedures. Based on what has occurred in the Gulf, I would urge Congress to make certain that proper safeguards are required including a failsafe shutoff valve, and having a standby mechanism like the dome in place with tried and proven technology available before rather than after the fact. With 3,400 oil and 600 gas rigs already in the Gulf of Mexico, action on insuring against another disaster is important. Furthermore, even if Florida has a 100, 125, 150 or 200 mile ban and other states and countries like Mexico allow close or deepwater rigs, our state can still remain at risk without these protective measures. Now, onto his family. The brother Beaven is referring to in her e-mail is David Mica. He currently serves as executive director of the Florida Petroleum Council, a group that --- the name kind of gives it away --- supports increased offshore drilling. David Mica has called on the Florida Legislature to open up state waters as close as 3 miles offshore to oil and gas drilling, and has continued to push a pro-drilling position even after the Deepwater Horizon leak. As Beaven claimed, he also is a registered lobbyist in Florida. "We've got to keep our commitment to explore, develop, and produce oil and gas," David Mica told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel in an article published April 30, 2010. "You can't give up on technology." And in the Florida Times-Union, he equated the leak to the airplane industry. "At the end of the day, we can't stop flying airplanes when one crashes," Mica said. Mica's daughter, D'Anne Mica, is the founder of Mica Strategic Communications, a communications and public relations company in Winter Park. Among the clients listed on her website are Consumers Alliance for Affordable Natural Gas and Citizens Alliance for Energy Security. Consumers Alliance for Affordable Natural Gas was formed in 2004 by a group of chemical companies to push for, among other things, increased natural gas exploration. The group, however, is dormant. It hasn't been mentioned in a newspaper article since 2007 and we couldn't find the group's website, if it ever had one. A representive for PR firm Dutko Worldwide, which also has done work for Consumers Alliance for Affordable Natural Gas, said the group has not been operating for a few years. "The Alliance is no longer together," said vice president Tracy Hammond. "I don't believe it's been operating for a couple of years now." We couldn't find any reference to the other group -- Citizens Alliance for Energy Security -- outside of Beaven's e-mails, D'Anne Mica's client list and her online business profile. We called Mica Strategic Communications to see if the two groups remain clients, but the phone number appears to have been changed or disconnected. We got this message: "TheOnStar subscriber you're trying to reach is unavailable." And we couldn't find a Mica Strategic Communications listed in the Florida Department of State Division of Corporations. That leads us to believe the business may be dormant as well. In a January 2010 interview with ABC News, D'Anne Mica suggested that her business was still active, but did not discuss her energy clients. D'Anne Mica was being interviewed after being arrested for driving under the influence. After her arrest, questions surfaced about some of her PR work and how it may have overlapped with her father's congressional priorities. "My father has no idea what I do in my business," she told ABC News. "And I have no idea what he does in his." In every case, the Micas have denied any connection between their relationships and their work. That brings us back to Beaven's e-mail. In trying to use the Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico as a way to play up John Mica's family ties to the oil industry, she claimed that Mica's brother is an oil lobbyist and that his daughter represents a group that promotes offshore oil and gas drilling. Mica's brother, David Mica, is currently a lobbyist and executive director of the Florida Petroleum Council. Mica's daughter, D'Anne Mica, once listed Consumers Alliance for Affordable Natural Gas as a PR client, a group that lobbied for increased natural gas drilling. The only real question is if D'Anne Mica currently represents the oil and gas group as Beaven suggests in her e-mail. On that point, there's slim evidence she does. The group hasn't been mentioned in a newspaper article since 2007, doesn't have an active website we can find and a person who worked for the alliance said they've been out of operation for a couple of years. Finding no additional supporting material, we rate Beaven's claim Half True. | null | Heather Beaven | null | null | null | 2010-05-18T15:24:52 | 2010-05-12 | ['John_Mica'] |
snes-04644 | A handful of 1970s quarters are worth a fortune, as they were minted on the back of a 1941 Canadian coin. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/1970-quarter-ebay-canada/ | null | Business | null | Dan Evon | null | 1970 U.S. Quarter Struck on 1941 Canadian Quarter | 7 June 2016 | null | ['Canada'] |
snes-04046 | The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has voted to euthanize 44,000 wild horses. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/blm-euthanize-44000-horses/ | null | Critter Country | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Bureau of Land Management Votes to Slaughter 44,000 Wild Horses? | 13 September 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04753 | Target has stopped selling the Bible. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/target-holy-bible-ban/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Target to Discontinue Sale of Holy Bible | 18 May 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14452 | On Donald Trump's track record in business | full flop | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/06/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-praised-donald-trumps-business-skill-2/ | Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president, burst onto the 2016 presidential campaign on March 3, giving a speech in which he tore into Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. "Let me put it plainly: If we Republicans choose Donald Trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished," Romney said. Part of Romney’s speech addressed Trump’s record as a businessman. But many observers were quick to point out that Romney was singing a different tune when he accepted Trump’s endorsement early in the 2012 presidential primary season. This backstory came up when Romney appeared on the March 6 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press. "Were you just sort of saying something you had to say four years ago in order to accept his endorsement?" asked host Chuck Todd. Romney responded, "Well, Donald Trump has made a lot of money for himself. And there’s no question that he’s got a lot of money in his pockets and has been successful on that score. But if you look at his record overall … you say, ‘OK, he made a lot of money for himself, he inherited a lot of money from his dad, but this is not a guy who is a self-made man, and this is a guy who’s crushed a lot of people along the way.’ " Then, Todd asked Romney, "Why’d you say so many things about his business career, when clearly you’re not impressed?" Romney responded, "You know, he’s made a lot of money for himself, and I’m gracious enough in a setting where someone has endorsed me to point out that he’s been successful and made a lot of money -- he has a lot of hotels and so forth. But you can’t also ignore the fact that he’s had a lot of failures." We took a look at Romney’s remarks now and in 2012 to see whether he’s flip-flopped on Trump’s business record. Here’s what Romney said during his March 3 speech when he criticized Trump: "But wait, you say, isn’t he a huge business success that knows what he’s talking about? No, he isn’t. His bankruptcies have crushed small businesses and the men and women who worked for them. He inherited his business, he didn’t create it. And what ever happened to Trump Airlines? How about Trump University? And then there’s Trump Magazine and Trump Vodka and Trump Steaks, and Trump Mortgage? A business genius he is not." And here’s what Romney said in 2012 at a news conference in Las Vegas with Trump at his side: "Being in Donald Trump's magnificent hotel and having his endorsement is a delight. I'm so honored and pleased to have his endorsement. ... Donald Trump has shown an extraordinary ability to understand how our economy works to create jobs for the American people. He's done it here in Nevada. He's done it across the country. ... I spent my life in the private sector. Not quite as successful as this guy. But successful nonetheless." Romney’s comments in Las Vegas are less specific than what he said in 2016 -- he never singled out specific business ventures, other than the hotel where the endorsement event was being held. Still, in 2012, Romney communicated an overall admiration for Trump’s business acumen, citing his "extraordinary ability" to understand how to create jobs "across the country." Romney even said that his own -- and not insubstantial -- business accomplishments were "not quite as successful" as Trump’s. When we contacted Romney’s camp, they urged us to review the entirety of Romney’s interviews after making his anti-Trump speech, including with NBC’s Matt Lauer, Fox Business News’ Neil Cavuto, CNN’s Gloria Borger, and Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin. Not all of these interviews addressed Romney’s views of Trump’s business skills -- in the Fox Business and Bloomberg interviews, for instance, he emphasized as a reason for his change of heart some of the things Trump has done and said during the campaign, such as his comments about Muslims and Mexicans, his criticism of former President George W. Bush and his mixed signals on condemning the Ku Klux Klan. But when Romney did address direct questions about his views on Trump’s business record, his message seemed to be that he was focusing on the positive part of Trump’s business history in 2012 and giving a more detailed, nuanced recounting in 2016. "Oh, let me tell you, this is a guy if we look at the past, this is a guy who was very successful and made a lot of money for himself," Romney said in an interview on the March 6 Fox News Sunday. "But at the same time, take a very close look and look how many small people he crushed along the way and how many failures he had." And in his interview with Lauer, Romney said, "Oh, he's a successful guy -- he's made a lot of money -- but he hasn't been uniformly successful, and he's far from a business genius. Look, Trump University, Trump steaks, Trump mortgage, Trump vitamin company. One after the other, failure after failure. So just because he's made a lot of money, one, you don't measure your life by how much money you've made, but just because he's made a lot of money doesn't mean that his economic policies are right for America." Still, we see his comments four years apart as being fundamentally different in their message. Hearing Romney’s 2012 comments, a listener would not have picked up on the notion he asserted in 2016 -- that "a business genius (Trump) is not." We rate Romney’s view on Trump’s business record a Full Flop. | null | Mitt Romney | null | null | null | 2016-03-06T18:12:22 | 2016-03-06 | ['None'] |
pose-00006 | Will create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to identify and invest in the most compelling advanced manufacturing strategies. The Fund will have a peer-review selection and award process based on the Michigan 21st Century Jobs Fund, a state-level initiative that has awarded over $125 million to Michigan businesses with the most innovative proposals to create new products and new jobs in the state. | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/6/create-an-advanced-manufacturing-fund-to-invest-in/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Create an Advanced Manufacturing Fund to invest in peer-reviewed manufacturing processes | 2010-01-07T13:26:45 | null | ['Michigan'] |
pomt-07511 | Fifty percent of our students who enter higher education need to take remedial courses because they are not prepared for college-level work. | mostly false | /texas/statements/2011/apr/09/donna-howard/state-rep-donna-howard-says-50-percent-students-wh/ | As floor debate on the Texas House’s version of the 2012-13 state budget wound down Sunday, state Rep. Donna Howard decried balancing the budget with spending cuts alone. The Austin Democrat, who voted against the bill, said lawmakers have falsely painted the state’s government as "bloated," with enough revenue to run Texas. "I have a hard time believing that when when 50 percent of our students who enter higher education need to take remedial courses because they are not prepared for college-level work," Howard said. We wondered whether half of the state’s 1.3 million students enrolled in higher ed really start off needing to catch up. To back up Howard’s statement, Eleanor D’Ambrosio, her chief of staff, passed on data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, the agency that oversees higher education in the state. But first, some background: As of fall 2003, state law requires students entering public higher education institutions in Texas to pass a Texas Success Initiative exam assessing their readiness in reading, mathematics and writing — unless they meet one of six exemption standards, including a combined verbal and math SAT score of 1,070, with a minimum of 500 on either portion of the test. Students must take and pass the exam before they’re eligible to enroll in college-level classes. Those who don’t pass one or all parts of the exam are placed in a "developmental education program designed to help the student achieve college readiness," according to a June 2010 overview of the initiative by the coordinating board. According to an e-mail to Howard’s office from Lizette Montiel, a spokeswoman with the coordinating board, in fall 2008, 48.6 percent of students entering community colleges directly after graduating from high school failed to meet Texas Success Initiative standards in at least one area. The coordinating board collects the data from public institutions of higher education, the e-mail says. According to the e-mail, that rate has dropped from 54.3 percent in 2003. D’Ambrosio also sent us a link to a October 2008 column on the coordinating board’s website by Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes. Paredes, arguing that some pre-Advanced Placement classes in Texas high schools aren’t rigorous enough, wrote that coordinating board data "show that 50 percent of entering Texas college students require remedial education." She also passed on the agency’s strategic June 18 plan for fiscal years 2011-15. Addressing challenges Texas colleges may face in bringing under-prepared students up to college standards, the report says: "Nearly half of all first-time college students are not college ready in at least one of the core academic areas of math, reading or writing." Case closed? Not quite. Board spokesman Dominic Chavez told us that in academic parlance, "college" refers solely to the state’s community colleges. Texas has more than 50 community college districts, some with multiple campuses. The board refers to four-year institutions as universities, Chavez said. Calling the June 2010 report "a poorly-worded document," Chavez said those involved with higher education would catch that distinction, but there’s "no way that someone from the general public would look at that and know that there’s a nuance there." Howard "read exactly and said exactly what’s in the report," Chavez said. The report does not specify that "college students" only refers to people enrolled in community colleges. So, nearly half of all students who enroll in community college immediately after high school aren’t college-ready in at least one academic area, Chavez said, but that statistic changes when you include four-year universities. In fall 2008, 31 percent of students who enrolled in public higher education institutions — both community colleges and four-year universities— immediately after high school weren’t ready in at one academic area. The rate is even lower for students who enrolled in four-year universities right out of high school. Only about 14 percent of those students aren’t college-ready in one or more academic area. Include freshman university students who have been out of high school for longer, and the not-ready rate rises to about 28 percent. Add community college students who have been out of high school for a few years, and that figure jumps to 38 percent. "Community colleges traditionally serve students who are less prepared," Chavez said. But "most students who are enrolled in our universities are college-ready." Do all students who fail to meet the Texas Success Initiative standards in at least on area require remedial coursework? In most cases, yes, Chavez said. When we followed up with Howard’s office, D’Ambrosio told us that Howard was "trying to convey (in her own words) a data point that had been presented to her" by the coordinating board. "Rep. Howard relies on state agencies to provide her with information and statistics on various topics," D’Ambrosio said. "Rep. Howard did not ask for clarification when she was presented with information that said nearly half of all first-time college students are not college ready in at least one of the core academic areas of math, reading or writing." Upshot: Howard based her statement on a state report that says nearly 50 percent of all incoming college students fresh out of high school are underprepared for college and require remedial attention. However, the report doesn’t explain — and Howard didn’t realize — that the statistic excludes students at four-year universities. Taking into account all students who enroll in a Texas institution of higher education, nearly 40 percent aren’t prepared for some aspect of college-level work. And if you only look at students who enter higher education directly from high school, that rate drops to 31 percent. We rate Howard’s statement as 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 | Donna Howard | null | null | null | 2011-04-09T06:00:00 | 2011-04-03 | ['None'] |
hoer-00890 | Highest Position In The World - Babu Sassi Crane Operator | unsubstantiated messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/babu-sassi-crane-operator.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Highest Position In The World - Babu Sassi Crane Operator | 19th February 2009 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12815 | Graduation rates in Buffalo’s school district, which were "around 48 percent are now up to 64 percent" since Say Yes Buffalo launched. | true | /new-york/statements/2017/feb/10/byron-brown/buffalo-schools-graduation-rates/ | Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo wants to give $10 million to Buffalo’s Say Yes to Education program as part of his proposed state budget. The money would come from a proposed $500 million second phase of the Buffalo Billion program. The Say Yes program provides college scholarships to public and charter school graduates in Buffalo. The program has helped boost graduation rates in the city’s school district, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said at a budget hearing in Albany. "Since the program has been in place in our community, high school graduation rates, which sadly were abysmally low in Buffalo hovering around 48 percent are now up to 64 percent," Brown said at the hearing. Is Brown right about the district’s graduation rates? Say Yes to Education The Say Yes program was launched in Buffalo in December 2011. Buffalo became the second city with the program, following Syracuse. The first graduates eligible for the program graduated in 2013. The program opened with $15 million in funding and has since raised $25 million from private donors. Graduation rates The city school district recorded a 46.8 percent four-year graduation rate through June of the 2011-2012 school year, according to the New York state Education Department. The rate increased to 53.4 percent in 2013, the first year graduates were eligible for the program. The graduation rate then dropped to 52.8 percent in 2014, but climbed to 58.4 percent in 2015. The district had a 61.7 percent graduation rate through June 2016, the state Education Department said Friday. The rate is 64 percent when August graduates are included. That information was not publicly available when Brown made his claim. Our ruling Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said graduation rates, once "around 48 percent are now up to 64 percent" in Buffalo’s school district since the Say Yes program began in Buffalo. Brown is right that graduation rates have improved since the program was first offered to graduates in 2013. Close to 47 percent graduated the year before the Say Yes program was first offered, and the graduation rate through August 2016 is 64 percent according to data released today. We rate his claim as True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/ad3583b7-e18a-4a1b-8d6d-9b1bf51f69a9 | null | Byron Brown | null | null | null | 2017-02-10T16:00:00 | 2017-01-30 | ['None'] |
pomt-08672 | Like me, Scott Walker opposed the 1998 transportation bill and the $9 billion of wasteful spending. | false | /wisconsin/statements/2010/sep/11/jim-sensenbrenner/jim-sensenbrenner-says-scott-walker-opposed-massiv/ | If a Mark Neumann TV ad in response to a Scott Walker TV ad is the political equivalent of tit-for-tat, what do you call a response to the response? In this case, more confusion for voters. The ad in question is a radio spot by Walker that features U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, talking about a 1998 transportation spending bill that has become a central issue in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Neumann, in Congress at the time, voted for it. Sensenbrenner opposed it -- and says Walker, then a state lawmaker, opposed it, too. "Let me set the record straight," Sensenbrenner says in the 60-second spot."I served with Mark Neumann. Mark Neumann voted for $9 billion in pork projects when he was in Congress. He voted yes for wasteful transportation spending. I voted against that bill because it was full of waste and payoffs to special interests. Like me, Scott Walker opposed the bill and the $9 billion of wasteful spending." So does the blunt-talking Sensenbrenner set the record straight? Hardly. Neumann did vote for the bill but argues Walker was way off base to link him to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi based on that vote. PolitiFact Wisconsin rated the connection False. In his counter-ad, Neumann says Walker supported the bill at the time. We rated that Barely True -- Walker publicly supported a provision of the measure relating to how some $241 million in federal money for the area could be spent, not the whole bill. We turned to the Sensenbrenner to ask for support for his statement. His longtime chief of staff, Tom Schreibel, referred us to Walker, saying they got the information from him. Jill Bader, Walker’s campaign spokeswoman, said the basis was Walker’s own recollection this week. "We had a conversation with Scott in which Scott recalled opposing the bill," Bader said. Neither Bader nor Schreibel could identify any public statements from the time indicating Walker’s opposition to the bill. In fact, the only public statements that have surfaced are the ones related to a provision in the bill authored by U.S. Rep. Tom Petri, R-Fond du Lac. That change allowed money set aside mainly for a proposed light rail system to go to freeway reconstruction projects. Walker joined five other state lawmakers representing Milwaukee County in applauding that piece of it. Any other evidence? Schreibel said it’s common in Washington for lawmakers to support an amendment to a bill, but vote against the final product: "The pig's ears might be cute, but do you want to buy the whole pig?" And Bader suggested that because Sensenbrenner was Walker’s congressman, he would have supported Sensenbrenner’s position. That’s all as much of a reach as the original move by Walker to tie Neumann to Pelosi. So far the only information on the record from the time shows Walker supported at least a portion the bill. It’s possible that more evidence will surface to back up Sensenbrenner’s claim that Walker joined him in opposing the bill. But for now we rate it False. | null | Jim Sensenbrenner | null | null | null | 2010-09-11T09:00:00 | 2010-09-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-04867 | Gov. Romney himself, with 28 other Republican governors, supported policies that would have eliminated the time limits in the welfare reform law and allowed people to stay on welfare forever. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/aug/09/jay-carney/carney-says-romney-favored-welfare-forever-legisla/ | The White House has come out swinging against false charges from Mitt Romney that President Barack Obama is dropping work requirements for people who receive public assistance. In a tough television ad, the Romney campaign claims Obama wants to dismantle welfare reform so that recipients don’t have to work or seek job training. "They just send you your welfare check," the ad says. We found the ad’s claim wrong and inflammatory, and rated it Pants On Fire. In the meantime, White House spokesman Jay Carney called the ad "categorically false" and "blatantly dishonest." Then he added this: "Now, the ad is particularly outrageous as Gov. Romney himself, with 28 other Republican governors, supported policies that would have eliminated the time limits in the welfare reform law and allowed people to stay on welfare forever," Carney said. The notion that 29 Republican governors ever favored legislation allowing lifetime memberships on welfare struck us as stunning, to say the least. This called for a fact-check. First, some background Both controversies are about Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the modern federal welfare program. TANF, as it’s called, limits how long families can receive aid, and it requires recipients to eventually go to work. It also includes stringent reporting requirements for states to show they are successfully moving people off welfare and and into the workforce. In July 2012, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services put out a memo saying that the department wanted to give states more flexibility in meeting those requirements. The memo notifies states "of the Secretary’s willingness to exercise her waiver authority ... to allow states to test alternative and innovative strategies, policies, and procedures that are designed to improve employment outcomes for needy families." The memo specified several times that any states seeking waivers must show that employment will grow under their pilot programs. But Romney’s campaign, as well as several other leading conservatives, characterized the plan as "gutting welfare reform" by opening the door to greatly relaxed standards for what qualifies as work. Carney’s response In addition to Romney’s claim being untruthful, the Obama campaign and the White House say it’s hypocritical. They point to a 2005 letter that Romney and 28 other Republican governors signed in support of legislation to extend the welfare reform law. The governors wrote that an extension was needed so they could effectively implement TANF block grants in their states, and they emphasized the positive aspects of a bill being considered in the Senate known as the PRIDE Act. Those included a stable funding stream, support for abstinence education, child care and, mostly notably "state flexibility." "The Senate bill provides states with the flexibility to manage their TANF programs effectively and serve low-income populations. Increased waiver authority, allowable work activities, availability of partial work credit and the ability to coordinate state programs are all important aspects of moving recipients from welfare to work," the letter states. That sounds an awful lot like what the Obama administration has outlined in its memo about state waivers. But Carney went a step further, claiming that Romney "supported policies that would have eliminated the time limits in the welfare reform law and allowed people to stay on welfare forever." The White House pointed us to a provision of the PRIDE Act allowing waivers of "any requirement applicable to the program." The bill listed several exclusions from what could be waived. The list does not specifically prohibit time limits from being waived. So the White House is basing its claim on Romney’s support for a law that did not explicitly prohibit the possibility of lifetime welfare benefits. But nothing in the bill eliminates those limits outright, and drawing that direct connection is a huge and unsubstantiated leap of logic. We reviewed news coverage of the bill as well as academic analyses of it, and found no discussion at all of time limits being waived. Jill Kozeny, spokeswoman for Sen. Charles Grassley, told PolitiFact the bill would not have permitted time extensions. Grassley, R-Iowa, was the bill's sponsor. Ron Haskins, a fellow with the centrist Brookings Institution who helped draft versions of the 1996 reform law as a congressional staffer, added that if a state sought any major relaxing of time limits, it would be unlikely to get approved at the federal level. "You could ask for some waiver that would say something like, you could have 50 percent of your caseload on for 10 years or more. I don’t think any secretary would grant that, but you could ask for it," Haskins said. Beyond that, Romney displayed no intention of seeking any such waiver. The same year he signed the letter, he was battling the Democratic-led legislature in Massachusetts. As governor, he sought a plan that would have roughly doubled the number of welfare recipients in Massachusetts who were required to work. His plan, according to the Boston Globe, eliminated "exemptions for pregnant women in the third trimester, mothers with children between 1 and 2 years old, and about 5,600 people who are considered disabled under state standards but not under federal ones." More importantly, Romney’s plan also imposed a five-year lifetime limit for receiving benefits. At the time, Massachusetts families could only receive benefits for two years in any five-year period. Our ruling Carney said that Romney "supported policies that would have eliminated the time limits in the welfare reform law and allowed people to stay on welfare forever." The claim stems from Romney’s support for a federal bill reauthorizing TANF, which allowed for certain waivers but did not specifically prohibit waivers of the time limit that people could stay on welfare. But the bill itself and numerous discussions of it indicate that time limits were simply not an issue. Carney’s claim takes the absence of a mention of them and turns it inside out to accuse Romney of supporting "welfare forever" policies. It’s a distortion that makes something out of nothing. We rate it False. | null | Jay Carney | null | null | null | 2012-08-09T14:59:35 | 2012-08-07 | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Mitt_Romney'] |
