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afck-00241 | “More than 26 million” people in South Africa live in absolute poverty. | correct | https://africacheck.org/reports/fact-checking-the-sona2016-debates/ | null | null | null | null | null | Fact-checking the #SoNA2016 debates | 2016-02-16 02:07 | null | ['South_Africa'] |
hoer-00867 | Image of Dog Heads On Supermarket Shelf | unsubstantiated messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/dog-heads-supermarket-import.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Image of Dog Heads On Supermarket Shelf | August 9, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01131 | In January 2018, Ivanka Trump was shot and critically wounded in Washington, D.C. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ivanka-trump-shot/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Was Ivanka Trump Critically Injured After Being Shot by a Sniper? | 25 January 2018 | null | ['Washington,_D.C.', 'Ivanka_Trump'] |
tron-03501 | Photos from inside a jet aircraft just as it collided with Air France flight 447 | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/airfrance447/ | null | space-aviation | null | null | null | Photos from inside a jet aircraft just as it collided with Air France flight 447 – Fiction! | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00370 | Angelina Jolie Jealous Of Jennifer Aniston’s “Rising Netflix Success,” | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/angelina-jolie-jennifer-aniston-netflix-success-jealous-not-true/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Angelina Jolie NOT Jealous Of Jennifer Aniston’s “Rising Netflix Success,” Despite Report | 2:09 pm, August 28, 2018 | null | ['Jennifer_Aniston'] |
pomt-11424 | Mark Harris worked to stop Trump from being president. | mostly false | /north-