pomt-01658 | Under Rosemary Lehmberg, the "Travis County D.A.’s office" convened the grand jury that indicted Rick Perry. | false | /texas/statements/2014/aug/21/sarah-palin/palin-incorrect-rosemary-lehmberg-convened-grand-j/ | In an online commentary, Sarah Palin suggested a sign of Democratic corruption is the Texas district attorney whose resignation was sought by Republican Gov. Rick Perry convened the grand jury that indicted him. We can't judge Palin’s corruption opinion. But the former Alaska governor's claim about the DA’s connection to the grand jury is incorrect. Palin, in a commentary posted on the Fox News website Aug. 17, 2014, said: "This ridiculous politically motivated ‘indictment’ of" Perry "stems from the ugly thug tactics of the ‘politics of personal destruction’ that the left is known for." "First and foremost," Palin said, "today's liberals have no shame. Case in point: Travis County District Attorney Rosemary Lehmberg." Palin recapped Lehmberg’s drunken driving conviction from 2013 and noted that Lehmberg refused to resign afterward. "Lehmberg's D.A.’s office runs the state’s Public Integrity Unit, which prosecutes public crimes like government corruption," Palin wrote, and after Perry tried to get her to resign or face his veto of the unit’s state funding, Palin said, Democrat Lehmberg’s "liberal supporters filed an ethics complaint against Perry..." Subsequently, Palin wrote, the "Travis County D.A.'s Office, still under Lehmberg, convened a grand jury, and – surprise, surprise! – Perry was ‘indicted.’" It’s a fact that a liberal-leaning group, Texans for Public Justice, which monitors the influence of money in state politics and the courts, submitted a complaint to the Travis County district attorney’s office on June 14, 2013 about Perry’s actions. The complaint was submitted a day after the Austin American-Statesman revealed Perry was threatening to veto a $7.5 million, two-year appropriation to the Public Integrity Unit, housed in the district attorney’s office, unless Lehmberg resigned. Texans for Public Justice’s complaint alleged that the threat amounted to a violation of state laws prohibiting coercion of public officials. The day the complaint came in, Gregg Cox, the attorney who heads the Public Integrity Unit, told the Statesman that Lehmberg’s office would not investigate it. "It’s clear, it would not be appropriate for us to have any role in this," Cox said then. Upshot: Lehmberg subsequently recused herself from the matter, which ended up being overseen by a Republican judge from Bexar County and a San Antonio-based special prosecutor appointed by the judge, neither one picked by Lehmberg or her office. In checking Palin’s claim, we reached out to relevant judges and Lehmberg’s office, finding no sign the DA’s office played a role in convening or guiding the grand jury that indicted Perry. By telephone, Bert Richardson of San Antonio, the senior state district judge overseeing the Perry case, and Republican Billy Ray Stubblefield, the Williamson County state district judge who appointed Richardson to oversee the review, declined to comment on Palin’s claim. But an Austin-based judge who momentarily managed the complaint and the Travis County assistant district attorney who works with most grand juries each said Lehmberg’s office had no role in convening the grand jury that indicted Perry. Julie Kocurek, who presides over the 390th criminal district court in Travis County, called Palin’s statement "completely and absolutely false." And why? Kocurek said that after Lehmberg’s office received the complaint about Perry, lawyers from the office brought it to Kocurek in her capacity as presiding judge for the county’s criminal district courts. The DA’s office also brought a motion to recuse its attorneys from acting on the complaint because, Kocurek said, Lehmberg was obviously entangled. Similarly, Kocurek said, she recused herself as a judge in the matter given that she had worked for the DA’s office in the past and continued to routinely work with Lehmberg on matters of criminal justice. In accord with state law, Kocurek said, her next step was to turn the matter over to Stubblefield, the presiding judge of the 3rd Judicial District that includes Travis County. Kocurek said Stubblefield then appointed Richardson, "a very non-partisan straight-shooter judge," to handle proceedings involving the complaint. Richardson’s job, she said, was to appoint an attorney to serve as the district attorney in the matter; that appointee, Michael McCrum of San Antonio, subsequently worked with the Travis County special grand jury named in April 2014 that ultimately indicted Perry. McCrum didn’t respond to our telephone inquiry. Richardson, Kocurek said, sat in her courtroom to impanel the grand jury, which consisted of a dozen residents and two alternates drawn from a pool of 80 county residents created at random. "They didn’t know what case they’d be hearing," Kocurek said. We also drew a recap of the Perry matter from Lehmberg’s office. Gary Cobb, director of the office’s grand jury division, said by phone that when the TPJ complaint was received, the office recognized it couldn’t reasonably handle the topic. "Because of a clear conflict of interest, we didn’t do anything but receive the complaint and recuse ourselves, putting in motion the process of having a special prosecutor assigned to it," Cobb said. The office-wide recusal, Cobb said, was sought so that "later on we wouldn’t be accused of having some kind of undue influence." We asked if Lehmberg’s office played some role in choosing who would serve on the special grand jury that indicted Perry. Cobb said not, adding that Richardson or Kocurek would have notified the district clerk’s office that a pool of potential jurors, chosen randomly from adult residents of the county with a Texas driver’s license or state-issued identification card, was needed on the date (April 14, 2014) Richardson wanted to impanel the grand jury. The DA’s office "had no role" in the grand jury’s impaneling, Cobb said. "We don’t even show up." Generally, Cobb said, the office has no role in determining which residents are in the larger pool of potential jurors; that duty, he said, resides with the county’s district clerk. After the special grand jury’s initial three-month term ended, Cobb said, its term was extended another three months. "They have a right and can request an extension for an additional three months in order to complete business," Cobb said. "They did make the request and they did extend." Generally, Cobb said, "we went out of our way to make sure we didn’t do anything that even gave the appearance of having any kind of involvement in the investigation for this case against Rick Perry," though occasionally the office had to coordinate schedules so different grand juries weren’t simultaneously trying to occupy the room the county sets aside for grand juries. Our ruling Palin said that under Lehmberg, the "Travis County D.A.’s office" convened the grand jury that indicted Perry. A special grand jury consisting of Travis County citizens indicted Perry in August 2014. But Lehmberg’s office played no role in organizing the jurors. Early on, Lehmberg’s office recused itself from handling the complaint that eventually resulted in the grand jury whose secret deliberations culminated in Perry’s felony charges. A senior district judge from San Antonio, chosen by a judge based in Williamson County, impaneled the grand jury. The San Antonio judge picked a San Antonio lawyer to prosecute the case. We rate this statement False. FALSE – The statement is not accurate. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Sarah Palin | null | null | null | 2014-08-21T12:00:00 | 2014-08-17 | ['Rick_Perry'] |
pomt-09746 | Baseball and insurance are the only industries exempt from antitrust laws. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/oct/13/americans-united-change/liberal-group-says-health-care-baseball-are-only-i/ | Supporters of the Democratic health care plan have invoked baseball in their latest television ad that tries to demonize the health insurance industry. In the 30-second ad, the liberal group Americans United for Change asks, "How are professional baseball and insurance companies alike? Baseball and insurance are the only industries exempt from antitrust laws. How are they different? Insurance industry executives are scared of competition. Baseball players aren't. When baseball players fix the games, they get in trouble. When health insurance executives fix the games, they get rich. Time for competition when it comes to health insurance. We need the choice of a public health insurance plan." In this item, we'll focus on their opening claim, that "baseball and insurance are the only industries exempt from antitrust laws." Let's first explain what "antitrust" means. Antitrust laws protect against anticompetitive conduct by cartels and monopolies. Federal antitrust laws target price-fixing, predatory pricing and mergers that reduce competition. Courts have consistently ruled that the federal government has the authority to pass laws that police competition in "interstate commerce" — that is, business activity that crosses borders and ripples through the national economy. While federal antitrust laws do cover most industries, some are exempted, thanks either to the courts or Congress. The Americans United for Change ad cites what is probably the best-known exemption: baseball. Baseball's sweeping exemption stems from a 1922 U.S. Supreme Court decision. The justices, presented with an upstart league's lawsuit against the well-established National League, ruled that teams' travel across state lines was not "essential" to the business. As a result, the justices ruled, the federal government had no antitrust power over baseball, since games were essentially events held in one state. Most notably, the exemption allows Major League Baseball to prevent teams from moving without the league's consent. In more recent challenges, the high court declined to overturn baseball's exemption, saying it was up to Congress to rescind it. Despite numerous bills, lawmakers have so far declined to do so. So, the ad is correct that baseball has an antitrust exemption. Does insurance have one too? It does. Insurance — in fact, all kinds of insurance, not just health coverage — is exempt from federal antitrust laws, though these protections are more limited than they are for baseball teams. A 1945 law exempts from federal antitrust law the "business of insurance" as long as it is "regulated by state law." However, in some contexts — such as if the conduct involves an agreement to "boycott, coerce or intimidate" — federal antitrust law does apply. This is hardly an arcane issue. As Congress struggles with health care reform legislation, some lawmakers are seeking to lift health insurers' antitrust exemption. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has introduced the Health Insurance Industry Antitrust Enforcement Act, which would, among other things, "repeal the federal antitrust exemption for health insurance and medical malpractice insurance companies for flagrant antitrust violations, including price-fixing, bid rigging, and market allocations." Reps. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and John Conyers, D-Mich., have introduced an equivalent measure in the House. Both measures are pending. Even though baseball and insurance have somewhat different types of antitrust exemptions, we find they are similar enough to justify the ad's pairing of the two. But when the ad says that baseball and insurance are "the only industries exempt from antitrust laws," it's wrong. For starters, three additional industries — agricultural cooperatives, fishing cooperatives and maritime shipping — have, like baseball and insurance, what the American Bar Association calls "general" antitrust exemptions. Each of these exemptions stem from a law passed by Congress. For example, they permit co-ops, from milk producers to cranberry growers, to jointly market their products, including setting prices and output. (Congress has also exempted labor unions from antitrust law, but unions aren't an "industry," so we won't include them in our calculations.) Also, other industries benefit from more limited forms of antitrust exemptions, usually laws that protect specific practices rather than invoking a blanket exemption for business activity. Studies by the ABA and a federal commission counted almost two dozen such partial exemptions. These govern a wide range of activities, including the actions by broadcasters to curb violence in television shows, efforts by airlines to ease airport congestion, attempts by financially troubled newspapers to merge some functions with competitors, and activities by soft drink producers to draw up exclusive sales territories. The Americans United for Change ad is generally correct to equate the antitrust exemptions of baseball and health insurance, but the one for health insurance is more limited. And the ad is incorrect to say that these are the "only industries exempt from antitrust laws." Agricultural and fishing co-ops and maritime shippers have similar exemptions. And a host of other sectors, notably freight rail, have some pretty significant antitrust protections as well. We rate the ad's claim False. | null | Americans United for Change | null | null | null | 2009-10-13T15:59:31 | 2009-10-12 | ['None'] |
tron-00568 | Burger King Follows Sharia Law, Bans Bacon | truth! & misleading! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/burger-king-follows-sharia-law-bans-bacon/ | null | business | null | null | null | Burger King Follows Sharia Law, Bans Bacon | Dec 18, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
wast-00128 | The bottom line has to equal 1 percent. A 1 percent cut each year is about $13 billion, actually balances the budget in five years. | 4 pinnochios | ERROR: type should be string, got " https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/04/26/surprise-it-would-take-nine-years-for-all-of-trumps-nominations-to-be-approved/" | null | null | Rand Paul | Glenn Kessler | null | Rand Paul's claim that cutting $13 billion a year would balance the budget | April 26 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02593 | A United Airlines flight attendant slapped a 7 month-old baby in the face for crying during a flight. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/united-airlines-baby-slap/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | United Airlines Flight Attendant Slaps Crying Baby During Flight? | 17 April 2017 | null | ['United_Airlines'] |
bove-00012 | Did Amit Shah Say 100 Crore Infiltrators Have Entered India?: A FactCheck | none | https://www.boomlive.in/did-amit-shah-say-100-crore-infiltrators-have-entered-india-a-factcheck/ | null | null | null | null | null | Did Amit Shah Say 100 Crore Infiltrators Have Entered India?: A FactCheck | Sep 25 2018 8:29 pm, Last Updated: Sep 26 2018 1:37 pm | null | ['None'] |
pomt-15111 | After Texas defunded Planned Parenthood, both the unintended pregnancy and abortion rates dropped. | mostly false | /texas/statements/2015/sep/13/greg-abbott/greg-abbott-defunding-planned-parenthood-preceded-/ | In a tweet, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott suggested a legislated end to government aid to clinics affiliated with abortion providers including Planned Parenthood fueled fewer pregnancies and abortions. "After Texas defunded Planned Parenthood, both the Unintended Pregnancy & Abortion Rates Dropped," Abbott wrote on Twitter Aug. 25, 2015. Abbott’s tweet included a web link to a LifeNews.com post headlined: "When Planned Parenthood is De-Funded, Abortion and Unintended Pregnancy Rates Drop." The linked article, by Michael New, a visiting associate professor of economics at Ave Maria University in Florida, mentioned unintended pregnancies but it hinted at other indicators, stating that "in Texas, both the birth rate and the abortion rate have declined since 2011." Rewind: 2011 was the year the Republican-led Legislature voted to bar government aid covering women’s health services, including contraception and cancer screenings, from going to Texas clinics affiliated with abortion providers. That cut-off took full effect by January 2013 as the state directed funding to clinics lacking such affiliations.. So, did the legislative action, signed into law by then-Gov. Rick Perry, hasten reductions in abortions and unintended pregnancies? Abbott’s office didn’t respond to our inquiry requesting his backup. New’s article laid out no data either. But New engaged by email, in part agreeing that in keeping with the 2011 action, state aid to clinics affiliated with Planned Parenthood was cut off in 2013; litigation to stop the cutoffs, he noted, had failed in 2012. "As such, I think comparing data from 2011 to 2013 is reasonable," New wrote. So, New said, state-collected figures suggest that in 2013, there were 81.1 pregnancies per 1,000 women in Texas aged 15 to 44, a decrease from the 82.9 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in 2011. (The 2013 rate also was down from the 2012 rate of 82.1 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15-44, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.) Conversely, New said, abortions provided in Texas totaled 61,513 in 2013 compared with 69,431 in 2011; the 2013 abortion rate of 11.09 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 was down from the 2011 rate of 12.86. (The 2012 rate, the state says, was 12.0.) "As a social scientist I always am interested in more data," New said. "The more data we have, the more reliable the findings (usually). That said, the short-term data that we have from the Texas Department of State Health Services indicates that excluding Planned Parenthood clinics from the state family planning program did not cause short-term public health problems (more abortions or more unintended pregnancies) than some predicted." He also told us to keep in mind his article was an editorial (as in opinion piece). Of course, Abbott’s tweet did not speak to whether the 2011 actions caused public health problems. We sought evidence that abortion and unintended pregnancy rates were driven down thanks to the statutory restrictions. Abortions down Mindful of how New reached his figures, we turned to Carrie Williams, spokeswoman for Texas State Health Services. By email, she provided a chart tallying abortions in the state each year from 2000 through 2013. Over the 14 years, the count crested at 82,056 in 2006 and decreased for five straight years starting in 2009 when the agency noted 77,850 abortions. In 2013, according to the chart, there were 63,849 Texas abortions. Over this span, annual percentage drops ranged from less than 1 percent (2009 to 2010) to 5 percent (from 2008 to 2009) to 7 percent (from 2010 to 2011 and 2012 to 2013). And in 2014, there may have been a greater plummet; Williams said the state’s abortion count for that year isn’t final but the "provisional" count is 54,191 abortions. If that holds up, it would represent 9,658 fewer abortions than in 2013 — a 15 percent single-year decrease. Total Induced Abortions Reported in Texas by Year, 2000-2013 Year Abortions 2000 76,121 2001 77,537 2002 79,929 2003 79,166 2004 75,053 2005 77,374 2006 82,056 2007 81,079 2008 81,591 2009 77,850 2010 77,592 2011 72,470 2012 68,298 2013 63,849 Total 1,069,965 SOURCE: Texas Department of State Health Services (received by email from Carrie Williams, director of media relations, Aug. 31, 2015) For national perspective, we turned to the New York-based Guttmacher Institute, which promotes reproductive health and and abortion rights. The institute tallies abortions by surveying abortion providers — and, we noticed, its Texas counts published for 2008, 2010 and 2011 exceeded by 700 to about 3,100 what the state tallied each of those years. Guttmacher said in a March 2014 article: "For abortion counts, most but not all states conduct annual surveillance of abortions provided in the state and the number of abortions obtained by residents. However, abortions are almost always underreported to state surveillance systems." By email, Guttmacher spokesman Joerg Dreweke said the Texas abortion rate declined in 2013 and previously declined from 2008 to 2011. Dreweke said the institute isn’t aware of published evidence linking the 2013 decrease to the 2011 legislative actions. Texas pregnancies We didn’t find primary evidence for unintended pregnancies going up or down due to the 2011 legislative action. New, responding to us, noted accurately that in 2013, there were 81.1 pregnancies in Texas per 1,000 women ages 15-44, down from 82.9 pregnancies per 1,000 women of child-bearing age in 2011, the year lawmakers acted. That 2013 rate, state tallies suggest, was the lowest since at least 2004, which is as far back as we checked. On the other hand, the Texas pregnancy rate has declined every year starting in 2008, according to the state, when there were about 92 pregnancies per 1,000 women of child-bearing age compared to about 93 pregnancies per 1,000 women aged 15-54 in 2007. Through 2013, that is, the pregnancy rate had decreased six straight years. Regardless, Abbott’s tweet proclaimed a drop in "unintended" pregnancies after the defunding. But on that point, we found no timely data. By email, Williams of State Health Services told us the state’s latest estimates of unintended pregnancies cover 2011. Some 43 percent of Texas pregnancies in 2011 were unintended — with 34 percent of those "mistimed," meaning the mother said she wanted to be pregnant later, and 9 percent of them unwanted, meaning the mother said she didn’t want to be pregnant then or at any future time. These percentages appeared in the agency’s latest Texas Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System report (published in 2013) based on a survey of 1,316 women who gave birth in 2011 about their maternal attitudes and behaviors before, during and after pregnancy and conducted in partnership with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — an annual survey effort that Texas joined in 2002. The CDC, the report said, defines an unintended pregnancy as one that is mistimed (wanted later) or unwanted at the time of conception. "Unintended pregnancies occur primarily due to the lack of birth control," the report said, "or because of incorrect or inconsistent use of birth control methods." Guttmacher takes a broader look at unintended pregnancy rates by state by folding in pregnancies ended by abortion. By email, Dreweke told us its research shows unintended pregnancies decreasing by nearly 8 percent in Texas between 2002 and 2010 (before the actions touted by Abbott occurred). In 2010, according to a January 2015 institute report, there were 56 unintended Texas pregnancies per 1,000 women of child-bearing age. That rate, the report said, was down from 58 unintended pregnancies per 1,000 women of child-bearing age in Texas in 2008 and 61 per 1,000 women of child-bearing age in 2006. In 2002, the report said, there were 60 unintended pregnancies in Texas per 1,000 women of child-bearing age. Dreweke also put us in touch with Guttmacher researcher Rachel Jones, who said it might be 2020 before data are available showing changes in unintended pregnancies for 2012 or later. We asked New whether it’s reasonable to presume the unintended pregnancy rate decreased due to the cutoff of aid to clinics associated with abortion providers including Planned Parenthood. Reminding us that available figures suggest declining Texas abortion and birth rates, whether due to unintended pregnancies or not, New also said that based on available data, he couldn’t tell us if defunding Planned Parenthood caused declines in the abortion rate and the unintended pregnancy rate. "That would require more data from more years and (preferably) more states," he said. New also suggested Abbott did not say defunding Planned Parenthood caused the proclaimed declines. That’s not how we read the governor’s tweet. Our ruling Abbott said: "After Texas defunded Planned Parenthood, both the Unintended Pregnancy & Abortion Rates Dropped." Abortions were already declining before the described defunding while data directly gauging unintended pregnancy rates since the defunding don’t yet exist. So, half this claim draws on cherry-picked statistics, the other half lacks factual backup and the full statement implies causation, which is unproved. We rate this declaration Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Greg Abbott | null | null | null | 2015-09-13T12:00:00 | 2015-08-25 | ['Texas'] |
pomt-12412 | Says Texas tax legislation would "save the average homeowner in Texas $20,000 a year over the next 20 years or so." | pants on fire! | /texas/statements/2017/may/23/dan-patrick/dan-patricks-20000-tax-savings-claim-proves-incorr/ | Texas Lt. Gov . Dan Patrick made such a dramatic claim about "must-pass" tax-rate legislation--$20,000 in savings for the average homeowner every year!--we launched a fact check. Patrick, during 17 minutes of remarks to Capitol reporters May 17, 2017, named Senate Bill 2, authored by Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, as one of two measures--along with the Senate-backed proposal barring local governments and school districts from letting transgender residents use bathrooms of choice--that must pass, in Patrick’s view, for lawmakers to avoid one or more special sessions possibly called by Gov. Greg Abbott after the regular session that must end by midnight Memorial Day. Patrick, mindful the House then had yet to vote on SB 2, said the Senate-approved version of the measure "would bring about the largest property tax reform in Texas history. It would bring local government spending under control, give the voters an automatic election on government spending, of anything over 5 percent, and," Patrick said, "save the average homeowner in Texas $20,000 a year over the next 20 years or so." Patrick aide: He meant $20,000 cumulatively Is that correct? To our inquiry, Patrick spokesman Alejandro Garcia said by email that Patrick had intended to tout savings adding up to $20,000 over 20 years. He pointed out a Texas Tribune news story posted two days after Patrick spoke quoting an unnamed Patrick staffer saying the same. The Tribune story said Patrick provided its reporter with a sheet of figures suggesting $20,856 in cumulative savings to the average homeowner, a conclusion predicated on local tax-rate hikes running higher than usual. The story quoted Dick Lavine, a tax analyst for the liberal Center for Public Policy Priorities, which opposes SB 2, saying: "This calculation certainly does not portray what an ‘average’ homeowner could expect in any given year, to say nothing of experiencing these ‘savings’ every year for the next 20 years." Bettencourt offers backup We didn’t draw any backup from Patrick. But Bettencourt replied to our inquiry by offering a chart suggesting escalating savings for what he described as the owner of the median-valued Texas home based, he said, on research by the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association, which drew on data on home sales culled monthly by the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University: SOURCE: Chart projecting homeowner savings from Senate-approved version of Senate Bill 2 (received by email from Lauri Saathoff, director of communications, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt, May 17, 2017) In phone messages, Bettencourt noted that the association’s analysis suggests that over five recent years, through 2015, the owner of a median-valued home saw a nearly 34 percent escalation in property taxes paid to the local government entities targeted by SB 2, which averages out to increases of more than 6 percent a year. Those entities are cities, counties and special districts though not school districts. How the chart gets to a $22,761 cumulative savings in year 20 figure: It shows first-year savings under SB 2 for the median-value homeowner of $46, second-year property tax savings of $99 with annual savings exceeding $1,100 starting in year 12--and topping $2,100 a year starting in year 17. Each year’s savings, the chart shows, reflects the difference between what the homeowner would face in local property taxes if all government units raised taxes 8 percent minus what the homeowner would face if the local government entities all raised taxes 5 percent. Under existing law, local governments may raise effective tax rates up to 8 percent without residents being able to petition for a rollback election. The "effective rate" refers to the rate needed for the governing unit to raise the same total amount of taxes from the same local properties as the unit garnered the year before. Under the Senate’s version of SB 2, any of the affected entities could raise such taxes up to 5 percent with any additional bump automatically touching off a rollback election. Realistic tax-rate assumptions? We asked Bettencourt about the basis of the chart’s assumption that local governments will every year across-the-board raise effective tax rates 5 percent and if it’s realistic to compare that to an assumption that such governments would otherwise uniformly be driving up rates 8 percent every year. In phone messages, Bettencourt stressed the TTARA chart showing the recent average 6-percent-plus increases in property taxes charged the owner of a median-valued home. Separately, Dale Craymer of TTARA declined to comment. Bettencourt also gave us an alternate savings projection premised on all government entities affected by SB 2 annually raising effective rates 6 percent (rather than 3 percent) without a change in law. Upshot: Cumulative "savings" to the median-value homeowner would exceed $17,000 in year 20, the second chart suggests. We asked Bettencourt about available data showing local governments had widely maximized tax rates every year of late. In writing, he replied that he’d heard testimony along those lines from an Arlington and a Dallas official during pre-session hearings of the Bettencourt-chaired Texas Senate Select Committee on Property Tax Reform and Relief. Actual county, city tax rate changes Advocates for cities and counties say the senator’s assumption--that local governments will always uniformly raise effective tax rates to the maximum level allowable without risking a rollback vote at the polls--doesn’t reflect what Texas governments have been doing. By phone, Don Lee of the Texas Conference of Urban Counties, representing 38 member-counties home to most of the state’s residents, said that from 2014 through 2016, the counties averaged 2.2 percent effective tax rate increases, falling far short of the 8 percent rate that would open the way to a rollback vote. Lee emailed us a spreadsheet indicating the member counties averaged effective tax rate increases of 3.1 percent in 2014; 3.2 percent in 2015; and 0.7 percent in 2016. We also queried the Texas Municipal League, which says it represents most of the state’s cities, and whose legislative counsel, Bill Longley, emailed spreadsheets he described as based on effective city tax rates posted by the Texas state comptroller’s office for a couple of recent years. The sheets show, Longley noted, that the "vast majority of cities haven’t been increasing their tax rates above the current 8 percent rollback rate." According to the sheets, in 2014 and 2015, respectively, about 21 percent of the state’s cities adopted effective rates equal to or exceeding 8 percent. And, in keeping with SB 2’s proposed 5 percent rollback rate, how many cities lately have escalated rates that much or more? According to the sheets, 38 percent (382 of 1,002 cities) in 2014 and 39 percent (376 of 963 cities) in 2015. "In both cases," Longley wrote, "more than 60 percent of cities were under a 5 percent rollback rate, if it had been in place." Texas A&M expert For an outside perspective, we asked Jim Gaines, chief economist of the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, to appraise Bettencourt’s analysis and chart. By phone, Gaines said TTARA presented an accurate figure on its spreadsheet for a median-valued Texas home. But Gaines called "highly questionable" the assumptions behind the dollar figures in Bettencourt’s chart--both of local governments uniformly and annually driving up effective tax rates 8 percent without a change in law and of such governments under SB 2 all increasing rates 5 percent year after year. Counties, for instance, don’t act identically, Gaines said. "Each county is going to be unique," he said. Comptroller makes no homeowner savings estimate Next, we checked the fiscal note on the Senate-approved version of SB 2 that was public by the time Patrick spoke (a more recent version appeared May 19, 2017). The March 16, 2017, note, prepared by the advisory Legislative Budget Board staff, states up front that the financial effects of reducing the rollback rate can’t be estimated. However, it also says, "the table below is a hypothetical example of potential costs of the bill to counties, cities, and special districts" based in part on assuming that no voters approve rates exceeding the 5 percent rollback rate and that future "rate-setting practices would be similar to the rate-setting practices demonstrated in the available historical tax rate data." And in fiscal 2019, the first year of tax effects, cities, counties and special districts would lose nearly $199 million in revenue, the comptroller’s office estimated, an indication of some taxpayer savings, it seemed to us. The hypothetical shows additional costs to affected government entities in subsequent years. Does the hypothetical lost revenue, we wondered, mean the comptroller got a fix on how much homeowners and other property taxpayers might save? By phone, a spokeswoman for the comptroller’s office, Lauren Willis, said the agency has not estimated particular savings for homeowners. Tim Wooten, a comptroller consultant who worked on the table, told us by phone that’s because "we can’t predict what local taxing entities will do" in setting rates or if voters indeed will reject all increases at the polls. We asked Wooten to unpack how he reached the hypothesized revenue losses. Wooten said he applied the SB 2 limits to 2015 tax rates set by the targeted entities, finding that in that year, 60 percent of cities and special districts and 70 percent of counties did not set rates high enough to touch off the rollback elections envisioned in SB 2. Wooten said too that a lot of the remaining government entities would have sustained small 2015 losses in revenue if SB 2 had been law then. Bettencourt stands by $20,000-plus figure Following up, we asked Bettencourt if most local entities covered by SB 2 don’t reach existing or proposed rollback tax rates, aren’t homeowner savings impossible to precisely forecast? "Of course," Bettencourt said in writing, "because we are dealing with future projections to a 20-year degree. However, downward pressure on property tax rates means tax rate reductions across the board in probability." When we said it looked to us like his projected homeowner savings were based on unrealistic assumptions about all the affected government entities maximizing tax rates every year, Bettencourt replied: "Disagree strongly," urging us to revisit the spreadsheet he attributed to TTARA. Our ruling Patrick said legislation targeting local tax rate growth will result in the average Texas homeowner saving $20,000 a year over 20 years. That’s an absurd amount. Even if we look at what Patrick purportedly meant to say — $20,000 over 20 years — we find major flaws in the assumptions underlying that calculation. To reach that amount, one must assume that every city, county and special taxing district will raise tax rates by 8 percent every year without this legislation in place and by 5 percent a year with it. Neither assumption is in line with recent history, making the total savings figure highly suspect, at best a wild guess. Pants on Fire! PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. CORRECTION, 9:55 a.m., May 24, 2017: Thanks to a reader's nudge, we amended this story to correct our description of the second tax-rollback savings chart provided by Bettencourt. This revision did not affect our rating of the claim. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Dan Patrick | null | null | null | 2017-05-23T13:34:35 | 2017-05-17 | ['Texas'] |
snes-06094 | A Chinese coal miner was recently found alive in an abandoned mine 17 years after he had been trapped inside it by an earthquake. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/deep-underground/ | null | Uncategorized | null | David Mikkelson | null | Chinese Miner Found Alive After 17 Years Underground | 12 May 2014 | null | ['China'] |
pomt-08743 | In this country, we have a 25 percent dropout rate. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/aug/30/arne-duncan/education-secretary-arne-duncan-says-one-quarter-u/ | The Aug 29, 2010, edition of ABC's This Week with Christiane Amanpour featured a discussion of education policy chock full of education statistics. Here, we decide to look at one offered by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "In this country, we have a 25 percent dropout rate," he said. "That's 1.2 million students leaving our schools for the streets every single year. That is economically unsustainable, and that is morally unacceptable." Is it really true that one of every four American high school students drops out before graduating? While Duncan is using a commonly cited statistic, education statisticians we contacted cautioned that it's an imperfect measurement. First, a bit about the complex world of measuring dropout rates, drawing liberally from a prior article by our colleagues at PolitiFact Texas. Researchers and governments have many different ways of measuring how many students leave school before graduating. "A dropout rate seems like it should be the most intuitive thing in the world, but it’s not," said David Bills, a professor at the University of Iowa College of Education who specializes in comparative statistics. "There are almost as many ways of calculating state dropout rates as there are states." One way to calculate it is to track individual students as they progress from freshman year of high school until graduation. This provides the most accurate data, but tracking students this way requires a lot of effort, so many school districts do not do it. The main alternative is to track the decline in enrollment between freshman year and graduation. This is known as the AFGR, or averaged freshman graduation rate. It's much easier to do -- and it's the most consistent "apples to apples" statistic across the 50 states -- but it is undermined by a greater risk of error. That's because AFGR does not necessarily distinguish between students who actually dropped out and those who left for other reasons, such as moving to a school in another state, leaving to follow one's parents to a new military assignment, graduating early or graduating late. "If a kid leaves one school but is never tracked if he enrolls in another school, that can count as a dropout," Bills said. "Also, a lot of kids who leave high school but later get GEDs are often counted as dropouts. And sometimes dropout rates are calculated as the number of people aged 16-24 not in school and without a degree, which can also inflate the number." Students who leave for other reasons can be excluded, but this is not always done, and not doing it tends to inflate the apparent number of dropouts. Standardization mandated by provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act has reduced these errors over time, but the statistics are not yet perfect, our experts said. And, needless to say, analyzing different data with different methods will inevitably yield varying results. To add to the confusion, any of the measurements cited above might be termed the "dropout" rate in public discourse. At the Education Department, we spoke to Tracy Dell'Angela, director of outreach and communications with the Institute of Education Sciences, which oversees the department's National Center for Education Statistics, which among other things calculates AFGR. She said that when Duncan talks about the dropout rate, he tends to subtract the AFGR (nearly 75 percent for the last available year, 2007-2008) from a full student universe of 100 percent to get a 25 percent dropout rate. In one sense, Duncan is on solid ground -- his calculation is certainly a common way to use the statistics. But the numbers require some important caveats. In addition to the issue of transfer students cited earlier, the statistics do not necessarily treat home schoolers accurately (they may be counted as dropouts if they begin home schooling after 9th grade and eventually graduate from home school). In addition, Education Department data has sometimes left out entire states, including South Carolina in 2007-2008. Also, the AFGR statistics only refer to public school students. In fact, there is no comprehensive data on graduation and dropout rates from private schools, which account for about 8 to 9 percent of high school students. Since parents paying tuition are likely to be especially motivated to see their children finish school, the true national dropout rate reported probably overstates the actual percentage of American children failing to graduate from high school. Several of our statistical experts said that it's common for politicians everywhere to skip the warnings when decrying American dropout rates. We understand the need for simplicity in a televised interview, but Duncan could have easily said the dropout rate "may be as high as 25 percent." Since he presented the figure as a hard and fast fact, we rate his statement Half True. | null | Arne Duncan | null | null | null | 2010-08-30T18:54:53 | 2010-08-29 | ['None'] |
pomt-13565 | Says Scott Walker's "listening sessions" are "invite-only and excluding the press." | true | /wisconsin/statements/2016/aug/24/dana-wachs/general-public-and-press-not-allowed-attend-gov-sc/ | Wisconsin state Sen. Chris Larson earned a Pants on Fire when he claimed, more than halfway into 2013, that Gov. Scott Walker "hasn't done a public event" the entire year. The Republican governor had attended public meetings, presided over military ceremonies and given speeches, among many other public events. Nevertheless, Walker has been criticized for not being more accessible. And on July 15, 2016, a claim made by another Democratic lawmaker caught our attention. State Rep. Dana Wachs of Eau Claire, a lawyer and four-year lawmaker who has been mentioned as a possible 2018 gubernatorial candidate, said in a tweet: "Walker holding listening sessions: Good. Making them invite-only & excluding the press: Not so good." Is he right that the listening sessions are invitation only and exclude the media? Wachs’ evidence Wachs’ tweet included a link to a Capital Times news article that was posted the same day. The article said that, according to state records, Walker's office had asked lawmakers, lobbyists, state agency heads and local economic development agencies to help select attendees for his invite-only listening sessions throughout the state. The article said Walker had held 50 such sessions, all of which were open only to invited guests. The general public and the press were excluded. This wasn't disputed. The governor’s office issued a statement in connection with the 50th session that quoted Walker as saying: Before every listening session, we’re in contact with area state legislators, no matter what party they represent, as well as community leaders to help us reach out and invite a good cross-section of people with different experiences and opinions. We also focus on ensuring those from a particular community are the primary attendees. The statement continued: Advance notice of participation is intended to ensure that there are no threatening criminal backgrounds and to avoid people whose intent is to be disruptive. While listening sessions are closed to members of the press to encourage an honest and candid conversation between attendees, local members of the media are given the opportunity to sit down for one-on-one interviews following the listening session in the interest of transparency. A few weeks earlier, residents in Pierce County held signs outside one of Walker’s listening sessions to protest not being allowed in. But such protests have not been common. Walker had touted the tour six months earlier in his "State of the State" address. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted criticism from Democrats, including Russ Feingold, who is running against Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson for the seat he lost to Johnson in 2010. As a senator, Feingold’s listening sessions were open to the public, and that wasn't always pleasant during the emotional debates over President Barack Obama's health-care law in 2010, the Journal Sentinel noted. If the meetings aren’t open to the public, Feingold told the newspaper, "you're going to have a pre-selection process and you're not going to get the full picture." Walker spokesman Tom Evenson said the governor speaks to local media after each session. Our rating Wachs says Walker's "listening sessions" are "invite-only and excluding the press." As he travels Wisconsin to meet with residents, Walker asks various people, including Democratic lawmakers, for suggestions on who to invite to his listening sessions. But the sessions are not open to the public or to the press, only to people who are invited. We rate Wachs’ statement True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/0c49b107-14c9-4af7-87b3-1be6a83985b7 | null | Dana Wachs | null | null | null | 2016-08-24T05:00:00 | 2016-07-15 | ['None'] |
tron-03155 | A Secret Servie agent’s impressions of the Bushes versus the Clintons | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/secretservice/ | null | politics | null | null | null | A Secret Servie agent’s impressions of the Bushes versus the Clintons | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Bush_family', 'Bill_Clinton'] |
snes-05102 | Students at Bowdoin College in Maine were offered counseling because a party involved mini sombreros. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bowdoin-mini-sombrero-controversy/ | null | Viral Phenomena | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Bowdoin Mini Sombrero Controversy | 8 March 2016 | null | ['None'] |
chct-00202 | FACT CHECK: Is Sam Hyde The YouTube HQ Shooter? | verdict: false | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/02/14/fact-check-mass-shooting-sam-hyde-meme/ | null | null | null | Emily Larsen | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 7:04 PM 02/14/2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02104 | Ninety-seven percent of the time. That’s how often Mark Warner votes with President Obama. | true | /virginia/statements/2014/may/15/republican-party-virginia/virginia-gop-says-warner-voted-obama-97-percent-ti/ | U.S. Sen. Mark Warner isn’t the moderate you thought you elected, Republicans say. "97 percent of the time. That’s how often Mark Warner votes with President Obama," a recent web video by the Republican Party of Virginia said. Warner, a Democrat, is running for a second term this year. Ed Gillespie, a former chairman of the Republican National Party and adviser to President George W. Bush, is expected to win the GOP nomination at a state convention next month. A key strategy for Republican challengers in Virginia and across U.S. this fall will be to tie Democrat incumbents to President Barack Obama, whose national approval ratings have been hovering at around 44 percent. Our colleagues in other PolitiFact bureaus have already examined claims that Democratic Sens. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Mark Begich of Alaska are in lockstep with the president. We asked Garren Shipley, spokesman for the state GOP, to back up the claim on Warner’s voting record. He sent us presidential support data compiled by CQ Weekly, a nonpartisan Washington news service that was once known as Congressional Quarterly. The statistics track the percentage of times a member of Congress votes with the stated preference of the president on legislation. Warner, as it turns out, did vote with the president’s wishes 97 of the time both last year and since entering the Senate in 2009. That’s slightly higher than the average for all Democratic senators, who backed Obama when he clearly stated a position 96 percent of the time last year and 95.4 percent of the time since 2009. Here’s Warner’s annual percentage and his ranking in presidential support among all the senators who caucused with the Democrats each year: 96 percent in 2009, 30th out of 60 97 percent in 2010, 30th out of 58 99 percent in 2011, tied for 1st out of 53 96 percent in 2012, 21st out of 53 97 percent in 2013, 39th out of 55 There’s a few things that should be understood about presidential support statistics. For starters, they deal with only a fraction of the votes Warner has cast. CQ found that Obama staked out a "clear position" on only 419 of 1,473 roll call votes in the Senate -- or 28 percent -- since Warner became a member in 2009. Warner voted with the president’s position on 406 of those 419 votes. More than half of them, 226, were to confirm presidential nominations for federal posts. He voted with the president on a number of high profile issues: The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare Extending the Patriot Act, allowing increased surveillance of people suspected of terrorist activities A farm bill expanding crop insurance and trimming the food stamp program Extending a period offering lower rates for student loans Increasing debt limits On key issues, Warner has opposed the president by voting: Against regulating assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition feeding devices Against delaying the start of sequestration in 2013 that started a series of automatic spending cuts To overturn Environmental Protection Agency regulations to cut mercury and other emissions from coal-fired electric generation facilities Warner campaigned for the Senate in 2008 as a "radical centrist" who would seek bipartisan compromise. David Turner, Warner’s campaign spokesman this year, was dismissive of the state GOP’s effort to define Warner by his presidential support votes. "Solely tallying an arbitrary number of procedural votes does not accurately depict the sum total of a U.S. Senator’s work," he said. Turner sent us links to other vote studies and news articles that praise Warner for his bipartisan work. For example, National Journal rated Warner the 46th most liberal member of the 100-seat U.S. Senate in 2013, based on an analysis of 117 roll call votes on key economic, foreign and social issues last year. And Open Congress, found that Warner voted with the majority of his party on 90 percent of all Senate bills last year, ranking him 42nd among the 51 Democratic senators. Some of the articles Turner sent concerned Warner’s persistent but unsuccessful efforts to build bipartisan consensus for a debt reduction plan that would cut spending and raise taxes. Turner also noted that some of Warner’s legislative efforts in opposition to Obama’s policies have not advanced to a vote on the Senate floor and, therefore, were not counted in CQ’s presidential support ratings. Warner, for example: Co-sponsored legislation in 2012 to open offshore oil and gas drilling off the coast of Virginia. Co-sponsored a bill this year to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Backed a proposal last year to impose tougher sanctions on Iran in December if its nuclear program negotiations with the White House broke down. We asked two political scientists for their thoughts on presidential support ratings: Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia and Stephen Farnsworth of the University of Mary Washington. They both said the high level of support by Democrats and the low level by Republicans -- who have backed Obama only 46 percent of the time since 2009 -- speaks to the partisanship in the Senate. Both professors said that the rating, which tracks a relatively small number of overall votes, paints an unsophisticated picture of any congressman’s total record, including Warner’s. "Warner’s Obamacare vote was critical," Sabato said. "But using the 97 percent number really doesn’t tell you much more than he’s a Democrat." Farnsworth noted that Obama did not take a position on the vast majority of bills that have come before the Senate. "To imagine that Warner votes like a politburo member for the president would be misleading," he said. Our ruling The Republican Party of Virginia says Warner has voted with Obama "97 percent of the time." Warner, since entering the Senate in 2009, indeed has taken the same position as the president 97 percent of the time when Obama outlined a clear position, according to Congressional Quarterly. That includes voting for Obamacare. The presidential support rating is by no means a wide measure of performance by Warner or any other member of Congress. The president staked out a position on only 28 percent of the Senate roll call votes since 2009 and more than half of those were to confirm presidential appointments. Senate Democrats, on the whole, have backed the president 95.4 percent of the time during Warner’s term. It should be noted that broad voting studies by the National Journal and Open Congress rate Warner as one of the most conservative Democrats in the Senate. Warner’s presidential support rating, however, is what it is: 97 percent. So we rate the GOP’s statement True. | null | Republican Party of Virginia | null | null | null | 2014-05-15T15:34:18 | 2014-04-25 | ['Barack_Obama', 'Mark_Warner'] |
tron-02825 | Barack Obama and William Ayers | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/obama-ayers/ | null | obama | null | null | null | Barack Obama and William Ayers | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Barack_Obama'] |
goop-01451 | Jennifer Lawrence Jealous Of Margot Robbie? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-lawrence-margot-robbie-jealous-feud/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Jennifer Lawrence Jealous Of Margot Robbie? | 10:58 am, March 5, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05139 | Since the beginning of the economic downturn in FY 2008, the state workforce has been reduced by 12.4 percent as part of overall cost savings measures to balance the budget to reduce revenues. | mostly false | /georgia/statements/2012/jun/22/nathan-deal/cuts-state-workforce-not-steep-deal-said/ | Georgia begins a new budget year July 1 with a smaller state workforce -- but how much smaller? In a May 7 news release acknowledging Gov. Nathan Deal’s signing of the new budget, Deal’s office said the state had trimmed its workforce by 12.4 percent since the recession began in the 2008 fiscal year. We thought a claim that the state has shed one out of every eight of its employees deserves a second look. The boast of job cuts was a throw-in line in a news release in which Deal talked about using his line-item veto power to "eliminate wasteful or inefficient spending," but the statement made its way into news accounts across the state, including an Associated Press story. Deal spokesman Brian Robinson said the numbers originated from the State Personnel Administration, a department that essentially serves as the human resources department for much of state government. The department has kept a running tally of state workers since 1998. Robinson forwarded a spreadsheet showing the ebbs and flows of state offices from accounting to workers’ compensation. Fiscal 2008 -- which ended June 30, 2009 -- was the peak year with 82,080 workers drawing a state paycheck. Since then, the overall number has declined each year. Among the offices taking the most losses: -- The Governor’s Office of Consumer Protection, which went from 96 employees in 2008 to 47 by the end of fiscal 2011, a cut of 51 percent. -- The Student Finance Commission, which dropped from 41 employees in 2008 to 29 in 2011 a loss of 29.3 percent. -- The Insurance Commissioner’s Office, which fell from 251 employees to 190, a decline of 24.3 percent. Deal just took office in 2011, so he cannot claim all the credit for shrinking state government. But the trend has continued under his leadership. Not every area of state government shrank, though. The state Defense Department, the State Road and Tollway Authority and the Technical College System all added workers. Most departments showed a loss of some sort, but is the 12.4 percent brag accurate? Robinson said the news release compared the 2008 figure with the "most recent workforce number available," which he said was a December 2011 figure of 71,881. That’s a difference of 10,199 employees from the end of fiscal 2008 -- a 12.4 percent decrease. Right on the button. (For sticklers, these measurements are of actual full-time workers, not positions that may or may not be filled, so it is a more accurate measure of the size of the government’s workforce.) But there was something missing. The spreadsheet lists 76 different offices and departments, but the University System of Georgia was not among them. Why? Robinson said the Office of Planning and Budget provided the information and the OPB considers University System employees different from other state workers for a couple of reasons. The first is where they get their money. A statement from the OPB forwarded by Robinson said the University System can offset budget cuts with higher tuition and avoid cuts where other offices don’t have that option. That’s true to a point. Other areas of government can offset state budget cuts by increasing revenue elsewhere, such as Georgia Public Broadcasting with fundraising. The other reason the University System was left off was a matter of interpretation. According to the statement, the OPB believes "there is a distinct difference" between education and the rest of state government. Without arguing that distinction, the figures Robinson initially provided include the Department of Education, the Department of Early Care and Learning, and the Technical College System. So some educational figures were included in the overall state count. Perhaps the most persuasive reason Deal’s news release didn’t include the university employment numbers is because they weren’t available. That data is kept by the Board of Regents and is not integrated into the state’s human resource database. Robinson said the governor’s office asked for employment figures and worked with what it had. "According to OPB, what we used accurately reflects how the state has historically discussed state job numbers," he said. Are university employees "state workers"? A reasonable person might conclude they are, so we asked for those numbers. What we found was significantly higher employment among the state’s colleges and universities. In fiscal 2008, the University System had 40,155 employees. Today, 45,592 are on the payroll. That’s a 13.5 percent increase. Add those figures to the rest of state employment and you get 122,235 workers in 2008 and 117,473 today -- a 3.9 percent decrease. The statement in Deal’s news release about the shrinking of state government overreaches significantly. It does not include University System employees, a striking omission. Include those employee and you still see a decrease. But it’s a much smaller one than the governor claimed. We rate Deal’s statement Mostly False. | null | Nathan Deal | null | null | null | 2012-06-22T06:00:00 | 2012-05-07 | ['None'] |
fani-00014 | CLAIM: “…a third of young people from Northern Ireland who go to university travel outside Northern Ireland, mainly to the North West of England and Scotland, and only a third of those who graduate return back home.” | conclusion: accurate | https://factcheckni.org/facts/do-a-third-of-graduates-return-to-northern-ireland/ | null | education | null | null | null | Do a third of graduates return to Northern Ireland? | null | null | ['Northern_Ireland', 'Scotland', 'North_West_England'] |
goop-00025 | Elle Fanning’s Loved Ones Worried About Max Minghella Romance? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/elle-fannings-max-minghella-romance-dating/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Elle Fanning’s Loved Ones Worried About Max Minghella Romance? | 11:40 am, November 8, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-03044 | Hillary Clinton Called Democratic Voters Stupid | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/hillary-clinton-called-democratic-voters-stupid/ | null | politics | null | null | null | Hillary Clinton Called Democratic Voters Stupid | Jul 26, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13844 | Says Hillary Clinton has been given tens of millions of dollars by countries that "treat women horribly ... and countries that kill gays." | half-true | /arizona/statements/2016/jul/11/donald-trump/did-hillary-clinton-take-money-countries-treat-wom/ | Donald Trump continues to attack Hillary Clinton on everything from campaign spending to ISIS. At a rally in Phoenix, he accused her of taking money from countries that have a poor rapport with women and gay people. "She's been given tens of millions of dollars by countries that treat women horribly," Trump said June 18. "And countries that kill gays, they kill gays, they push them off of buildings." Trump, whose campaign did not return a request for comment, seems to be referencing donations given to the Clinton Foundation. Trump has referenced her foundation ties in the past, saying she needs to "return the $25 million" Saudi Arabia gave the foundation. The William J. Clinton Foundation was incorporated in 1997. The foundation agreed to disclose its donors when Hillary Clinton became secretary of state in 2009. We wondered whether the Clintons’ donor list holds up to Trump’s claim. But first, it is important to note that political candidates cannot take money from foreign entities. "The prohibition in the Federal Election Campaign Act is against candidates or political committees soliciting, accepting or receiving contributions from foreign nationals, not only governments," said Michael Malbin, a political science professor at the University at Albany. Hillary Clinton spokesman Josh Schwerin also noted that the former first lady played no role in the foundation while she was secretary of state. "Further, she did not blink before standing up to countries that oppressed their people and denied them of their rights, from LGBT rights to women's rights," Schwerin said. Nonetheless. looking at the Clinton Foundation’s donor list, Saudi Arabia gave between $10 million and $25 million. But the foundation reported the Saudi money in December 2008, and the amount hasn’t changed since. Clinton Foundation spokesman Brian Cookstra pointed out that Saudi Arabia did not give to the foundation while Secretary Clinton was at the State Department. The foundation has also taken between $1 million and $5 million each from United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Oman. As The Wall Street Journal reported, several of these donations came in 2014, after Clinton's tenure at the State Department. We've fact-checked a similar claim before when Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said in April 2015 that Clinton took money from the kings of "Saudi Arabia, Morocco and Oman and Yemen." Every country except Yemen has contributed to the Clinton Foundation, but Preibus' claim made it seem like Clinton herself took the money. We rated it Half True. Women’s rights Human Rights Watch tracks how women are treated in each of these countries. In Saudi Arabia, a woman needs "male guardian" approval on everything from obtaining a passport to seeking higher education. They also have no divorce rights. The same male approval is needed for marriage in United Arab Emirates, plus laws there also allow a husband to assault his wife and children. In Qatar, marital rape is permitted. Women need a male guardian to approve a marriage contract, and one law specifies that a wife must obey her husband. And in Oman, Human Rights Watch notes that while there is a nondiscrimination law, women still face discrimination when it comes to domestic issues such as child custody and divorce. Gay rights According to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association, all sex outside of marriage, including same-sex intercourse, in Saudi Arabia is punishable by death. For a married man, the penalty is death by stoning. An unmarried man faces 100 blows of a whip. In Qatar, any sexual act outside of marriage is punishable by death. The United Arab Emirates also bans sex outside of marriage, and the death penalty could apply to consensual "same-sex relations." As for Oman, the country punishes same-sex acts by up to three years in prison. As for Trump's claim that these countries are throwing gay people "off of buildings," he may be referring to the Islamic State. There is evidence that ISIS has engaged in these acts, but in Syria. Executions in Saudi Arabia specifically have increased recently, but specific convictions, and whether are they related to homosexuality, are hard to measure. Not Clinton directly Experts we spoke with questioned whether the donations to the foundation are directly attributable to Hillary Clinton. Indiana University public affairs professor emeritus Leslie Lenkowsky said Trump’s claim is hyperbolic. "These were not donations to Secretary Clinton as such, but to an organization with which she was closely involved (when not in office or seeking it), including serving as a director," Lenkowsky said. According to Brian Mittendorf, an accounting professor at Ohio State University, nonprofits often have to consider donors’ actions when they give money. The stakes are usually higher when the nonprofit involves a political figure. "These are gifts not to Clinton herself but to the foundation that shares her name," he said. The United States remains allies with some of these countries, such as Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Qatar, despite their poor record with human rights. Our ruling Trump said that Hillary Clinton has "been given tens of millions of dollars by countries that treat women horribly...and countries that kill gays." Trump's comment oversimplifies donations to the Clinton Foundation to make a quick attack against his Democratic rival. He makes it sound as if Clinton personally received money from foreign governments with poor records on human rights. But political candidates cannot accept donations from foreign governments. However, several countries with harsh rules for women and that kill gays have contributed to the Clinton Foundation both before and after her tenure at the State Department. We rate Trump’s claim Half True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-07-11T18:00:00 | 2016-06-18 | ['None'] |
snes-06380 | The word 'fuck' derives from an acronymic phrase, either 'For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge' or 'Fornication Under Consent of the King.' | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/what-the-fuck/ | null | Language | null | David Mikkelson | null | Etymology of the the ‘F-Word’ | 13 July 1999 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05353 | Powerball winners John and Lisa are giving away money on Facebook. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/john-and-lisa-hoax/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | John and Lisa Robinson Powerball Giveaway Hoax | 16 January 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00538 | For most black people in the history of this country … it was illegal to pass as a white person. You were actually put in jail if you tried to pass. | half-true | /punditfact/statements/2015/jun/18/michael-skolnik/amid-rachel-dolezal-controvery-pundit-claims-black/ | White or black? By now, most of you have probably heard about the controversy surrounding former NAACP leader Rachel Dolezal, who self-identifies as black but has white parents. Dolezal’s "passing" for black unleashed criticism that Dolezal used her racial identity as it suited her, a tool for progressing her own goals. One CNN article reported that some people felt that Dolezal had "diminished the real struggles of African-Americans by claiming she had suffered hurtful racism like them." Count Michael Skolnik, Russell Simmons’ political director and the president of GlobalGrind.com, among that group. Dolezal "took the space of a black woman, who could have been a leader of (the NAACP). ... Black people in this country don’t have that convenience," Skolnik said in a June 16 interview with CNN's Brooke Baldwin. "In fact, for most black people in the history of this country who passed, it was illegal to pass as a white person. You were actually put in jail if you tried to pass. For black people, passing was about survival, it wasn’t about acceptance." Leaving aside the question of Dolezal’s actions, PunditFact was struck by Skolnik’s statement that "it was illegal to pass as a white person (and) you were actually put in jail if you tried to pass." Was it illegal to pass as a white person? And was jail the consequence? The short answer is that experts say there were never laws explicity saying African-Americans could not pass a white person. But if discovered, those people passing as white would be subject to laws on the books for African-Americans, many of which could include jail time. Passing as white First, we have to address the question of what it meant to be black in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. In his book Who is Black? One Nation’s Definition, author F. James Davis stated that "the nation's answer to the question 'Who is black?" has long been that a black is any person with any known African black ancestry … In the South it became known as the ‘one-drop rule,’ meaning that a single drop of ‘black blood’ makes a person a black." Using this rule, a person who identified as white could be accused of being black if any information or documents surfaced claiming that he or she had a black ancestor. Virginia's Bureau of Vital Statistics registrar Walter Plecker, for instance, became infamous in Virginia during the 20th century for using birth and death certificates, data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Confederate War Department, as well as other sources to determine who had any "colored" blood. Because of this, fair-skinned individuals who could pass for white would be legally identified as black. Skolnik told us he was referring specifically to slave times. "If a slave tried to pass for white and was caught, they were oftentimes jailed and sent back to their slave masters," Skolnik said. That’s true, though not because they passed as white, but because they were declared someone else's property. Under the Fugitive Slave Acts in place until the Civil War, citizens and local governments were under the obligation to capture and return slaves to their owners. Failure to do so would result in penalties. Jail and other consequences After the Civil War came the rise of black codes and Jim Crow laws. While these laws were designed to create different sets of rules for blacks and whites on everything from marriage to education to the use of public facilities, they didn't target blacks specifically for passing as white. Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham is a Harvard University professor of history and African American studies. "I don’t believe that passing itself, although it remained the focus of numerous court cases, ended generally in imprisonment unless attached to another illegal practice, such as interracial marriage, theft, etc.," Higginbotham said. "The consequences of being exposed were usually being put out of a school, losing one’s job, sued for divorce, denied access to public accommodations, and disgraced in one’s former social circles." Martha S. Jones, associate chair of the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, agreed. "The consequences for attempting to ‘pass’ were that one might be denied a license to marry, or … one might be denied entry into the United States or naturalization as a citizen if discovered to be passing," Jones said. In Florida, for example, it was illegal for a black man or woman to cohabitate with a white man or woman, and the punishment included up to one year in prison. But the crime wasn't passing as white. Elizabeth Smith-Pryor, a history professor at Kent State University, explained one such case for us. Under Alabama law, people could be imprisoned if found to be married to someone of the other race. In 1935, in the case of Keith vs. Commonwealth, Keith was accused of having a black ancestor -- and therefore being black -- making his marriage to a white woman illegal. The court ultimately ruled there was not enough evidence to convict. Our ruling Skolnik said that "for most black people in the history of this country who passed, it was illegal to pass as a white person. You were actually put in jail if you tried to pass." Skolnik said he was referring to the Fugitive Slave Acts, which could result in prison time for runaway slaves until they were returned to their owner. But those acts had nothing to do with passing as white, as slaves were considered property. Post-Civil War Jim Crow laws did not include passing as white as a crime that could send someone to jail. However, blacks exposed as passing as white would be treated like other blacks under the law. And that, depending on the crime, could result in imprisonment. Skolnik’s statement is partially accurate. We rate it Half True. | null | Michael Skolnik | null | null | null | 2015-06-18T17:40:30 | 2015-06-16 | ['None'] |
chct-00325 | FACT CHECK: Do Illegal Immigrants Have No Rights Under The Constitution? | verdict: false | http://checkyourfact.com/2017/09/15/fact-check-do-illegal-immigrants-have-no-rights-under-the-constitution/ | null | null | null | Peter Hasson | Reporter | null | null | 11:39 AM 09/15/2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00243 | Photo Shows Weasel Riding on Woodpecker | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/photo-shows-weasel-riding-on-woodpecker/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | Photo Shows Weasel Riding on Woodpecker – Truth! | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
faly-00037 | Claim: Right to free education for children with disabilities (6-18yrs) and reservation of 4% seats for students in higher education institutions. | partly true | https://factly.in/rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-act/ | Fact: Right to free education is provided for children in the 6-18 age group & reservation of not less than 5% is provided in higher educational institutions for those with benchmark disabilities, but not to everyone with a disability. Hence, the claim is PARTLY TRUE. Again, it has to be noted that both these provisions were also part of the original bill introduced by the UPA in 2014. | null | null | null | null | Fact Checking Government Claims on the ‘Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act’ | null | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05520 | Says New Jersey Devils managing partner Jeff Vanderbeek "took us into arbitration." | false | /new-jersey/statements/2012/apr/12/cory-booker/cory-booker-claims-jeff-vanderbeek-took-us-arbitra/ | A day after a panel of arbitrators ruled that Newark owed money to the New Jersey Devils, Mayor Cory Booker stood outside the Prudential Center and lambasted Jeff Vanderbeek, the team’s managing partner. But the mayor should remember it was city officials who initiated that arbitration process. Yet Booker claimed twice during his April 4 news conference that Vanderbeek "took us into arbitration." "He’s dragged my team through courts for five and a half years, millions and millions of dollars of legal fees he has swept up from the city pressing frivolous claims," Booker said. "How do I know they’re frivolous claims? Think about how much of a pathetic penny pincher he’s been. "He took us into arbitration, not just for that one letter that I mentioned. He took us into arbitration because he said, ‘Oh, you didn’t get the streets straightened in time.’ He was responsible for the construction of this arena, but he said, ‘Oh, it wasn’t done on time,’" the mayor continued. "Every legal manipulation and exploitation he could pursue to get another dime and dollar out of our city, he’s gone after." After reviewing the arbitrators’ decision and an application filed on the city’s behalf, PolitiFact New Jersey determined that Booker is wrong. The arbitrators’ decision resulted from an arbitration request filed in 2010 by the Newark Housing Authority, which owns the arena. In a series of e-mails, Booker spokeswoman Anne Torres acknowledged that the authority initiated the process, but claimed that the Devils left city officials with no choice. "The Newark Housing Authority would never have demanded an arbitration if the Devils had paid their rent, however, because of their recalcitrance and failure to follow through on their commitments, the Newark Housing Authority and the city were forced into arbitration," Torres wrote. "It should be noted that these were the facts behind the Mayor’s statement." Torres later added, "The Mayor knows that the Housing Authority initiated the arbitration, that’s no secret. What I am saying is that when he says ‘they took us into arbitration’, he’s saying this because they left us with no choice." Let’s explain the timeline of events leading up to arbitration. The Devils and the authority approved a lease agreement in February 2005 for the Prudential Center, which later opened in October 2007. But the two sides became divided over a host of issues, including unpaid rent and parking revenues. Following years of negotiations, the authority sent a "notice of dispute" to the hockey team, starting the process toward arbitration, according to a May 2010 Star-Ledger article. The lease agreement provides for arbitration as a method of resolving disputes. In June 2010, the authority filed a "demand for arbitration" with the American Arbitration Association, according to the arbitrators’ decision and the application filed at the time. The arbitrators’ decision released last week addresses the unpaid rent, parking revenues and other issues, but ultimately leaves Newark owing about $600,000 to the Devils. Our ruling At an April 4 news conference outside the Prudential Center, Booker claimed twice that Vanderbeek "took us into arbitration." But as a spokeswoman for the mayor acknowledged, the Newark Housing Authority initiated the arbitration process. We rate the statement False. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. | null | Cory Booker | null | null | null | 2012-04-12T07:30:00 | 2012-04-04 | ['None'] |
pomt-14210 | Wisconsin pays criminal defense lawyers who represent the indigent $40 per hour, "the lowest in the country." | mostly true | /wisconsin/statements/2016/apr/20/jerome-buting/making-murderer-lawyer-wisconsin-pays-lowest-rate-/ | The Netflix series Making A Murderer made rock stars of Wisconsin criminal defense attorneys Dean Strang and Jerome Buting, even though Steven Avery, their client and the central figure of the series, was found guilty of murder. The two are doing a speaking tour in North America, to be followed by one in Australia. Strang is getting a TV series. Buting is in demand, too -- and taking a whack at criminal justice in Wisconsin while he’s at it. While in Belfast to address a European bar association conference, Buting told the Irish Legal News in an April 11, 2016 article that Wisconsin is last in America when it comes to paying lawyers who represent poor defendants in criminal cases. "We have a staffed indigent defense program statewide, but only about 60 percent of cases are handled by those salaried lawyers," Buting said, referring to Wisconsin public defenders, who are state employees. "The remainder (of the cases) get appointed out to private attorneys on an hourly basis. The hourly basis is $40 an hour. It is now the lowest in the country, worse than the Deep South of America, which has historically been the least generous when it comes to this sort of thing." He added: "It’s easy for politicians to demagogue and say ‘we’re going to cut this and cut that,' but what’s happened in Wisconsin should be a warning to Northern Ireland and other countries. I do think that not only lawyers but the public has to stand up to these attempts to try to cut the quality of defense for people accused of crimes." Leaving aside the question of whether pay affects quality, we found that Buting’s claim is mostly on target. The only caveat is that a complete comparison isn’t possible, given that 20 states don’t use set hourly rates like Wisconsin does. How the system works In Wisconsin, the first line of defense for people who are charged with a crime and can’t afford an attorney is a public defender. But because of heavy caseloads, and for other reasons, public defender offices throughout the state assign some of their cases to private attorneys who have agreed to take such appointments. As Buting said, Wisconsin pays those private attorneys $40 an hour. That amount has not changed since 1995. The $40 is for "for time spent related to a case," in court or out of court, excluding travel. For travel time, the rate is $25 per hour, if the travel meets certain distance requirements. Other states To back his claim about where Wisconsin ranks, Buting cited a 2013 report from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The report said 30 states, including Wisconsin, Iowa and Indiana, had established a statewide pay rate for private attorneys who handle criminal cases, with the average being about $65 per hour. Among those 30 states, the report said, "Wisconsin has the lowest rate in the nation at $40 an hour." So, Buting is essentially on track. The report also noted, however, that 20 states don’t set hourly rates. In those states, the pay for the private attorneys is generally either set by a judge on a case-by-case basis, or through a contract between the state and the attorney. But even within some states, there are variations. In Illinois, Cook County (which includes Chicago) pays $40 per hour for in-court and $30 for out-of-court work, while all other counties establish their own rates. In other words, the report doesn’t provide an hourly breakdown for all 50 states. Randy Kraft, spokesman for the State Public Defender in Wisconsin, told us his office in fall 2015 essentially updated the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers report by checking the laws in all 50 states and found no other state hourly rate had slipped below Wisconsin’s. Our rating Buting says Wisconsin pays criminal defense lawyers who represent the indigent $40 per hour, "the lowest in the country." According to the latest available data, Wisconsin’s rate was lowest among the 30 states that set hourly rates. But it’s worth noting that the effective hourly rates for the other states couldn’t be determined, because they use different systems. For a statement that is accurate but needs additional information, our rating is Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/a48d5842-ce9e-4179-a42d-4b356c874507 | null | Jerome Buting | null | null | null | 2016-04-20T05:00:00 | 2016-04-11 | ['None'] |
pomt-04377 | Says Connie Mack voted to redefine "rape" as "forcible rape." | half-true | /florida/statements/2012/oct/19/bill-nelson/nelson-ties-mack-forcible-rape-measure/ | The allegiance of female voters was in play during Wednesday’s U.S. Senate debate. Sen. Bill Nelson attacked U.S. Rep. Connie Mack IV, R-Fort Myers, for his views on violence against women. "Mack voted to redefine rape as forcible rape," Nelson said. "So I think it's pretty clear where he is standing on women's issues." Mack shot back: "What he just said is not true, and we cannot let it stand. Senator, you need to do a better job of explaining your own record, because you're really messing up my record." We are checking whether Nelson got it right. Did Mack vote to define rape as forcible rape? Federal funding for abortion Nelson based his claim on the role Mack played in co-sponsoring a House bill that aimed to block any possible way that federal dollars might underwrite the cost of an abortion. For many years, lawmakers have barred the use of money for abortion through the Medicaid program and at military hospitals and in other programs. There are long-standing exceptions, though, for rape, incest or the life of the mother. This bill Mack co-sponsored, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, sought to restrict abortion even further. It said medical bills related to an abortion would not qualify as a health expense when people file their income taxes. It blocked any federal subsidy for insurance policies that include abortion services. The bill’s most controversial clause, though, focused on rape. It added an important qualification to the traditional exception: The new language said federal funds could only be used in cases of "forcible rape." The bill never defined the term "forcible," and it drew a wave of criticism. Women’s organizations accused the bill’s sponsors of trying to redefine rape. They said rape by its very nature is an act of force. They questioned whether the new term would exclude cases when the victim is unconscious due to alcohol or drugs, or cases of statutory rape. (Statutory rape includes consensual sexual relations when an individual is not old enough to legally consent.) The controversy led Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee to drop the word "forcible." The bill then passed in the House but was never taken up by the Senate. So the main purpose of the legislation was not redefining rape, but limiting the use of federal funds to pay for abortion. Vote vs. co-sponsoring The version of the bill that Mack voted on did not have the clause on forcible rape. When Nelson claimed that Mack had voted for that measure, he was wrong. "The senator misspoke," said Dan McLaughlin, Nelson’s communications director. "He knew that Mack was a co-sponsor, but it came out wrong." Indeed, Mack co-sponsored the bill on January 24, 2011, four days after it was introduced. Mack put his name behind the bill long before the forcible rape language was removed. Still, the forcible rape language has become an issue in this year’s campaign. Paul Ryan, the vice presidential nominee who also was a co-sponsor of the bill, answered questions from Fox News about the matter on Aug. 27, 2012. "Well, look, all these bills were bills to stop taxpayer financing of abortion," Ryan said. "Most Americans agree with us, including pro-choice Americans that we shouldn't use hard-working taxpayer dollars to finance abortion. Rape is rape period. "This is language, stock language used for lots of different bills, bills I didn't author. And that language was removed to be very clear, and I agree with that, removing that language, so we are very clear. Rape is rape. Period. End of story." So that’s how Ryan felt about the matter, but what about Mack? We asked the Mack campaign several times how he felt about the "forcible rape" language but did not receive a response. So we don’t know whether Mack supported removing the wording or not. (Editor's note: After we published this report, we received a comment from the Mack campaign. We have included it below our ruling.) Our ruling Nelson said that Mack voted to redefine rape as forcible rape. The bill in question was intended to limit federal funding for abortion. As part of that, the bill did originally aim to limit that funding from "rape" to cases of "forcible rape." Redefining rape, though, was not its primary purpose. And, this part of the bill was so controversial it was struck from the bill before it came to a vote. So Nelson was wrong to say Mack voted on the language. Still, Mack was an early co-sponsor when the bill did include language on forcible rape. We asked the Mack campaign multiple times if Mack supported or opposed the removal of that language. We did not receive a response. So we don’t know if Mack supported or opposed removal of the language that was in the bill when he co-sponsored it. We rate the statement Half True. Editor's note: After we published this report, the Mack campaign provided us with this response: "Congressman Mack strongly supported the removal of the term 'forcible' rape from the bill before it came up for consideration. Congressman Mack was one of 227 house co-sponsors on the bill which had the primary intent of providing greater protections against the use of federal taxpayer dollars to pay for abortions." | null | Bill Nelson | null | null | null | 2012-10-19T16:48:39 | 2012-10-17 | ['None'] |
obry-00056 | On her campaign website, Republican candidate for Wisconsin’s 68th assembly district Kathy Bernier, a three-term assemblywoman, claims she “voted for the first balanced budget Wisconsin has seen in decades.” She furthers her statement by claiming that “these hard choices helped eliminate the state’s $3.6 billion deficit.” Bernier, who has served in the state assembly since 2010, is referring to her vote in 2011 in favor of Wisconsin Act 10, or the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill, that Gov. Scott Walker introduced. The bill, arguably the most controversial of Gov. Walker’s tenure, addressed a projected $3.6 billion budget deficit. Cuts were felt across the the board for public sector employees, affecting collective bargaining rights and a wide range of benefits. Gov. Walker’s Act 10, however substantial, cannot, as Bernier claims, be considered to have led to the first balanced budget in decades. | mostly_false | https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2016/10/27/bernier-capitalizes-on-definition-of-deficit/ | null | null | null | Riley Vetterkind | null | Bernier capitalizes on definition of deficit | November 11, 2016 | null | ['Wisconsin', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Scott_Walker_(politician)'] |
pomt-13877 | Google search spike suggests many people don’t know why they voted for Brexit. | mostly false | /punditfact/statements/2016/jul/01/daily-mail/what-google-trends-tell-us-and-doesnt-about-brexit/ | One of the punch lines in the Brexit vote fallout has been that people in the United Kingdom didn’t even know they were voting to leave the European Union. The evidence came from Google. News stories and Facebook posts pointed out that searches in the UK on basic questions like "what is the EU?" and "what does it mean to leave the EU?" spiked after the Brexit vote. Daily Mail, a daily British tabloid, posted an article with the headline: "Google search spike suggests many people don’t know why they voted for Brexit." The paper pointed to a spike in the query "what happens if we leave the EU," as evidence voters were unaware they voted to leave. The Washington Post also posted an article on the trend implying that voters in the United Kingdom didn’t know exactly what they were voting for. Even John Oliver poked fun at the trend on HBO’s Last Week Tonight. "It’s frankly hard not to think that some Britons may not have fully thought this through," Oliver said "Especially when you look at some of the top search terms concerning the EU the next day." But the Google Trends don’t show that at all, in reality. Here’s why. What Google Trends tells us (and doesn’t) Google Trends launched 10 years ago as a way to allow users to track the popularity of a search item in relation to an event. The search data categorizes searches into related groups and then measures the interest in a particular topic across searches from around the world, right down to cities. For example, these were the top five questions in the United Kingdom on Google Trends after the Brexit vote on June 23. The queries represent the most-searched items relating to the European Union. What Google Trends doesn’t tell us is who is actually doing the searching. So there’s no way to tell if the searches were done by Brexit voters. Another issue is the significance of the searches in comparison to other factors. A 250 percent spike doesn’t mean much if not many people were searching "what happens if we leave the EU?" prior to the report. The number of searches before the vote is hard to determine "The problem with Google Trends is that it's essentially a black box," said Pete Meyers, a marketing scientist at Moz which sells marketing analytics software subscriptions. "There's a lot we don't know about what goes into the number, and everything is relative." For instance, when you look at "What is the EU," on Google Trends, you see a spike. But when you add the term "Brexit" to the same graph the spike seems far less severe, he said. Although the raw totals of searches are not shown, the Trends data shows searches for "Brexit" were much higher than "What is the EU?" on June 24, the day after the vote. Google Trends looks at a random sample of all searches, so you don’t see the total number of specific searches. The numbers on the chart represent a probability of how highly searched a query is, ranked from 1 to 100. This allows Google to compare two terms against one another. The volume of searches can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, Meyers said. "If Google reports that a lot of people are searching for ‘What is the EU?’ and then the press picks it up, curiosity leads people to run similar searches to see what the fuss is about," Meyers said. He said he can’t prove that’s what happened here, but it has happened in the past. Another major flaw in using Google Trends to make bold pronouncements like the Daily Mail is that the most common way to search something is usually the term that shows up at the top, said Marti Hearst, a professor for the University of California at Berkeley’s school of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. "Only the most common (and therefore the most ignorant-sounding) search queries will make it to the top," Hearst said. In other words, nuance questions like, "How does Northumberland elected representative to the EU support our interests," would not surface to the top, she said. Experts agreed that the way many news outlets used the Google Trends reports is not grounded in science. "The numbers shown to the public are processed in many ways and are meant to be very general trends only," Hearst said. The claims that publications are making go too far, said Tom Davenport, the President’s Distinguished Professor of Information Technology and Management at Babson College. "I might interpret the findings more positively," Davenport said. "At least a lot of people have curiosity and are trying to learn more about the Brexit topic." Our ruling Like other media accounts, the Daily Mail headline said "Google search spike suggests many people don’t know why they voted for Brexit." This is misleading. It’s impossible to say if UK voters were the ones doing these searches, and the numbers of searches are hard to determine. Relative to searches for "Brexit," searches about "what is the EU" were far less common. We know people searched "What is the EU" and "What will happen if we leave the EU," but we don’t know why or how many. Point being, there’s no evidence to fill those gaps. We rate this claim Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Daily Mail | null | null | null | 2016-07-01T15:56:46 | 2016-06-24 | ['None'] |
pomt-03312 | Every single month since 1985 has been warmer than the historic average. All 12 of the warmest years on record have come in the last 15 years. | true | /new-jersey/statements/2013/jul/28/rush-holt/rush-holt-warns-millions-will-die-climate-change-g/ | U.S. Senate candidate Rush Holt set off a political firestorm last week with these three words tucked into a campaign ad about the dangers of climate change: "Millions will die." Holt, a Democratic congressman, defended that claim in the face of criticism from Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan, who dismissed Holt’s climate change assertions as "silly hysteria." In the Aug. 13 Democratic primary, Holt is running against Newark Mayor Cory Booker, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D-6th Dist.) and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) to fill the U.S. Senate seat previously held by the late Frank Lautenberg. PolitiFact New Jersey cannot fact-check the "millions will die" claim -- since it’s a prediction -- but another statement made by Holt earlier in the July 22 campaign ad caught our attention. "Every single month since 1985 has been warmer than the historic average," Holt (D-12th Dist.) said. "All 12 of the warmest years on record have come in the last 15 years." Those statements are accurate, according to data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. First, let’s address the first part about monthly temperatures. Referring to global temperatures -- meaning land and ocean surfaces combined -- Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist with the NOAA, confirmed in a series of e-mails that "since February 1985, every month has been warmer than the average of that month." The NOAA compares each month’s global temperature against the average for that respective month for the period between 1901 and 2000, Blunden said. Since February 1985, the global temperature for every month has been above its 20th Century average, she said. For instance, the NOAA found that the global temperature in June was 1.15 degrees Fahrenheit higher than the average of all the months of June between 1901 and 2000. That measurement marked "the 37th consecutive June and 340th consecutive month—that’s a total of more than 28 years—with a global temperature above the 20th-century average," according to a summary of the NOAA’s latest climate report. On the second point, it turns out that Holt's figure of the 12 warmest years on record occurring in the last 15 years was actually a conservative estimate. Based on NOAA data, the last 15 years -- from 1998 to 2012 -- have included the 14 hottest years on record since 1880 for global temperatures. The NOAA estimates that the hottest year was 2010. Using a different methodology, NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies estimates that the last 15 years have included the 13 hottest years since 1880 for global temperatures. In a statistical tie, either 2010 or 2005 may be considered the warmest year on record, according to Reto Ruedy, a climate scientist with the institute. The institute has said 2012 was the ninth warmest year on record, while the NOAA estimates that 2012 was the tenth hottest year. "The record dates back to 1880 because that is when there were enough meteorological stations around the world to provide global temperature data," according to a news release on the institute’s website. Our ruling In a campaign ad where he claimed "millions will die" from climate change, Holt cited two statistics about monthly and annual global temperatures. "Every single month since 1985 has been warmer than the historic average," Holt said. "All 12 of the warmest years on record have come in the last 15 years." Both of those statistics are backed up by data released by scientists at the NOAA and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The global temperature in every month since February 1985 has been above the 20th Century average for its respective month, according to the NOAA. As for the warmest years on record, NOAA scientists estimate that the last 15 years have included the 14 hottest years and NASA scientists have said that same time period included the 13 hottest years. We rate the statement True. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. | null | Rush Holt | null | null | null | 2013-07-28T07:30:00 | 2013-07-22 | ['None'] |
pose-01190 | College credit for courses taken via EdX, a collaboration providing online Massive Open Collaborative Courses, would help reduce higher education costs. | not yet rated | https://www.politifact.com/texas/promises/abbott-o-meter/promise/1280/grant-college-credit-completed-edx-courses/ | null | abbott-o-meter | Greg Abbott | null | null | Grant college credit for completed edX courses | 2015-01-20T14:00:00 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11334 | EPA administrator Scott Pruitt's short-term rental "was about market rate." | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr/10/donald-trump/did-epas-pruitt-pay-below-market-rent/ | When Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt was getting settled in Washington in 2017, he paid the wife of a gas and oil lobbyist $50 a night for her condominium on Capitol Hill. Pruitt used the space for about six months and only paid when he needed a room. The terms of the lease carried the whiff of a sweetheart deal with an industry that had dealings with the EPA. President Donald Trump on Twitter defended this and other controversial aspects of Pruitt’s decision-making in an April 7 tweet: "While Security spending was somewhat more than his predecessor, Scott Pruitt has received death threats because of his bold actions at EPA. Record clean Air & Water while saving USA Billions of Dollars. Rent was about market rate, travel expenses OK. Scott is doing a great job!" For this fact-check, we will examine whether the price tag for Pruitt’s short-term living arrangement was "about market rate." White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump relied on an initial assessment from the EPA. "He was referencing a report done by the EPA, which we are continuing to review," Sanders said April 9. "But in that, it cites the apartment was at market value." That EPA report came from the agency’s general counsel Kevin Minoli, written after media reports forced the issue into the open. "Market value for rental apartments is commonly thought of in terms of rental cost per month," Minoli wrote March 31. "Under the terms of the lease, if the space was utilized for one 30-day month, then the rental cost would be $1500, which is a reasonable market value." Based on that and other details, Minoli said the lease was not a gift. Market rent Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood offers a wide range of apartment options. Browsing on the rental website Zillow, we found that some of them go for about $1,500 a month, or $50 a day for a 30-day month. But those have only one bedroom, and we know that the condominium Pruitt rented had two. His daughter used the other bedroom when she spent time in the city. Even for one-bedroom units, the prices can easily go well over $1,500. Rents of $1,800 to $2,000 are common. For two-bedroom units, we found one for $1,850, but after that, the prices went up to $2,200 and higher. Pruitt described his lease as similar to an Airbnb rental, where he only paid for a bedroom when he was in town. But unlike that sort of Airbnb arrangement, he had access to the other amenities in the apartment, extending to the second bedroom used by his daughter. Pruitt got an Airbnb deal without the typical Airbnb drawbacks. Tim Burr with Yarmouth Management, a company that focuses on Capitol Hill rentals, said paying only when Pruitt needed the place made the terms notably convenient for Pruitt. "With Airbnb, you’re not guaranteed it will be available when you want it," Burr said. "That’s very unusual." We looked at the current Airbnb rates. The lowest price we found for immediate use was $40 a night, however, that is not the norm. To be fair, we can’t see the rates Pruitt might have seen in the winter of 2017. (Changing the dates, we did find one shared space in a one-bedroom for $23, which seems an unlikely option for Pruitt. Comedian John Oliver also browsed Airbnb and suggested Pruitt could have done worse — crashing on a couch named Black Beauty.) Pruitt said he might not always have free run of the apartment, but the use of the bedroom was not in question. It’s important to note that ultimately, he only paid about $1,000 a month for the place. The EPA steps back As the press reported more details of Pruitt’s arrangement, the EPA’s Minoli followed up his first report with a statement handed to reporters. "Some have raised questions whether the actual use of the space was consistent with the terms of the lease," Minoli said April 5. "Evaluating those questions would have required factual information that was not before us and the review does not address those questions." So, two days before Trump’s tweet, the EPA had backtracked on at least part of its ethics review. One day before Trump’s tweet, the Office of Government Ethics, the watchdog body for the executive branch, raised doubts about Pruitt’s lease. In a letter to the EPA on April 6, the ethics office wrote "additional information has now come to light that calls into question whether the earlier determination that the Administrator paid market value for the use he made of the apartment would still be valid." Our ruling Trump said that Pruitt paid approximately market rate for the living space he rented from the wife of an energy lobbyist. Trump based that on a review from the EPA, but the agency later said it lacked all the facts to fully assess the situation. A real estate professional familiar with rents in the neighborhood said the terms of the lease were unusually convenient for Pruitt. Our scan of current rents showed that the prices of two-bedroom apartments were higher than what he would have paid if he had stayed there every night for the entire six months. Pruitt was there only about two-thirds of the time, paying closer to $1,000 a month. No one-or-two-bedroom units were available under any terms for that price. The one caveat is we haven’t seen the exact terms of Pruitt’s lease or exactly how he and his family used the condominium. With that in mind, we rate this claim Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2018-04-10T11:09:40 | 2018-04-07 | ['None'] |
pomt-09654 | Less than 10 percent of Obama's Cabinet appointees "have any experience in the private sector." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/dec/02/glenn-beck/beck-says-less-10-percent-obama-cabinet-members-ha/ | Fox News talk show host Glenn Beck has seized on a claim circulating on the Internet to argue that the Obama administration has little understanding of American business and is too focused on expanding government. "History has proven over and over again — and so has the post office, for that matter — that government is not the answer," Beck said on his Nov. 30, 2009, show. "You need to unleash the people. The entrepreneurs. And if you are wondering how it is that the government can't see that — how they can be pondering even bigger stimulus packages as they stare the failure of the first one right in the face — I'll show you. Here are the past presidents and the number of appointees in their Cabinets with private sector experience — folks that have done more than write on the chalkboard; they've been out there, in the real world. Let's compare President Nixon — he's over 50 percent — with President Obama: Under 10 percent of his appointees have any experience in the private sector." We did a little digging and found that the claim is based on a study by Michael Cembalest, the chief investment officer for J.P. Morgan Private Bank. In a Nov. 24, 2009, column titled "Obama's Business Blind Spot" and published on Forbes.com, Cembalest wrote, "In a quest to see what frame of reference the administration might have on this issue, I looked back at the history of the presidential Cabinet. Starting with the creation of the secretary of commerce back in 1900, I compiled the prior private-sector experience of all 432 Cabinet members, focusing on those positions one would expect to participate in this discussion: secretaries of State; Commerce; Treasury; Agriculture; Interior; Labor; Transportation; Energy; and Housing & Urban Development." He continued, "Many of these individuals started a company or ran one, with first-hand experience in hiring and firing, domestic and international competition, red tape, recessions, wars and technological change. Their industries included agribusiness, chemicals, finance, construction, communications, energy, insurance, mining, publishing, pharmaceuticals, railroads and steel; a cross-section of the American experience. (I even gave [one-third] credit to attorneys focused on private-sector issues, although one could argue this is a completely different kettle of fish.) One thing is clear: The current administration, compared with past Democratic and Republican ones, marks a departure from the traditional reliance on a balance of public- and private-sector experiences." In an accompanying chart, Cembalest reported that in the Obama administration, fewer than 10 percent of the Cabinet appointees counted under those rules had private sector experience. According to the chart, all other administrations going back to Theodore Roosevelt's had rates in at least the high 20s, with the Eisenhower and Reagan administrations approaching 60 percent. (He wrote in a footnote that the data came from a number of sources, including capsule biographies of Cabinet members posted on the Web site of the University of Virginia's Miller Center for Public Affairs.) The chart — typically reprinted by itself, without Cembalest's accompanying narrative — circulated in the conservative blogosphere for a couple of days before eventually being picked up by Beck. We wondered if the claim was right, so we did some math of our own. In Obama's Cabinet, at least three of the nine posts that Cembalest and Beck cite — a full one-third — are occupied by appointees who, by our reading of their bios, had significant corporate or business experience. Shaun Donovan, Obama's secretary of Housing and Urban Development, served as managing director of Prudential Mortgage Capital Co., where he oversaw its investments in affordable housing loans. Energy Secretary Steven Chu headed the electronics research lab at one of America's storied corporate research-and-development facilities, AT&T Bell Laboratories, where his work won a Nobel Prize for physics. And Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, in addition to serving as Colorado attorney general and a U.S. senator, has been a partner in his family's farm for decades and, with his wife, owned and operated a Dairy Queen and radio stations in his home state of Colorado. Three other Obama appointees had legal experience in the private sector. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke spent part of their careers working as lawyers in private practice. Clinton and Vilsack worked as private-sector lawyers at the beginning of their careers, while Locke joined an international law firm, Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, after serving as governor of Washington state. At the firm, Locke "co-chaired the firm's China practice" and "helped U.S. companies break into international markets," according to his official biography. That sounds like real private sector experience to us. Finally, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner worked for Kissinger Associates, a consulting firm that advises international corporations on political and economic conditions overseas. The occupants of the two remaining Cabinet posts cited in the chart do not appear to have had significant private-sector experience: Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Obama's Cabinet has even more private-sector experience if you go beyond the nine. Two of the Obama appointees could be considered entrepreneurs — the very people Beck would "unleash." Vice President Joe Biden, officially a Cabinet member, founded his own law firm, Biden and Walsh, early in his career, and it still exists in a later incarnation, Monzack Mersky McLaughlin and Browder, P.A. (The future vice president also supplemented his income by managing properties, including a neighborhood swimming pool.) And Office of Management and Budget director Peter Orszag founded an economic consulting firm called Sebago Associates that was later bought out by a larger firm. It's also worth noting that if you examine a larger group of senior Obama administration appointees, you'll find that more than one in four have experience as business executives, according to a June study by National Journal . That compared with the 38 percent the magazine found eight years earlier at the start of George W. Bush's administration. That's at least three times higher than the level claimed by Beck. We tracked down Cembalest to ask about his methodology. He said any effort to address the topic is heavily subjective, and he expressed regret that his work had been used for political ends, saying that it was not his intention to provide fodder for bloggers and talk show hosts. Cembalest said that he did discount the corporate experience of the three lawyers we identified — Clinton, Vilsack and Locke — and added that he awarded nothing for Donovan, Chu or Salazar, even though we found they had a fair amount private sector experience. Cembalest acknowledged fault in missing Salazar's business background, saying he would have given him a full point if he had it to do over again. But he added that the kind of private-sector experiences Chu and Donovan had (managing scientific research and handling community development lending, respectively) did not represent the kind of private-sector business experience he was looking for when doing his study. "What I was really trying to get at was some kind of completely, 100 percent subjective assessment of whether or not a person had had enough control of payroll, dealing with shareholders, hiring, firing and risk-taking that they'd be in a position to have had a meaningful seat at the table when the issue being discussed is job creation," Cembalest said. Cembalest said he has "written 250,000 words in research over the last decade, and every single thing I've ever done — except this one chart — was empirically based on data from the Federal Reserve" or another official source. "This is the one time I stepped out into making judgment calls, and I assure you I won't do it again. ... The frightening thing about the Internet is that people copy one chart from what you write and then it goes viral. So I've learned a lesson here that these kinds of issues are best left addressed by the people who practice them day in and day out." Which brings us back to how Beck used Cembalest's data. We'll acknowledge that rating someone's degree of private-sector experience is an inexact science, and it's true that Beck accurately relayed the information contained in Cembalest's chart. But at PolitiFact we hold people accountable for their own words. So we rate Beck's claim False. | null | Glenn Beck | null | null | null | 2009-12-02T18:34:05 | 2009-11-30 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
tron-01744 | Christmas Tree Tax Begins in 2014 | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/christmas-tree-tax/ | null | government | null | null | null | Christmas Tree Tax Begins in 2014 | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14351 | Ukraine voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons because the United States of America said it would "ensure (its) territorial integrity from Russia." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/23/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-wrongly-says-ukraine-gave-nukes-due-ameri/ | CNN took its cue from the NCAA basketball championships to air an election special called "The Final Five," or five interviews with the remaining presidential candidates. During his conversation with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, CNN host Wolf Blitzer raised the issue of NATO. Blitzer asked Cruz what he thought about Donald Trump’s demand that the European members pay more for their common defense. Blitzer mentioned Trump’s point about Ukraine, saying Germany has more of an interest there than the United States. "Well, Donald, in all likelihood, has no awareness of this, but with regard to Ukraine, the United States has deep involvement," Cruz replied during the March 21, 2016, interview. "Ukraine used to be the third-largest nuclear country on the face of the Earth. Ukraine voluntarily gave up its nuclear weapons because the United States of America came in and said if you hand over those nuclear weapons, we will ensure your territorial integrity from Russia. We made a commitment, and then the Obama administration has broken its word." There are a couple of elements in Cruz’s statement. While he described the weapons as belonging to Ukraine, when the Soviet Union dissolved, the Russians still controlled them and Ukraine’s generals were unable to launch them. It would be more accurate to say that the warheads were on Ukrainian soil. The subject of this fact-check though is the claim that American promises of territorial integrity led Ukraine to hand over those nukes. Former presidential hopeful Ben Carson made the same argument in the very first Republican debate. We rated it False then, and Cruz’s claim is no different. Ukraine, nuclear weapons and the end of the Soviet Union The 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union generated enormous concern over the fate of the nuclear arsenal it had spread across three states that were newly independent -- Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine -- as well as in Russia itself. During the first six months of 1992, Moscow was quick to retrieve all of its tactical, or short-range, nukes. Corralling the strategic weapons, such as intercontinental missiles and bomber-based warheads, was trickier. Belarus and Kazakhstan agreed to dismantle or return what they had. But Ukraine looked at the roughly 1,900 warheads on its soil and began seeking something in exchange before it gave them up. Brian Finlay, a specialist in nonproliferation at the Stimson Center, a military-focused think tank in Washington, D.C., told us in August there was actually never any question that Ukraine would eventually relinquish those weapons. "They had announced that they would become a non-nuclear weapon state even before their declaration of independence," Finlay said. "Essentially, it was something that they traded off in order to encourage international recognition." According to a report by Steven Pifer, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine between 1998 and 2000, Ukraine wanted Russia to promise to respect its sovereignty and its borders, a promise that has since been ignored by Russia. But just as important, Ukraine wanted money. The highly-enriched uranium in the warheads was valuable, plus Ukraine wanted somebody else to cover the costs of dismantling the silos and other infrastructure. And Ukraine knew that going non-nuclear would open the door to better ties with the West. The deal that de-nuked Ukraine It took a series of agreements to finally clear the way for Ukraine to get rid of the weapons it held. Early in 1994, the United States agreed to provide money through the Nunn-Lugar program to dismantle Ukraine’s nuclear infrastructure. Russia agreed to write down the debts Ukraine owed. In December 1994, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and Ukraine signed the Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances. Pifer described in his report how Washington wanted security assurances that avoided creating broad guarantees. "State Department lawyers thus took careful interest in the actual language, in order to keep the commitments of a political nature," Pifer wrote. "U.S. officials also continually used the term ‘assurances’ instead of ‘guarantees,’ as the latter implied a deeper, even legally-binding commitment of the kind that the United States extended to its NATO allies." The agreement stated that "the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the United States of America reaffirm their commitment": To respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine. To refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine To seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon state party to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used. Pifer writes that American diplomats went so far as to make sure that the Russians and Ukrainians understood specifically that the English meaning of "assurance" was not the same as a "guarantee." In short, the United States never promised to protect Ukraine. All it did was promise not to attack it. We reached out to the Cruz campaign and did not hear back. Our ruling Cruz said that Ukraine agreed to give up the nuclear weapons on its territory because the United States promised to "ensure its territorial integrity." A diplomat with detailed knowledge of the American position noted that the United States went to pains to avoid making a strong guarantee to protect Ukraine’s borders. The formal memorandum of security assurances lacks a promise to ensure that Ukraine’s borders remain unchanged. The United States only promised to respect those borders itself, and to go to the United Nations should another power threaten Ukraine with a nuclear attack. Russia violated that memorandum, but that is separate from what the United States said it would do. We rate Cruz’s statement False. | null | Ted Cruz | null | null | null | 2016-03-23T12:04:02 | 2016-03-21 | ['United_States', 'Russia', 'Ukraine'] |
pomt-14735 | One of the most troubling aspects of the Rubio-Schumer Gang of Eight bill was that it gave President Obama blanket authority to admit refugees, including Syrian refugees, without mandating any background checks whatsoever. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/dec/18/ted-cruz/cruz-muddles-accusation-against-rubios-immigration/ | Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio largely battled each other during the Republican debate in Las Vegas, including when Cruz accused Rubio of supporting a bill to let refugees into the country without first being vetted. Cruz singled out what he saw as a major flaw of a 2013 bipartisan immigration bill by the so-called Gang of Eight, which included Rubio and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. "Border security is national security, and you know, one of the most troubling aspects of the Rubio-Schumer Gang of Eight bill was that it gave President Obama blanket authority to admit refugees, including Syrian refugees, without mandating any background checks whatsoever," Cruz said. Did Rubio really back an immigration bill that would have allowed refugees from countries in turmoil to come in sans screening? It appears Cruz should work on his own vetting process. Presidential power The Cruz campaign did not get back to us when we asked how S. 744 — which passed the Senate (with Cruz voting no) in 2013 but wasn’t taken up in the House — would have granted the president this power. But when our friends at FactCheck.org looked at a similar claim earlier in December, Cruz’s office directed them to a column by Daniel Horowitz on ConservativeReview.com, a site that named Cruz "America’s Top Pick" among GOP candidates. Horowitz highlighted three sections of the bill to justify how the legislation would have opened up the country to substantial refugee risk. "Had the bill passed in 2013, it would have given the Obama administration power to define who is considered stateless," he wrote. "Most of those likely to be designated as stateless are from Islamic hell holes and would include the Syrians, Somalis, Palestinians, and the Muslim Rohingya in Burma." Horowitz told us the bill would have granted Obama sweeping power to bestow refugee status on groups as he saw fit. He also said it did nothing to establish standards for background checks on so-called "stateless" refugees, who already can’t be checked because there are no databases or information to consult, an argument Rubio has used to argue for prohibiting entry for Syrian refugees. PolitiFact has found that while there may be data gaps, there is a process to vet Syrian refugees. We spoke to several experts, including two resettlement agency officials interviewed by FactCheck.org. We found that their analyses of the bill don’t support Cruz’s claim about new "blanket authority" for Obama to admit refugees without any checks. We’ll start with the big picture. Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that favors reduced immigration, told us the bill did propose sweeping changes, including allowing the government to identify persecuted groups. That could be almost any group in the Middle East, he said. "The bottom line is that the bill gave the president huge new power that could have changed the refugee system," he said. But in the way Cruz alleged? Other experts said no. For one, the president has long had broad authority over refugee admission limits. "S. 744 didn’t give the president ‘blanket authority to admit refugees,’ " David Bier, the director of immigration policy at the libertarian Niskanen Center, said in an email. "The president has had the power since the Refugee Act of 1980 to establish limits on refugees in consultation with Congress. S. 744 didn’t affect this authority." From 1980-2008, the United States has accepted around 83,000 refugees a year. The Obama administration has said it will accept around 70,000 refugees from around the world in fiscal year 2015. Partly in response to the Syrian refugee crisis, that total will increase to 85,000 refugees in fiscal year 2016 and 100,000 in fiscal year 2017. In 2016, the administration plans to increase the number of admitted Syrian refugees almost six-fold to at least 10,000. What’s more, the Gang of Eight proposal specifically stated that all refugees would still be subject to background checks, Bier added. The average screening time for refugees from across the globe is between a year to a year and a half, involving background checks, interviews and confirmation from several federal agencies. For Syrian refugees, it takes two years on average. Cruz’s claim already misses these important points, but there are some specifics that experts say show his statement is inaccurate. ‘Stateless’ status One point is whether the bill would have allowed Obama to let in any group of refugees, Syrian or otherwise, and give them legal status. Section 3405 would have allowed the attorney general or the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security to provide lawful status to a refugee considered "stateless" — meaning, they had no country to which the United States could otherwise send them. "A classic case is a person who entered the United States and applied for asylum whose country dissolved while they were awaiting their hearing and decision in the case," said Joanne Kelsey, the assistant director for advocacy at the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, which helps resettle refugees. "If they were denied asylum and ordered deported, there is no country left to accept them as their national." Kelsey cited as an example people who were in the United States when the Soviet Union collapsed and new countries were formed from their home regions. But the "stateless" classification wouldn’t have been for refugees aiming to get into the United States, only people who are already in the country or would face this situation in the future. Mark Hetfield, president of HIAS, another refugee resettlement group, said this would not have changed the number of immigrants allowed into the country. The provision only applied to domestic law, he said, and people would have to prove this status, not just declare it. Persecution problem Another part of the bill about specially designating certain groups of refugees, Section 3403, is an attempt to codify something called the Lautenberg Amendment, an immigration provision that has been in effect since 1989 and must be renewed each year. The amendment has traditionally been aimed at certain religious minorities. By law, refugees seeking asylum in the United States must prove they have a "well founded fear of persecution." Our expert sources said section 3403 would have allowed the president to designate a group of interest to the United States as being persecuted as a whole. Think Christians in Syria or Yazidis in Iraq targeted by the Islamic State. Basically, it allows potential refugees to get in line faster. But instead of making the individual prove they are in danger, the threat would already be associated with their group, moving the rest of the screening process along. Its aim was to streamline the vetting process for refugees, not get rid of it. "It doesn’t create refugees or allow more refugees to come to the United States," Bier said. "They would still be subject to the normal refugee limit. It would create no additional numbers, but would increase, perhaps, the eligible pool of applicants." Deadline dilemma One final piece concerns the current one-year deadline in place for refugees to file for asylum once they arrive in the United States. Section 3401 would have repealed the deadline, and given people who had applications rejected for missing the window another two years to apply again. There are any number of reasons people miss the deadline — they don’t know they can apply, they’re afraid of government officials or even that they were hoping things in their home countries would get better so they could leave the United States and return. But again, it would only apply to refugees already in the United States, not people seeking to come in the future. Our experts said any worries that this would increase fraudulent immigration are unfounded. "This provision does not alter any standards or safeguards in the asylum system. All asylum seekers would continue to undergo rigorous security background checks and show that they are admissible to the United States," Kelsey said. Our ruling Cruz said, "One of the most troubling aspects of the Rubio-Schumer Gang of Eight bill was that it gave President Obama blanket authority to admit refugees, including Syrian refugees, without mandating any background checks whatsoever." The failed 2013 bill did not change the number of refugees, the overall framework of the screening process or give the president authority to admit any group at will. It would have allowed the president to designate certain groups outside the United States as particularly at risk, and other officials to label certain refugees in the United States as having nowhere to go. It further would have repealed the deadline for refugees already here to apply for asylum. Experts said none of the provisions Cruz has previously cited work the way he is warning they would. We rate his statement False. | null | Ted Cruz | null | null | null | 2015-12-18T12:38:39 | 2015-12-15 | ['Syria', 'Barack_Obama'] |
goop-01617 | Ashton Kutcher Started Fight With Mila Kunis For Speaking Russian At Friend’s Dinner Party? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ashton-kutcher-fight-mila-kunis-russian-dinner-party/ | null | null | null | Holly Nicol | null | Ashton Kutcher Started Fight With Mila Kunis For Speaking Russian At Friend’s Dinner Party? | 6:59 am, February 9, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07714 | Says neither President Barack Obama nor Mexico President Felipe Calderon "have been on the border to see what's happening to the citizens of Mexico, and for that matter the citizens of Texas." | half-true | /texas/statements/2011/mar/04/rick-perry/rick-perry-says-neither-mexico-president-felipe-ca/ | UPDATE, 11:15 a.m., March 7, 2011: After this article was published, readers alerted us to President Obama's Aug. 31, 2010, trip to Fort Bliss in El Paso. According to a transcript of his remarks, Obama thanked the soldiers and talked about his upcoming address to the nation on Iraq and Afghanistan; he made no mention of the border situation or Mexico during his two-hour visit. Gov. Rick Perry told an interviewer Wednesday that he’d dearly love to be part of Thursday’s White House meeting between President Barack Obama and Mexico President Felipe Calderon. Perry then told Greta Van Susteren of Fox News: "You know, neither one of them have been on the border to see what's happening to the citizens of Mexico, and for that matter the citizens of Texas." For real? We asked Perry’s office for back-up information, simultaneously trying to reach Calderon’s press contact and the White House on whether and why each president has ventured to the border. An online search yielded news articles showing that both Calderon, sworn in as president in 2006, and Obama, president since early 2009, have been to the U.S.-Mexico border, though it appears Obama has traveled there just once, while he was seeking the Democratic nomination for president. As president, he went to Mexico City in 2009. At least three times in 2010, Calderon visited Ciudad Juarez, the city adjoining El Paso, in the wake of January 2010 slayings that drew international attention. The Mexican city had experienced more than 2,500 killings in 2009, according to a CNN dispatch, which also quoted Calderon saying there: "I come mostly to listen... we're looking for solutions from Juarez because you are the ones living it." Also in 2010, Calderon visited Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, and Piedras Negras, opposite Eagle Pass, in the wake of a hurricane. He also helped open an international bridge in Reynosa, near McAllen, at a cross-border event where Obama’s emissary was U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, the former Dallas mayor. And Obama? In February 2008, according to a CBS News report, then-candidate Obama courted Brownsville voters. The report says he and state Rep. Eddie Lucio III briefly stood near the U.S. bank of the Rio Grande, looking across the border. According to the report, Obama joked: "This is the first time that I've been this close here, in Texas. I've been in Mexico when I was in college and was going to school in Southern California. I can't entirely talk about it." Obama went to Mexico City in April 2009 as part of a swing through Latin America. An April 16, 2009 news article in the New York Times says Obama was the first American president since Bill Clinton to visit Mexico’s capital, where he hoped to shore up Calderon’s "efforts to combat the rising tide of cross-border drug violence." This February, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano invited Republican and Democratic U.S. House leaders to join her at the Mexican border this spring, according to a Feb. 10 Politico news article. Republicans have urged Obama to visit the border. In March 2010, Texas U.S. Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn sent Obama a letter including an invitation to join them on a visit to the border region. "Such a visit would draw national attention to a national priority," the letter says, "and allow you to thank the federal and local officials who are doing heroic work to protect our communities." In September 2010, U.S. Sen. John McCain told a Fox News interviewer that he wanted Obama to visit the border. "I’d love for the president to come and visit the border. Unfortunately, he hasn’t had time to do so," the Wall Street Journal quoted McCain saying. Next, we asked CBS News’ White House correspondent Mark Knoller to check his well-respected log of presidential trips. Knoller said by e-mail that as president, Obama has not made any U.S.-Mexico border stops. He said Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, delivered a speech on border security in El Paso in March 2002, also watching a demonstration of technology that detects contraband in border-crossing vehicles. Knoller said Bush also came to Tucson and El Paso in November 2005 and in May 2006 made a trip to Yuma to observe National Guard troops on the border. Finally, we asked political scientist David Shirk, director of the non-partisan Trans-Border Institute at San Diego University, how he’d appraise Perry’s claim. Shirk said Perry’s wrong about Calderon, but correct per Obama who, Shirk said, "has not visited the border region since the start of his presidency to examine the circumstances that we’re facing here in communities like San Diego and El Paso, places where we are very close to the violence and there’s been a lot of discussion about the possible spillover effects." As for whether Obama is "right for not visiting the border," that’s a separate question, Shirk said, adding that the answer depends on whether the "situation and the (status) of border residents today (is) more important" than other issues on the nation’s agenda. To our inquiry about Obama’s border travels, White House spokesman Adam Abrams declined comment. We didn’t hear back from Perry and failed to connect with Calderon’s office. Perry’s statement appears to be accurate per Obama, but it’s unmoored regarding Calderon. We rate it Half True. | null | Rick Perry | null | null | null | 2011-03-04T06:00:00 | 2011-03-02 | ['Mexico', 'Texas', 'Felipe_Calderón', 'Barack_Obama'] |
snes-06170 | The hooker sent to a john's room turns out to be his daughter. | legend | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/call-girl-johns-daughter/ | null | College | null | David Mikkelson | null | Call Girl John’s Daughter | 8 August 1999 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02542 | Scientists have discovered a fuel thousands of times more powerful than gasoline and just one company is positioned to own a vast majority of its market share. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/new-superfuel/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Have Researchers Discovered a New ‘Superfuel’ 1,693 Times More Powerful Than Gasoline? | 26 April 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00926 | Did Target Issue an Easter Egg Recall? | outdated | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-target-issue-an-easter-egg-recall/ | null | Food | null | Arturo Garcia | null | Did Target Issue an Easter Egg Recall? | 5 March 2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01517 | New Dollar Coins Are Missing “In God We Trust” | outdated! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/new-dollar-coins-are-missing-in-god-we-trust/ | null | government | null | null | ['censorship', 'church and state', 'liberal agenda', 'political correctness'] | New Dollar Coins Are Missing “In God We Trust” – Outdated! | Sep 20, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00411 | Huge Moose shot in Russia | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/russian-moose/ | null | animals | null | null | null | Huge Moose shot in Russia | Mar 20, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07498 | On the way the federal government should spend Florida's rejected high-speed rail money. | full flop | /florida/statements/2011/apr/11/rick-scott/gov-rick-scott-takes-credit-helping-avert-federal-/ | Here's one you probably didn't catch on CNN -- Florida Gov. Rick Scott helped avoid the federal government shutdown. According to Scott, anyway. Scott's office penned a press release on April 11, 2011, titled "Governor Rick Scott Helps Avoid Government Shutdown and Save Federal Taxpayers $1.5 billion." The release linked to a Huffington Post article, which reported that as part of a budget agreement, $1.5 billion will be cut from high-speed rail projects. Here is the release in full: This weekend as Washington, D.C., insiders struggled to find billions to prevent a government shutdown, they found $1.5 billion worth of taxpayer money exactly where Governor Rick Scott left it: in the boondoggle high speed rail proposal. "I am proud to have brought this waste to the attention of those in Washington," Governor Rick Scott stated in response to the news. "These funds should either be returned to taxpayers as tax cuts or applied to reducing the burden that our national debt is passing to future generations." According to media reports, the final continuing resolution from Congress will include a $1.5 billion reduction in funds for high speed rail. Governor Scott rejected $2.4 billion for the project in Florida. The idea that Scott wants Florida's high-speed rail money to be used for tax cuts or to reduce the national debt stuck out to us because we remembered him saying something different when he initially announced he was rejecting the federal money. So we wanted to check Scott's statements using our Flip-O-Meter. Back on Feb. 16, Scott wrote to U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood to announce his decision to reject approximately $2.4 billion in federal money for a high-speed line between Tampa and Orlando. But back then, Scott said he didn't want the money to leave the state entirely. "As you know, my focus has been to ensure that transportation investments in our State reflect the diversity of needs we face -- from port facilities and highways and rail connections that drive domestic commerce and international trade, to investments in aviation and transit," Scott wrote LaHood. "I believe that the dollars being made available for proposed high-speed rail are better invested in higher yield projects, like those we have discussed in the past few weeks." Scott then included a list of projects, including dredging improvements at the ports in Miami and Jacksonville, the widening of Interstate 4 in Orange County, the widening of I-95 in Martin, St. Lucie, Brevard and Volusia counties, and the widening of Interstate 275 in Hillsborough County. "The long-term job creation opportunities from these projects are greater, the private investment stronger and the economic yield more permanent," Scott concluded. "Given the limited dollars available, federal investments, rather than generating temporal job creation, must be directed toward those projects offering real long-term growth potential and a broader return on investment for our economy and our citizens." Pretty different tone, huh? The St. Petersburg Times also noted that the money being trimmed from the budget also is not part of the $2.4 billion that Scott rejected earlier this year. The cut is to additional budgeted appropriations. Furthermore, the Department of Transportation is planning to award the $2.4 billion Florida rejected to other states. On April 6, the department announced that it has received more than 90 applications for the money from 24 states, the District of Columbia and Amtrak. Scott said when he rejected the money for high-speed rail that the funds should go to port and highway projects in Florida. Now, as part of trying to take credit for averting a government shutdown, he says the money should pay off the debt or go back to taxpayers. There is nothing consistent about those two positions, so we rate it a Full Flop. | null | Rick Scott | null | null | null | 2011-04-11T18:47:45 | 2011-04-11 | ['None'] |
hoer-01155 | Fake Adele Facebook Page | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/fake-adele-facebook-page-is-a-like-farming-scam/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Fake Adele Facebook Page is a Like-Farming Scam | March 29, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05751 | President Obama pushed through the stimulus "based on the promise of keeping unemployment under 8 percent." | mostly false | /virginia/statements/2012/mar/02/eric-cantor/cantor-says-obama-promised-stimulus-would-keep-une/ | Like many Republicans, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor was not in a celebratory mood on the the third anniversary of President Barack Obama’s signing of the stimulus bill. Cantor, R-7th, fired out a four-paragraph statement saying the stimulus -- a package of government spending, tax cuts and aid to cash-strapped states that was designed to jolt the economy -- is a failure. "Three years ago, President Obama’s first action in office was to push through a massive $825 billion stimulus package based on the promise of keeping unemployment under 8 percent," Cantor said in the Feb. 16 statement. The claim that Obama promised the stimulus would keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent has been a favorite talking point among Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, U.S. Senate hopeful George Allen of Virginia and House Speaker John Boehner. Cantor made a similar claim back in 2009. PolitiFact has examined the statement repeatedly, each time rating it Mostly False. Since the claim is making the rounds again, we took a new look. Megan Whittemore, a Cantor spokeswoman, backed her boss’s statement by referring to a widely cited report from Jan. 9, 2009. It was authored by Christina Romer, the incoming chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, chief economic adviser for incoming Vice President Joe Biden. The report contains a chart on page 4 predicting unemployment rates in subsequent years. The chart shows that without a recovery plan totaling about $775 billion, the U.S. unemployment rate was expected to peak at 9 percent in 2010. With the stimulus, it shows unemployment was projected to top out at just under 8 percent towards the end of 2009. We now know that the unemployment rate cleared 8 percent in February 2009 and stayed above that level ever since. It peaked at 10 percent in October 2009 and was down to 8.3 percent in January 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But contrary to Cantor’s claim, the Romer-Bernstein report did not make promises about the unemployment rate. It made qualified projections. Page 2 of the report states, "It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error. There is the obvious uncertainty that comes from modeling a hypothetical package rather than the final legislation passed by the Congress. But, there is the more fundamental uncertainty that comes with any estimate of the effects of a program. "Our estimates of economic relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly in any given episode. Furthermore, the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity." Obama, in a radio address 10 days before his inauguration, said, "The report confirms that our plan (that the stimulus) will likely save or create 3 million to 4 million jobs." Whittemore said in an email to Politifact Virginia, "If, as a Virginian or American citizen, I listened to the president’s address and referred to the report on Jan. 10 (the day of his address), I would have found the infamous chart showing that unemployment would stay below 8 percent if the stimulus were to pass. My main take away would naturally be that with passage of the stimulus, unemployment would never go above 8 percent. Why would I believe that? Because President Obama told me so." Obama, in his speech, never mentioned the 8 percent figure. He did not use the word "promise," nor refer to the graph on page 4. He said the report contained "projections of how many jobs (the stimulus) will create. And we suspect people who were interested enough to read the report would have seen the disclaimer on Page 2 and other qualifying language in the document. No doubt, the 8 percent unemployment projection was rosy. The Congressional Budget Office, one month after the Romer-Bernstein report was released, estimated unemployment would level off at 8.5 percent with the stimulus and 9 percent without it. Those numbers, too, turned out to be overly optimistic. The Obama administration has acknowledged the Romer-Bernstein report underestimated the severity of the recession. "The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy," Vice-President Joe Biden told ABC in July 2009. The report’s projection that the stimulus would save between 3 million and 4 million jobs also appears now to be optimistic. The president’s Council of Economic Advisers, in an analysis released in December, estimated that between 2.2 million and 4.2 million jobs were created or saved by the stimulus through the second quarter of 2011. The council’s report cited independent studies by the Congressional Budget Office and three private economic analysis companies. Here’s what the groups found: • CBO: Between 500,000 and 2.9 million jobs saved or created. • IHS/Global Insight: 2.4 million jobs saved or created. • Macroeconomic Advisers: 2.6 million jobs saved or created. • Moody’s Economy.com: 2.1 million jobs saved or created. Our ruling Cantor said Obama’s stimulus was passed with the "promise" of keeping the unemployment rate below 8 percent. The majority leader says the vow was made in a January 2009 report issued by the incoming administration. But the study did not guarantee specific results from the stimulus, it offered economic projections that contained disclaimers saying the estimates had "significant margins of error" and a high degree of uncertainty due to a recession that was "unusual both in its fundamental causes and severity." Clearly, the Obama administration can be faulted for estimating the stimulus would hold unemployment just below 8 percent. But contrary to Cantor’s claim, Obama never promised that outcome, nor did his administration. Again, we rate the statement Mostly False. | null | Eric Cantor | null | null | null | 2012-03-02T06:00:00 | 2012-03-16 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pose-00902 | Since 1995, Bob Buckhorn has consistently voted for, and has been a vocal advocate for allowing officers to take home their police cars. This policy reduces neighborhood crime and increases employee morale at very little cost to the city. As mayor, Bob will continue this policy. | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/florida/promises/buck-o-meter/promise/934/continue-allowing-police-to-take-their-police-cars/ | null | buck-o-meter | Bob Buckhorn | null | null | Continue allowing police to take their police cars home | 2011-05-18T14:33:25 | null | ['Bob_Buckhorn'] |
hoer-00280 | 'Profile Visitors for Facebook' Rogue App and Survey | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/find-your-profile-visitors-survey-scam.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | 'Profile Visitors for Facebook' Rogue App and Survey Scam | January 14, 2014 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13671 | We have a fire marshal that said, 'Oh we can't allow more people’ ... And the reason they won't let them in is because they don't know what the hell they're doing. | pants on fire! | /colorado/statements/2016/aug/03/donald-trump/trump-falsely-accuses-colorado-fire-marshal-incomp/ | Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has blasted fire marshals across the country over crowd-size restrictions at venues, including accusing marshals in Colorado and Ohio of incompetence or political skulduggery within three days. The latest fireworks began July 29, at Trump’s rally at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. The billionaire real estate developer entered the Gallogly Events Center to a cheering crowd. But he quickly launched into an attack on Colorado Springs Fire Marshal Brett Lacey. "This is why our country doesn't work," Trump said. "We have thousands of people in (an overflow) room next door. We have plenty of space here. We have thousands of people outside trying to get in. And we have a fire marshal that said, 'Oh we can't allow more people.' ... And the reason they won't let them in is because they don't know what the hell they're doing." Trump continued to blame the fire marshal for the "disgraceful situation" during his one-hour address. He decried Lacey’s "incompetence," saying "he's probably a Democrat" and "maybe they're a Hillary person." Our research shows Trump is wrong on several counts. Public records show Lacey is a registered Republican, and fire officials were following standard guidelines for crowd limits. Standing room Trump’s account of what went wrong at the rally and who was to blame is questionable. There were 1,100 people -- not "thousands" as he said -- in the overflow room who watched his speech on a TV screen. There was a line of people left outside, but it’s unclear if included "thousands of people," as he said. What about Trump’s claim that "We have plenty of space here," to let more people into the events center? Colorado Springs Fire Department spokesman Steve Wilch told PolitiFact the Trump campaign was aware a day before the rally that Lacey, the fire marshal, had limited the events center to 1,500 spectators and the overflow room to 1,000 spectators. UCCS Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak told the Colorado Springs Gazette, "The campaign handled all the ticketing and more tickets were issued than the space available." PolitiFact requested comment from the Trump campaign but received no reply. In an interview after the rally, Lacey told PolitiFact partner Denver7 that he based his crowd restrictions on a Thursday walk through of the event center and the overflow room, where he double-checked the exits, the size of the space and potential obstructions like crowd-control barriers, the stage and platforms for news cameras. Lacey also reviewed the original construction design plans for the building, which had passed international fire and building codes. These plans include a "life-safety sheet," detailing the building’s intended use, square footage, capacity and exits. The fire code, which most fire agencies rely on, is "based on the premise that every space can hold a certain number of people based on the square footage, and then based on the number of people we're going to provide the proper number of exits," Boulder Chief Fire Marshal Dave Lowrey told PolitiFact. What the building is used for is key to determining space requirements known as the "occupant load factor." Restaurants are required to provide 15 square feet per person, because they have tables and chairs that people need to get around while fleeing an emergency, Lowrey said. At a political rally, where people are sitting on folding chairs, the code requires 7 square feet per person. If it’s standing-room-only, the requirement is 5 square feet per person. Emergency exits are a key ‘life-safety factor’ But the most important "life-safety factor" is the number of exits. "If you can't get out of building in an emergency, well, you're in a whole a lot of trouble," Lowrey said. "Every large, tragic indoor fire has probably been contributed to somehow by overcrowding, and blocked exits or locked doors." Lacey said he worked closely with the Secret Service, police and UCCS officials as he made his decision about the right "occupant loads" for the venues. These officials weren’t the only ones who agreed to the fire marshal’s decisions on crowd restrictions. Three days before the rally, Trump campaign treasurer, Timothy Jost, and UCCS officials signed a "Facility Usage License Agreement." The contract stated that the campaign "shall comply with...all other rules and regulations prescribed by the Fire and Police Departments and other governmental authorities, as may be in force and effect during the terms of this Agreement." So the Trump campaign had agreed to comply with the fire department’s safety requirements days before the candidate blew up at the fire marshal. Earlier Friday afternoon, Lacey received a call from the police command center that there was a request to allow more people into the rally. After conferring with security officials and an on-site fire battalion chief, Lacey said he was comfortable with a 10 percent increase in the events center crowd (to 1,650) and the overflow room (to 1,100). Denver7 asked Lacey about Trump’s assertions that he was a disgrace and "probably a Democrat." "Absolutely not," the fire marshal replied. "Anytime that any of the members of the Colorado Springs Fire Department are working, the politics or policies like that are not on our agenda. We're here for public safety and making certain our community is safe from harm." "If the event planners wanted to have more people inside, we have a number of venues here in the Colorado Springs area that they could have secured," Lacey added. "But this is the event (venue) that they chose." While fire marshals wrestle with these life-or-death decisions, they’ve also had Trump publicly berating them in at least four states. In Ohio on Monday, Trump pulled aside reporters before a rally at the Greater Columbus Convention Center to rail against another fire marshal’s crowd restrictions. "For political reasons, purely for political reasons, they said in this massive building, you're not allowed to have any more than 1,000 people, and that's nonsense. We could've had 4, 5, 6,000 people -- they've all be turned away… It's a disgrace," Trump said in a video that New York Times reporter Nick Corasaniti posted in Twitter. "The fire marshal said he's not allowed to allow any more, even though the building handles many thousands of people. I just want to tell you that's politics at its lowest. You ought to check it out, but it’s really politics at its lowest." PolitiFact did check it out and obtained documents from the Greater Columbus Convention Center that contradicted Trump's claims that his campaign was blindsided by the crowd restrictions. The center’s "event acknowledgement" document, containing the name and contact information for Trump campaign official John Hiller, stated the maximum event capacity was "800+ media (not to exceed 1,000 per Fire marshal and contract)." The document states "This event is by invitation" and it was "Fire marshal approved." The venue license contract was signed July 29 -- three full days before the event -- by Jost, the campaign treasurer, and the convention center general manager. Columbus Fire Department spokesman Steve Martin told the New York Times that Trump's accusations of politics were "completely false." Trump’s ‘battle with America’s firefighters’ What Politico calls the GOP nominee’s "battle with America’s firefighters" has been going on for more than a year. At a February rally at Madison City Stadium in Alabama, Trump twice complained that a fire marshal had shut the gates when the candidate claimed 32,000 were trying to hear him speak, according to AL.com. "Let them come in, Mr. Fire Marshal," Trump urged from the stage. The news website said estimates placed the rally at more than 10,000 people. Then in Phoenix last summer, Trump did an about-face, saying city officials "broke the fire code" by allowing too many people into the convention center room where he was speaking. "Convention Center officials in Phoenix don't want to admit that they broke the fire code by allowing 12-15,000 people in 4,000 code room," Trump tweeted in July 2015. But the Phoenix Fire Department told ABC15 its officials limited the room to 4,200 people and closed the doors once that capacity was reached. "No rules or codes were broken," Deputy Chief Shelly Jamison said. Back in Colorado, other fire marshals are praising Lacey for handling the Trump rally dispute with dispassionate professionalism. "That's what Brett, the fire marshal in Colorado Springs, was trying to ensure -- the safety of the people in there. I don't want to over-crowd. If something does happen, I want to make sure people can get out," said Lowery, the Boulder fire marshal. Our ruling Trump claimed, "We have a fire marshal that said, 'Oh we can't allow more people’....And the reason they won't let them in is because they don't know what the hell they're doing." The Colorado Springs fire marshal laid out a clear explanation of how he set the crowd capacity based on fire codes and the professional calculus of how many people can swiftly and safely be evacuated if an emergency occurs. A Trump campaign official signed a contract agreeing to comply with the fire department’s rules and the campaign was notified of the crowd limits a day before the event. In at least four states, the Republican nominee has accused fire marshals of incompetence or political favoritism during crowd-capacity disputes. But documents often show high-ranking campaign officials agreed to the restrictions in writing ahead of time. Someone call the fire department: This claim is Pants on Fire! https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/379671fc-6bc4-45a4-8513-a07790cedf41 | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-08-03T18:07:14 | 2016-07-29 | ['None'] |
afck-00007 | “ Artisanal and small-scale miners are responsible for 90% of Nigeria’s mineral production” | incorrect | https://africacheck.org/reports/digging-up-the-numbers-on-informal-mining-in-nigeria/ | null | null | null | null | null | Digging up the numbers on informal mining in Nigeria | 2018-10-03 11:09 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03206 | Criminals at gas stations are handing out key rings with transmitters that enable them to track potential burglary or carjacking victims. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/key-crime/ | null | Crime | null | Snopes Staff | null | Are Thieves Handing Out Key Rings at Gas Stations to Track Victims? | 1 September 2008 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04403 | Sherrod Brown "failed to pay his own taxes three separate times." | true | /ohio/statements/2012/oct/17/josh-mandel/josh-mandel-ad-claims-sherrod-brown-failed-pay-his/ | Claims and charges keep flying in the U.S. Senate race between Democratic incumbent Sherrod Brown and Republican Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel. Mandel opened the final month of the campaign with a TV ad focused on Brown's tax lapses. "Sherrod Brown caught not paying his taxes" are the announcer's first words, and the same words are displayed onscreen. In a news release accompanying the ad, Mandel calls Brown "a serial delinquent when it comes to not paying his property taxes" because he "failed to pay his own taxes three separate times." Mandel's campaign cited articles by The Plain Dealer and Associated Press as support for the claim. PolitiFact Ohio looked at those stories and others. We also reviewed records from the District of Columbia's Office of Tax and Revenue. The stories, in February 2012, reported that Brown had paid a penalty fee and interest a week earlier, after being four months late paying property tax on his Washington, D.C., apartment. Brown owed $922.04 in property taxes for the last half of 2011. The taxes were due by Sept. 26, according to the District property tax office. His delinquency added another $76.96 as a late penalty and $46.18 for interest. Brown also was delinquent in 2006 and 2007 and paid penalties and interest, according to tax records from the District. Before he paid the bill in 2007, his apartment was placed on a District of Columbia auction list for properties with taxes in arrears. The delinquencies in 2006 and 2007 resulted in Brown paying a total of $735.07 in late charges and interest. Each of those original tax bills, excluding interest and fines, was for less than $900. Brown was asked about the delinquency during a conference call with reporters last February. He said, "I was late. I misplaced the bill and I paid it as soon as I found out. I paid a penalty for being late, and it won't happen again." He said he also had misplaced the earlier missed bills. "This is a small apartment," he said. "I'm not in D.C. nearly every week, I'm here when the Senate's in session, I'm here three or four nights a week. I paid the penalty. And in no way, obviously, was I avoiding taxes." Brown, who won his Senate seat in 2006 after serving seven terms in the House of Representatives, bought the one-bedroom apartment in 1993. He appeared to have paid the property taxes on time for a dozen years after that. His primary residence is in Avon. Mandel was accurate in saying that Brown failed to pay his taxes three separate times. Brown was late to pay. He did pay the taxes and penalty. There is no indication he was trying to evade the tax, but that wasn’t part of Mandel’s claim, either. On the Truth-O-Meter, the claim in the Mandel campaign ad rates True. | null | Josh Mandel | null | null | null | 2012-10-17T06:00:00 | 2012-10-02 | ['None'] |
snes-04517 | Boogie Woogie Bugle Cloy | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/last-surviving-wwii-veteran-marches-alone-in-memorial-day-parade/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Last Surviving WWII Veteran Marches Alone in Memorial Day Parade? | 5 July 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00084 | Protections on pre-existing conditions have been there since the 1970s. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/nov/01/kevin-cramer/no-protections-pre-existing-conditions-have-not-ex/ | Democratic incumbent Heidi Heitkamp hounded her Republican challenger, Kevin Cramer, on his health care votes in the final North Dakota Senate debate on Oct. 26. Heitkamp pressed Cramer to explain why he had voted multiple times to repeal the Affordable Care Act in the House of Representatives. Cramer said the Republican alternatives he voted for "do guarantee, emphatically, without any ambiguity whatsoever, people with pre-existing conditions." While protections for pre-existing conditions were baked into the multiple ACA replacements, we’ve found the language is not as air tight as under Obamacare. The limits of what insurance companies could charge would have also been watered down, sending premiums to the point that coverage for many would be unattainable. Heitkamp, however, zeroed in on the proposals that were not backed by any alternatives. "But, admit, that when you voted to repeal it without a replacement, what happened? You took away the protections on pre-existing conditions," Heitkamp said. "No, because protections on pre-existing conditions have been there since the 1970s, and North Dakota, under Gov. Ed Schafer, had a plan to cover people in North Dakota," Cramer said. "I trust the governors of North Dakota and our legislature way more than I trust (the federal government)." Have pre-existing conditions been protected in North Dakota for decades? No. "To suggest there was a complete protection of pre-existing conditions under state or federal law is just not accurate," said Kevin Lucia, project director at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute. Cramer’s campaign referred us to the Employee Retirement and Income Security Act of 1974. That regulated various aspects of most employer-provided group health plans. It wasn't until the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act was passed in 1996, however, that federal law limited the ability of such plans to exclude coverage for pre-existing conditions, according to Amy Monahan, a law professor at the University of Minnesota. Cramer did clarify, in the debate and through his campaign, that federal law protected people on group plans, which the majority of people in North Dakota have. "That takes us down to a very small number," Cramer said. But coverage for people in group plans isn’t at stake here; it’s coverage for individuals outside of group plans. That’s about 8 percent of the population in North Dakota. It’s a small number, as Cramer said, but not insignificant. Prior to the ACA, private insurers in the individual market in North Dakota could turn people down because of a pre-existing condition, or exclude coverage for their pre-existing condition. HIPAA provided some protection for people who recently lost job-based coverage to transition into individual coverage, and each state had to figure out how to implement it. North Dakota did that through the Comprehensive Health Association of North Dakota, which went into effect in 1982, effectively predating the law. "Even though technically these plans provided a safety net for people with pre-existing conditions, it was a weak safety net," said Allison Hoffman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania. "For most people, it did not work well because coverage was expensive and limited." Earl Pomeroy, former Insurance Commissioner for North Dakota from 1985 to 1992, said he was unaware of any other state programs that beefed up coverage for pre-existing conditions. The high-risk pool is still in place today, but its protections are limited in comparison to the ACA. Most other states eliminated their own pools after the ACA became law. First, people who are not HIPAA-eligible have to wait six months before coverage begins for their pre-existing conditions, or nine months if they are pregnant. For a cancer patient, that can be six months too many. HIPAA eligibility is conferred by 18 months of qualifying previous coverage and less than a 63-day gap in coverage. Second, the policies cap out at $1 million. "An individual with a serious pre-existing condition could hit that cap pretty quickly and then have no source of coverage after that," said Wendy Netter Epstein, a law professor at DePaul University. Third, premiums can be up to 35 percent more expensive than standard rates. In the individual market in the ACA, there are no lifetime caps and the standard rate is the rate, according to Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation. While rates have been on the rise, the ACA offers sliding scale subsidies for people earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. 87 percent of marketplace enrollees received subsidies in North Dakota this year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Our ruling Cramer said, "Protections on pre-existing conditions have been there since the 1970s." Coverage of pre-existing conditions in group plans has been mandated by law since 1994, not the 1970s. But private insurers in North Dakota could turn down people in the individual market because of a pre-existing condition prior to the ACA. A 1982 state law provided an alternative, but it was not nearly as strong a guarantee of protection for pre-existing conditions as those provided by the ACA. We rate this statement False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Kevin Cramer | null | null | null | 2018-11-01T09:43:21 | 2018-10-26 | ['None'] |
pomt-08688 | The Richardson-Denish administration "gave" 50,000 driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in New Mexico. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/sep/09/susana-martinez/richardson-denish-administration-gave-50000-driver/ | Perhaps it was only a matter of time before New Mexico joined the list of states embroiled in heated debates over immigration policy. In her latest ad, Republican gubernatorial candidate Susana Martinez says that while she gave illegal criminals prison time, the Richardson-Denish administration gave out 50,000 licenses to illegal immigrants. New Mexico is one of only three states in which illegal immigrants may apply for and receive drivers licenses --Utah and Washington are the other two. But we wanted to see whether Martinez's ad tells the full story. First, some background. On March 14, 2003, Gov. Bill Richardson signed a bill that allows individuals without a Social Security number to apply for a New Mexico driver's license. During the registration process, the applicant is asked to provide an alternative means of identification, such as a personal taxpayer identification number, a valid passport issued by the country of citizenship, a Matricula Consular card issued after 2005 by the Mexican consulate or a foreign birth certificate with a notarized English translation. If all checks out, the Motor Vehicles Department will issue a driver's license, regardless of the applicant's immigration status. In 2003, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Diane Denish was Richardson's lieutenant governor, so it is fair to say that she carries at least some responsibility for the policy, which in effect allowed illegal immigrants to apply for and receive a New Mexico driver's license. Proponents of the law said that it was a question of public safety. With a driver's license comes a driving record, which means that the police can keep track of dangerous drivers. It also meant that all drivers could buy insurance. Still, we find that the ad is misleading on major points. First, the number 50,000. According to Martinez's ad, that's how many illegal immigrants received a driver's license since the policy took effect. But S.U. Mahesh, a spokesman for the New Mexico's MVD, wrote us in an e-mail that the state does not track how many licenses it issues to those who are in the country illegally. Since 2003, it has issued around 80,000 licenses to foreign nationals, but there are no official statistics on how many of those were illegal immigrants. When we asked Martinez's campaign staff where the number came from, we were referred to two articles. In June 2010, The Albuquerque Journal reported that "more than 50,000 immigrants have obtained driver's licenses since 2003." Since the actual number is around 80,000, the newspaper's statement is technically accurate. But unlike Martinez, the article says "immigrants," not "illegal immigrants." The other account used the 80,000 figure. Second, Martinez claims that Denish "gave" driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, but that is an over-simplification. Before Gov. Richardson signed the legislation, it had to receive stamp of approval from the New Mexico legislature. Moreover, the MVD does not automatically hand out drivers licenses. While it does not check the individual's immigration status, the MVD works with the Mexican and other governments to verify an applicant's identity. And as of July 2010, individuals without a Social Security number must schedule an appointment at the MVD in advance. The measure is aimed at making it easier for MVD clerks to review application documents in more detail, said MVD Director Michael Sandoval. The ad also fails to point out that Denish has publicly said that she no longer supports the law because it has not worked as intended. "Diane Denish does not support giving driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and would seek to change that law," Chris Cervini, Denish's deputy campaign director, wrote in an e-mail to PolitiFact. The New Mexico Independent reported in July, 2010 that "Denish has said she’d consider stopping the issuance of licenses going forward." Her opponent, Martinez, has said she would go even further, revoking licenses already issued. Neither candidate has directly answered how she would deal with the consequences of ending the policy, including an uptick in the state's uninsured rate, according to the Independent. So let's go back over what we've found. Martinez says that Diane Denish "gave" 50,000 licenses to illegal immigrants. First, the MVD doesn't just hand out drivers licenses: It takes steps to verify an individual's identity, and the rules are getting tougher. Second, while it's reasonable to believe that some of the immigrants who received licenses under the policy are in the country illegally, the numbers don't support the claim. The state doesn't keep track of how many licenses are issued to illegal immigrants, so all we can be sure of is that since 2003, 80,000 foreign nationals have received drivers licenses. Third, while Denish supported the measure when it was enacted, the ad conveniently ignores Denish's public statements that she no longer supports the policy. Finally, the ad equates being a non-citizen with being an illegal immigrant. For us, it adds up to 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 | Susana Martinez | null | null | null | 2010-09-09T17:49:45 | 2010-08-31 | ['None'] |
pomt-09657 | A new Republican litmus test "would have resulted in (the GOP) kicking out Ronald Reagan." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/dec/01/keith-olbermann/olbermann-says-proposed-gop-litmus-test-would-free/ | To enforce ideological purity, a proposal before the Republican National Committee would deny party funding to any GOP candidate who bucks the party's stance on at least three items from a 10-point checklist of issues. The idea has sparked controversy within the Republican Party, and Democrats have seized on it as ammunition for their claim that the GOP has become too rigidly doctrinaire to appeal to many American voters. Keith Olbermann, the liberal host of Countdown on MSNBC, welcomed the proposal on his Nov. 23, 2009, show as evidence that Republicans are out of the mainstream. Olbermann told viewers that the resolution -- which invoked the name of former President Ronald Reagan six times in its preamble -- would have effectively blackballed Reagan himself had it been in place during his political career. By Olbermann's count, the late conservative icon would have scored a measly four out of 10 -- just half of the eight he would have needed to secure financial backing from the party. As we looked at the Republican proposal, we were struck by how specific its 10 items are to today's political environment. Reagan didn't have to consider wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or the prospect of gay marriage, for example. As a result, just a few of the checklist items can be directly compared to the issues Reagan faced, first during two terms as California governor and then as a two-term president. Because of this uncertainty, we won't rate Reagan -- or Olbermann -- in detail on each of the 10 issues. But if three problematic issues for Reagan exist, we think it's fair to say that he'd lose funds under the terms of today's proposal. We'll start by pointing out the one issue of the 10 that presents a clear case of Reagan overstepping today's Republican orthodoxy: • "We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants." In 1986, Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, which provided a path to amnesty for illegal immigrants who could prove that they had been in the United States for a certain period of time. Case closed. In the meantime, we settled upon six issues that we don't think can be used as fair comparisons, even though Olbermann did cite a few of them as examples of Reagan's unorthodox behavior on related issues. They are: • "We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government-run health care." • "We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation." • "We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check." • "We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges." • "We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat." • "We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act." While health care, energy policy, labor rights, military strategy, foreign affairs and gay rights were issues in Reagan's day just as they are today, we concluded that the battles in Reagan's time, and in ours, had enough unique factors that it's impossible to be sure what his actions then would have meant about the policy debates of today. That leaves three issues to determine whether Olbermann is right that Reagan would have been denied GOP funding. One is: • "We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion." Six months into his governorship in 1967, Reagan signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act, which has been widely described as the most liberal abortion law in the nation before the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Roe vs. Wade . Among other things, it permitted California's government-run Medicaid program to pay for abortions. "Reagan later admitted that abortion had been 'a subject I’d never given much thought to,'" wrote Paul Kengor and Patricia Clark Doerner, co-authors of "The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand" in the National Review , a conservative magazine. "Moreover, his aides were divided on the question. ... Years later, Reagan remarked that he did 'more studying and soul searching' on the issue than any other as governor." Ultimately, Kengor and Doerner wrote, Reagan signed the bill, fearing that the Legislature would be able to override his veto and pass an even more sweeping measure. But that was far from the end of the story. Reagan biographer Lou Cannon told PolitiFact that "one of the reasons that Reagan became an opponent of abortion is that so many abortions were performed under the Therapeautic Abortion Act of 1967" -- more, even, than the bill's sponsors had envisioned. So, during the remainder of his political career, Reagan used his bully pulpit aggressively to oppose abortion. His presidential administration made some tangible antiabortion moves, such as instituting the "Mexico City policy," which denied foreign aid funding to groups that "perform or actively promote" abortion. The second is: • "We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership." As governor in 1967, Reagan signed the Mulford Act, which forbade the carrying of weapons in public. Later, in a 1991 speech, the former president spoke in favor of the Brady Bill -- a measure aggressively opposed by gun-rights groups that would establish a waiting period for gun purchases, so that law enforcement officials could conduct a background check on the purchaser. The law was named for Reagan's former press secretary, James Brady, who was seriously injured in John Hinckley's 1981 attempt on Reagan's life. (The bill was first introduced in Congress in 1987 and never made it to Reagan's desk during his presidency; Bill Clinton eventually signed it in 1993.) Despite these two actions, Reagan, as president, was generally a supporter of gun rights. Upon his death in 2004, the National Rifle Association eulogized him as a "hunter, rancher and outdoorsman," as a life member of the group, and as the first sitting president to address the NRA at an annual meeting. In addition, he signed the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, which included some provisions that tightened rules on gun ownership but which also eased many existing rules on firearms. It is generally considered a victory for the NRA rather than for gun-control forces. On both guns and abortion, then, Reagan unquestionably broke with today's Republican orthodoxy on one or more occasions -- but he also did things that were fully consistent with that orthodoxy. Finally, we'll look at the item dealing with fiscal policy. It's a bit complicated because it contains four parts: • "We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s 'stimulus' bill" Reagan gets unalloyed credit for sticking to the Republican principle of lowering taxes. When he entered office, the top marginal income tax rate was 70 percent. By the time he left office, it was 28 percent. Measured another way , the effective individual income tax rates dropped for Americans in many tax brackets, not just the richest. Judging whether Reagan promoted "smaller government" is trickier. For starters, "smaller government" could be defined to include such intangible factors as decreased regulation rather than just federal outlays. But even looking at federal spending, the trendlines are somewhat contradictory. Overall federal outlays increased by 57 percent over eight years, or about 7 percent a year. However, much of that increase was driven by defense spending. Looking at nondefense discretionary spending, the rise was much more modest -- 16 percent over eight years, or about 2 percent a year. Because that was less than the average rate of inflation during his presidency, some economists would consider that a cut. That said, it's pretty clear that Reagan didn't stick to the other two elements of this item -- deficits and debt. The average annual deficit during Reagan's presidency was $167 billion, with shortfalls ranging from $79 billion to $221 billion. By contrast, his two immediate predecessors, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford never ran a deficit larger than $74 billion, and the president before them, Richard Nixon, never produced a deficit bigger than $23 billion. (Nixon even recorded a modest surplus in 1969.) As for the national debt, it rose from about $953 billion when Reagan took office to roughly $2.7 trillion when he left -- a bit less than three times its initial size. So on this item, too, both sides can pick and choose their evidence to show that Reagan did, or didn't, adhere to Republican fiscal orthodoxy. It's possible to draw at least two conclusions based on Reagan's example. One is that Reagan -- perhaps unhappily for ideologues on both the right and the left -- did not have immutable principles throughout his entire political life. He was a politician -- one who had to respond to his constituents, as well as to the specific demands and constraints of his office, whether it was governor or president. The other conclusion to draw is that parties themselves do not necessarily have immutable principles. Reagan's biographer Cannon points out that at the time the California Legislature passed the abortion bill, "more Republicans supported it than Democrats. That's because the issue was then seen almost entirely in religious terms, and there were more Roman Catholics among the Democratic legislators than the Republicans. In 1967, most Republicans agreed with the mantra of keeping the government out of the bedroom and the boardroom. ... So Reagan went along with the prevailing doctrine of his party at the time." Similarly, when the Legislature passed the Mulford Act, it won the support not just of liberal gun-control advocates but also of conservatives, who saw it as a way to weaken the growing power of the radical Black Panther movement, according to Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law, Volume 1 . When Reagan signed both the gun bill and the abortion bill, then, one can easily argue that he was actually adhering to the conservatism of the time, even as he bucked the conservatism of today. This contrast underscores the challenges facing Olbermann and others who seek to discredit the RNC proposal. Indeed, the lead sponsor of the RNC resolution, James Bopp Jr., acknowledged as much after liberal attacks like Olbermann's began to emerge. According to the New York Times ' Caucus blog, Bopp "noted that the principles would change over time. ... Many of these were not issues in the 1980s, like cap and trade, card check, stimulus bill, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Obamacare. So these were not measures that Reagan took a stand on, but I have no doubt that he would be right on each one. If we were proposing this resolution in 1981 for the 1982 election cycle, we would list, strategic missile defense, Reagan’s tax cuts, etc. He was right on those issues." But our mission here is not to critique the usefulness of Bopp's 10-point checklist; it's to judge whether Olbermann is right to say that Reagan would have fallen short on three or more items. On one item (amnesty for illegal immigrants) Reagan definitely broke with today's conservative orthodoxy. But on three others (abortion, gun control and fiscal policy) evidence exists in either direction. So, deciding whether Reagan qualifies under the rules of the resolution ends up being a tough call with evidence for both sides. We rate Olbermann's assertion Half True. | null | Keith Olbermann | null | null | null | 2009-12-01T16:52:25 | 2009-11-23 | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Ronald_Reagan'] |
pomt-15048 | There’s no money for Planned Parenthood in the bill that would keep the government open. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/29/tom-cole/there-planned-parenthood-funding-bill-stops-govern/ | Congress needs to pass a spending bill by Sept. 30, 2015, or there’ll be a government shutdown. Some members of Congress want to leverage this deadline to defund Planned Parenthood. But the bill Congress will likely pass -- a short-term spending bill that funds the government through Dec. 11 -- doesn’t include funding for Planned Parenthood to begin with, said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., on Fox News Sunday Sept. 27. So Congress shouldn’t shut down the government over funding the women’s health organization. "Well, first of all, look, on Planned Parenthood -- there's no money in the short-term (spending bill) for Planned Parenthood," Cole said. "Ninety percent of their money comes from Medicaid, not from anything we're going to do. And the remainder is awarded on what are called grants. They're all done in about April. There's none left to do this year, literally none. So, the idea that we're fighting over money for Planned Parenthood is -- it's a canard. It's just not true." Is it true that this spending bill -- which could shut down the government if it’s not passed -- doesn’t include any money for Planned Parenthood? We decided to find out. Federal budget and Planned Parenthood funding To understand what Cole’s talking about, we need to consider a key distinction in the federal budget. For the most part, federal spending is either mandatory or discretionary. The mandatory category includes what are commonly referred to as entitlement programs, such as Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security. Annual spending for these programs is based on the number of people eligible for the program. Mandatory spending effectively runs on autopilot unless Congress changes this formula. Discretionary spending goes toward pretty much everything else. Congress determines the amount of discretionary spending -- program by program -- through the annual appropriations process. When we talk about getting a budget or else the government will shut down, we’re talking about discretionary spending, because that’s what funds most agencies and government salaries. Keep that distinction in mind as we break down where Planned Parenthood’s federal funding comes from. Planned Parenthood receives about $450 million each year in federal funds. Government funding (including state funding, too) accounts for about 41 percent of Planned Parenthood’s yearly revenue, according to the group’s annual report. Of the $450 million in annual federal funds, about $390 million comes from Medicaid. Less than $1 million comes from other entitlement programs: Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Medicaid provides subsidized health care for poor Americans, and Planned Parenthood provides a significant number of poor women with reproductive health care. So nearly 90 percent of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding comes from entitlement programs, a.k.a. mandatory spending. Meaning it’s not part of the appropriations process. The remaining 10 percent does come from discretionary spending, meaning it’s normally up for debate in the appropriations process. The $60 million comes from grants under the National Family Planning Program -- known commonly as Title X because it operates under Title X of the Public Health Service Act. However, this remainder is also not at issue at the moment. Right now, Congress is trying to pass a short-term bill that would fund the government through Dec. 11, while it comes up with a more comprehensive budget bill. Next year’s Title X grants will not be awarded until late spring, and all of this year’s grants have already been given out. So Title X grants are not included in this short-term funding bill. But just because this bill doesn’t include appropriations for Planned Parenthood doesn’t mean that members of Congress can’t use it as a vehicle for defunding the organization in future legislation. Bill language Those who want to defund Planned Parenthood by leveraging funding for the rest of the government have advocated for including language in the short-term spending bill that zeros out all funding -- even if the funding isn’t accounted for in that particular bill. The language likely would look something like the proposed Defund Planned Parenthood Act: "Passage of the bill that would bar, for one year, federal funding for Planned Parenthood and its affiliates unless they certify that, during that period, they will not perform abortions or provide funds to other entities that perform abortions. The prohibition would apply to all federal funds, including Medicaid." If that language were to become law, the effect would be immediate, said Joshua Huder, senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute. However, Congress normally doesn’t change mandatory spending through the appropriations process because "it doesn’t make political sense," he said. Reforming entitlement programs is an uphill battle, and attaching it to an appropriations bill doesn’t change that. "It basically dooms the bill and guarantees a shutdown because those programs are so politically contentious," he said. Additionally, the Appropriations Committee would be stepping on other committees’ toes, Huder added. Legislating on appropriations bills is technically against the rules, though the House can waive that rule. In any case, it appears that a "clean" short-term spending bill (which doesn’t zero out Planned Parenthood funding) will pass Sept. 29 or 30, pushing this fight off to December. Our ruling Cole said, "There’s no money" for Planned Parenthood in the bill that would keep the government open. Congress could include language in the bill that would kill Planned Parenthood funding accounted for in other legislation. This would be an unusual move by Congress and would launch a major political fight. But Cole is correct that the short-term funding bill that Congress is slated to pass does not itself fund Planned Parenthood -- largely because this bill addresses discretionary spending, while the vast majority of Planned Parenthood’s federal funding comes from mandatory spending through the Medicaid program. We rate Cole’s claim True. | null | Tom Cole | null | null | null | 2015-09-29T15:54:02 | 2015-09-27 | ['None'] |
pose-01188 | Allowing credits to transfer more freely enables aspiring students to take advantage of junior and community college cost savings. | compromise | https://www.politifact.com/texas/promises/abbott-o-meter/promise/1278/require-some-public-colleges-accept-credits-earned/ | null | abbott-o-meter | Greg Abbott | null | null | Require some public colleges to accept credits earned at community colleges | 2015-01-20T14:00:00 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01608 | Wisconsin’s dead last in Midwest job growth. | true | /wisconsin/statements/2014/aug/31/mary-burke/mary-burke-says-wisconsin-ranks-last-midwest-job-g/ | If Mary Burke has said it once, she’s said it a thousand times: "Wisconsin’s dead last in Midwest job growth." The Democratic candidate for governor uses the line in TV ads, in interviews and her stump speech, all aimed at countering Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s message that "Wisconsin is back on" after the Great Recession. Burke’s allies repeat the claim. One example, from a Burke campaign television spot that first aired in July 2014: "It’s Walker’s agency that gave millions in tax breaks to companies that relocated jobs overseas. Another reason Wisconsin’s dead last in Midwest job growth." As this is spoken, the TV spot rolls through a list of nine states before settling on Wisconsin at the bottom: North Dakota, Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Iowa and Illinois. With a new Walker TV ad bragging that we’re third in the Midwest in job growth, we thought it was time to look at both claims. In both cases, and like so many claims in a campaign that any numbers nerd would love, evaluation depends on two things: the timeframe and the measuring stick. In the Burke ad, the narrator in the spot doesn’t say what time frame was analyzed. But the fine print in the ad cites data collected for the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages. And the footnote says the ad compares quarter four of 2010 -- the last before Walker took office -- to quarter four of 2013. That is still the latest available quarterly data. That data, reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is considered the most exhaustive and credible for employment trends. It is based on a census of 96 percent of all American non-farm employers. Our examination of the data for the three-year period cited by Burke shows Wisconsin 10th out of the 10 states -- "dead last" -- just below Illinois when it comes to growth in private-sector jobs. "The low growth in jobs in Wisconsin has been matched by very low income growth and poor levels of consumer spending," University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee labor economist John Heywood told us. "The state has been slower than its peers in recovering from the recession." Nationally, Wisconsin ranked 35th. Here’s the regional picture: State and midwest ranking on percentage growth in jobs Dec. 2010-Dec. 2013 Percentage change in employment National rank on percentage change 1. North Dakota 21.90% 1st 2. Michigan 8.71% 6th 3. Indiana 6.88% 15th 4. Minnesota 6.29% 20th 5. Nebraska 5.71% 24th 6. Ohio 5.65% 25th 7. South Dakota 5.28% 27th 8. Iowa 5.20% 28th 9. Illinois 4.21% 33th 10. Wisconsin 4.04% 35th Burke ranks the states by the percentage of growth. That is preferred by economists for state-by-state comparisons because it shows performance regardless of the state’s population. By another measure -- raw number of jobs created -- Wisconsin ranked sixth-best of the 10 states, we found. Limitations to the data There are two statistical points to consider. The most important is the definition of "Midwest." Both Burke and Walker use the 10 states we mentioned. There’s a good case to be made for that: The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Midwest regional office covers those 10 states. We found other instances in which the agency adds Missouri and Kansas into the Midwestern mix, for a total of 12 states. In that larger group, Wisconsin finishes 11th of 12, ahead of Missouri. Previously we rated Half True a Burke claim in January 2014 that Wisconsin was last in the Midwest. The numbers worked out, but we faulted Burke mainly for a too-narrow comparison. She said Midwest, but looked only at the four states adjoining Wisconsin. We noted that at that time, before the 2013 numbers were complete, that Ohio and Nebraska (from the group of 10) and Missouri (from the more expansive BLS group of 12) had slower growth rates than Wisconsin. Finally, because it’s so comprehensive, reporting of the quarterly jobs data lags by at least six months, meaning the picture may be a bit outdated by the time it is released. The next quarterly jobs figures, covering the first quarter of 2014, are set for mid-September release. There is more recent jobs data available, from the monthly Current Employment Statistics surveys, but it’s based on a sample of only about 3 percent of employers. Those figures are prone to large margins of error but are also a widely cited source on job trends. Walker has called the quarterly data the "gold standard," and has criticized the monthly data. But he has cited the monthly data, and does so in his new ad. Burke has used both at various times as well. Indeed, she was using the less-reliable monthly data back when we rated her earlier worst-in-Midwest claim Half True. Our rating Mary Burke contends that "Wisconsin’s dead last in Midwest job growth." In the new version of this claim, she uses the most accurate jobs data for the longest Walker-era period that can be analyzed with it. And Wisconsin does bring up the rear. But due to the lag time, it does not reflect the most current trends. We rate the claim True. ...... Deciphering jobs claims Voters will hear many more jobs claims before the Nov. 4 election. Here are five tips for separating fact from fiction -- and hype from hard evidence -- when it comes to candidates and the numbers they use. Check the timeframe: If the statement covers a short period, it can be a red flag for cherry-picking data to find a good result. A longer time frame may be being used to mask more recent changes. Check the data source: The quarterly jobs numbers are more accurate than the monthly figures, but also more out of date. Be more skeptical of recent announcement about the monthly numbers, because they are subject to revisions can be significant. Raw numbers or percentages?: If the claim is that State X added more jobs than State Y, the statement may have limited information value. Look for percentage growth figures that level the playing field among states of varying sizes. Check the map: When the claim is "best in the region," trust but verify. Are all relevant states included? Scrutinize the sector: Most claims focus on just the private sector, but sometimes partisans will add in public employees if it suits their purpose. | null | Mary Burke | null | null | null | 2014-08-31T11:00:00 | 2014-07-18 | ['Midwestern_United_States', 'Wisconsin'] |
pomt-04940 | Says U.S. is giving seven Alaskan islands to Russia. | false | /texas/statements/2012/jul/27/wes-riddle/wes-riddle-says-us-giving-seven-alaskan-islands-ru/ | Liberal magazine Mother Jones ran a news analysis July 24, 2012, picked up by HuffingtonPost.com, that linked a Texas congressional candidate’s claim to one that was earlier found false by a fact-checking outfit. The article says Wes Riddle, who faces Roger Williams in a July 31 runoff for the Republican nomination in the state's 25th Congressional District, posted on Facebook in May 2012 that "the State Department is giving away seven strategic, resource-laden Alaskan islands to Russia." The story says his post resembled a question FactCheck.org had tackled two months earlier. Riddle’s Facebook page did not have that post when we peeked, but we found Google’s cached version. The May 16 post said that once elected, Riddle vows to start impeachment proceedings against President Barack Obama and that the reasoning behind such action begins with the Alaskan island giveaway, as quoted by Mother Jones. Six weeks earlier, in a March 27, 2012 item, FactCheck had addressed an "e-rumor" containing a similar statement. "It is simply false to claim that Obama is ‘giving away’ islands to which no U.S. president has asserted a claim for more than 85 years, if ever," wrote FactCheck, which is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania. The text version of the rumor that FactCheck examined gives several specifics that also appear in Riddle’s post. Among them: The seven islands and their many miles of "rich oil seabeds" were "given away," the text says, in secret negotiations from which Alaska was excluded. But Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could stop the process with a pen stroke, it says. FactCheck’s findings: Although after a U.S. Navy survey in 1881, the U.S. Geological Survey listed five of the islands as being in the "District of Alaska," the United States has never claimed them or disputed the Soviet or Russian claim to them. "All lie on the Russian side of the U.S.-Russia maritime boundary set by a treaty that the U.S. Senate ratified overwhelmingly more than two decades ago, after being signed by President George H.W. Bush, and with the support of both of Alaska’s senators," FactCheck wrote, going on to explain that the treaty was made with the Soviet Union before its 1991 collapse and never ratified by Russia, but that Russia informed the U.S. it intended to abide by the terms. Though this is an old issue, FactCheck said, it resurfaced in a Feb. 26, 2012, opinion piece by Joe Miller, a former Alaskan candidate for U.S. Senate. Miller’s piece on the conservative site World Net Daily is similar in wording and content to the "viral" text FactCheck examined and to Riddle’s item. Like Riddle’s claim that the U.S. "is giving away" the islands, many versions of the rumor that we found online state or imply that Obama’s administration has an active role. White House spokesman Brandon Lepow told us by email that current U.S. policy in the Arctic is described in a 2009 State Department fact sheet, which says the U.S. and Russia are not discussing boundary changes. Lepow said there has been no change to the policy. The 1990 treaty sets the modern maritime boundary at the line drawn when the U.S. bought Alaska from Russia -- or more specifically, the "Emperor of all the Russias" -- in 1867. By telephone, Riddle told us that he stands by his statement, but said, "I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t get some bad information that we ran with. That’s possible. It’s a cautionary note for anybody." Riddle said he did not know of the FactCheck.org item until we called him. "It’s hard these days to judge the veracity of information," he said. "Obviously, it’s important to do so, and before anyone develops specific policy, not only to develop positions but to check everything." He also pointed out that, as FactCheck noted, Russia has not ratified the 1990 treaty, and says he would favor renegotiating it. Our ruling Though Riddle took the item off his Facebook page, he stands by it, so we’ll ratify our colleagues’ findings and rate his statement False. | null | Wes Riddle | null | null | null | 2012-07-27T19:28:36 | 2012-05-16 | ['United_States', 'Russia', 'Alaska'] |
wast-00178 | Hillary Clinton and her campaign of 2008, started the birther controversy. | 4 pinnochios | ERROR: type should be string, got " https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2016/09/16/recidivism-watch-trump-repeats-debunked-claim-that-clinton-started-the-birther-controversy/" | null | null | Donald Trump | Michelle Ye Hee Lee | null | Recidivism Watch: Trump repeats debunked claim that Clinton \xe2\x80\x98started the birther controversy' | September 16, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02198 | An Indian man who was bitten by a snake then bit his wife because he wanted them to 'die together.' | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/indian-man-snake-bite-wife/ | null | Viral Phenomena | null | Arturo Garcia | null | Did an Indian Man Bite His Wife After a Snake Bit Him? | 15 June 2017 | null | ['India'] |
tron-02389 | President Obama Gives U.S. Marines a ‘Latte Salute’ | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/obama-latte-salute/ | null | military | null | null | null | President Obama Gives U.S. Marines a ‘Latte Salute’ | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Barack_Obama', 'United_States_Marine_Corps'] |
pomt-05450 | I have always said that I would be for drilling. | pants on fire! | /florida/statements/2012/apr/25/connie-mack/connie-mack-says-i-have-always-said-i-would-be-dri/ | U.S. Rep. Connie Mack, running in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, held an event at a Miami gas station to urge the public to sign his petition calling for the Keystone XL Pipeline. "I have always said that I would be for drilling," Mack said on April 5, 2012, according to the Miami Herald’s Naked Politics blog. "But I think that’s an issue the state should have a say in – in determining how far it’s going to be off the coast of Florida. We ought to allow the state to have a say in that decision." The report pointed out several past quotes from Mack bashing proposals for drilling close to Florida. We decided to put the issue to our Truth-O-Meter: Was Mack mischaracterizing his own past statements when he said he "always" was for drilling? When he wasn't for drilling As we investigated, we found that when then-state Rep. Mack ran for Congress in 2004, he pledged to maintain the ban on drilling off Florida’s coast. And if there was a high point to him sticking to that pledge, it was 2005. That year, Mack issued multiple statements criticizing a proposal to allow drilling closer to Florida, saying that it would hurt Florida’s "pristine" or "fragile" coastline and describing it as "risky" and "reckless." In a statement on Sept. 28, 2005, Mack called himself a "longtime opponent of drilling off Florida’s coast." Yes, Congress needed to take action to lower gas prices, he said. "But allowing drilling off Florida’s pristine coastline won’t reduce America’s pain at the pump. Instead of taking steps that will expose Florida’s fragile environment and our economy to severe and irreparable harm, we would be better served by expanding America’s refining capabilities, investing in new energy technologies, furthering commercial and consumer adoption of more energy efficient products, and increasing conservation." We found similar statements from Mack in 2005 on Sept. 29, Oct. 3, Oct. 24, Oct. 26, Nov. 3 and Nov. 10. Cracks in the opposition Mack continued his opposition in 2006, saying in May, "I applaud my colleagues for saying (no to) reckless plans that could have allowed drilling as close as three miles off Florida’s shores." But 2006 was the year that the Florida delegation started to split on drilling. Before then, the delegation had nearly unanimous bipartisan opposition to drilling, said Mark Ferrulo, executive director of Progress Florida, who has tracked drilling legislation since the 1990s. (The exception: U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park. "His brother is a lobbyist for the oil industry, and (he) doesn’t have a coastline that was threatened," Ferrulo said.) In June 2006, a vote was held on the the Deep Oceans Energy Resources Act, to create a smaller, 50-mile buffer on Florida’s coast. Fourteen of Florida’s 25-member House delegation voted in favor of the smaller zone, but Mack voted against it. He said in a press release that he voted against it because an amendment wasn’t included in the bill that would have given Florida control over drilling decisions. In December, the House overwhelmingly voted for a bill that was considered a compromise: It opened up 8.3 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico to drilling while protecting Florida’s 125-mile buffer. Mack explained his support: "I’m pleased the House has adopted important legislation that will codify new and stronger protections against offshore drilling for Florida’s Gulf Coast. Without enacting these protections, Florida faced a precarious future on the question of drilling off our fragile shore. "While I would have preferred a solution that empowered states like Florida to determine their own destiny on this important issue, today’s legislation provides a sound solution that will protect our precious environment and our economy." A switch in position Flash forward to the summer of 2008. Consumers were angry about $4-a-gallon gas, and the phrase "drill, baby, drill" was a Republican mantra. Presidential candidate John McCain called for lifting the federal moratorium along the Outer Continental Shelf and giving states incentives to lift the ban. Some Republicans, including then-Gov. Charlie Crist, who was a contender to be McCain’s vice president, and U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., ditched their previous opposition. And so did Mack. Mack told Fox News on June 16 that the United States needed to expand domestic production, including drilling off the coast of Florida. He explained his change of mind in a June 17 press release: "For years I have said states should have the right to decide whether or not they want to allow drilling off their shores. But circumstances have changed, I have changed, and I believe the people of Florida have changed. We’re facing a serious energy emergency, and we need to take real steps to bolster our energy independence and security. The people of Florida deserve the right to decide whether to drill off our coast." The political winds had shifted. "Prior to now, this was not an issue that elected officials really wanted to engage in," said Justin Sayfie, a former spokesman for former Gov. Jeb Bush, at the time. "I just think it speaks volumes about the pain at the pump that motorists are feeling." Then came the Deepwater Horizon explosion and spill in 2010. Mack took a cautious approach, saying before a decision is made on banning offshore drilling, the country must understand what went wrong. But generally, he still supported offshore drilling, saying in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference that domestic drilling needed to continue "across the United States and in our waters." Mack campaign spokesman David James sent us a statement acknowledging that Mack’s views have "evolved" on drilling. "Connie has been a steadfast proponent of a strong national security and has always supported increasing our domestic energy supply by drilling in ANWR (the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), and he has been a champion of building the Keystone XL Pipeline," James said. "At the same time there's no dispute that Connie has always wanted to make certain that we protect Florida's shores. That hasn't changed. But four years ago, in the summer of 2008, Connie announced that his position with respect to drilling off Florida's coast evolved as our national energy security needs changed too. That's been well documented. And those needs have only grown all the more important." We are focusing our evaluation of Mack on drilling near Florida -- not Alaska -- since he is a congressman running for Senate in Florida. But we will briefly note his position on ANWR. For the years that drilling in ANWR appears on the scorecards of the League of Conservation Voters, it shows that Mack consistently voted as the League calls it "anti-environment" -- including in 2005 and 2006 and 2011. Mack was absent for that vote in 2008, but in an article that year he denounced a plan to impose restrictions on drilling in ANWR. In 2012, Florida’s congressional delegation remains split on more drilling off the coast of Florida. "We have never gotten back to a unified front of opposition against expanding drilling," Ferrulo said. Our ruling Mack said, "I have always said that I would be for drilling. But I think that’s an issue the state should have a say in – in determining how far it’s going to be off the coast of Florida. We ought to allow the state to have a say in that decision." But Mack didn’t always say he was in favor of drilling. In 2005, he repeatedly said he was against allowing drilling closer to Florida’s shores. He has since changed his stance, as did many other Republicans in 2008 amid high gas prices and a presidential campaign. "Always" means at all times -- not sometimes, or the past few years, or in Alaska. At one time, Mack very much opposed drilling off Florida's coast. His comment that he's "always" been for drilling misrepresents his actual record on a very high-profile issue in the state of Florida. We rate his statement Pants on Fire! | null | Connie Mack | null | null | null | 2012-04-25T14:06:56 | 2012-04-05 | ['None'] |
chct-00212 | The Trump Administration Claims To Have Fired Over 1,500 Employees. That's Actually A Lowball | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/02/01/fact-check-has-the-trump-admin-fired-over-1500-va-employees/ | null | null | null | Emily Larsen | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 12:37 PM 02/01/2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07035 | Gov. Chris Christie owes the state money "for amenities like extra Gorgonzola cheese for his staff on these trips." | false | /new-jersey/statements/2011/jul/03/new-jersey-democratic-state-committee/new-jersey-democrats-say-gov-chris-christie-owes-s/ | If New Jersey voters thought Gov. Chris Christie’s helicopter rides to his son’s baseball games were inappropriate, Democrats have another example of personal spending on the public dime -- Gorgonzola cheese. Two days after Christie took a helicopter for the second time to one of his son’s baseball games, the New Jersey Democratic State Committee issued a press release calling on the Republican governor to disclose information about previous taxpayer-funded travel for Christie and his staff. "Previous public records requests have yielded a significant number of blacked out pages with redactions," according to the June 2 press release. "However, these documents do show that the Governor continues to owe thousands of dollars to the state for his travel, as well as for amenities like extra Gorgonzola cheese for his staff on these trips." The press release concluded with a link to dozens of documents provided to the Democrats by the governor’s office, showing travel expenses between February and October 2010. PolitiFact New Jersey started scanning those documents for the suspect cheese and found copies of receipts for it. For two trips in July 2010, Daniel Robles, an aide to the governor, sought reimbursements for a total of two roast beef sandwiches with Gorgonzola cheese. What did each topping of Gorgonzola cheese cost New Jersey taxpayers? Ninety-nine cents. Jason Springer, communications director for the New Jersey Democratic State Committee and the author of the press release, acknowledged that Democrats erred in claiming Christie should reimburse the state for Gorgonzola cheese. That reference was meant to illustrate the type of information being disclosed, compared to the redactions, he said. "I’m apologizing as well. It was my responsibility for the inaccuracy," Springer told us. State regulations show that Robles could be reimbursed for the roast beef sandwiches. For the two days when Robles bought the sandwiches, he sought reimbursements for $28.54 and $7.57 in meal expenses, respectively. Robles could have sought reimbursement for up to $71 per day for meals and incidental expenses on those trips, according to data on the U.S. General Services Administration’s website. Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said staff members traveling with the governor are subject to the same per-diem limits as other state employees, and expenses are scrutinized. "Are you under the impression that staff traveling with the governor can go to swank restaurants and charge drinks and fine dining to the state?" Drewniak wrote in an email. "They cannot and they do not." Now, let’s take a quick look at the Democrats’ overall claim that Christie "continues to owe thousands of dollars to the state for his travel." According to Springer, that claim is based on research done by Courier Post columnist Jeremy Rosen. In an April 28 column, Rosen wrote that public records show Christie's administration still owed the state about $2,488 for personal expenses on trips last fall. But here’s the problem: the Democrats’ press release didn’t mention Rosen, leaving readers with the impression that the Democrats’ own public records show Christie owes money. Springer said those records were provided in the press release to illustrate the redactions made by the governor’s office. In a Nov. 23 letter to the Democratic State Committee -- included in the documents linked to in the press release -- Raymond Brandes, assistant counsel to the governor, wrote, "certain records have been withheld or redacted on the basis of the executive privilege and the security risk exception to (the Open Public Records Act)." Most of the expenses outlined in the documents included in the Democrats’ press release show business-related items. According to those documents, the governor and first lady submitted two checks to the state totaling about $1,800. About $125 still had to be repaid to the state, according to those documents. Let’s review: The New Jersey Democratic State Committee said in a press release that Christie owed the state money for "extra Gorgonzola cheese for his staff on these trips." A Democratic spokesman told us that statement was inaccurate, and state regulations support reimbursement for those meals. The Democrats’ claim that Christie owes money is based on a newspaper column, but that’s not cited in the press release. The Democrats’ own records prove that information has been withheld by the governor’s office, but don’t show that Christie owes much money. PolitiFact New Jersey enjoys a roast beef sandwich just as much as the next person, but to claim that the governor should fork over dough for Gorgonzola cheese is just wrong. We rate this statement False. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. | null | New Jersey Democratic State Committee | null | null | null | 2011-07-03T05:15:00 | 2011-06-02 | ['Chris_Christie'] |
snes-04133 | A photograph shows members of the U.S. government sitting during the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stand-pledge-of-allegiance-congress/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Members of Congress Sit During Pledge of Allegiance? | 31 August 2016 | null | ['United_States'] |
goop-01623 | Demi Lovato, Jesse Williams Dating, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/demi-lovato-jesse-williams-dating-flirting-wrong/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Demi Lovato, Jesse Williams NOT Dating, Despite Reports | 11:11 am, February 8, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01407 | Rep. Joe Barton said "wind is a finite resource and harnessing it would slow the winds down, which would cause the temperature to go up." | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/barton-wind-finite/ | null | Politics | null | David Mikkelson | null | Did Rep. Joe Barton Proclaim ‘Wind Is a Finite Resource’? | 26 February 2015 | null | ['Joe_Barton'] |
pose-01222 | I will increase the number of apprenticeship programs in high-need industry areas, like construction trades and advanced manufacturing. | in the works | https://www.politifact.com/north-carolina/promises/coop-o-meter/promise/1313/apprenticeship-programs-high-school-students/ | null | coop-o-meter | Roy Cooper | null | null | Apprenticeship programs for high school students | 2017-01-04T15:40:49 | null | ['None'] |
Subsets and Splits
SQL Console for pszemraj/multi_fc
Filters dataset entries containing 'law' in categories, tags, or reason fields, providing basic topic classification but offering limited analytical insight beyond simple keyword matching.
Healthcare Related Entries
Retrieves sample records containing healthcare-related keywords but doesn't provide meaningful analysis or patterns beyond basic filtering.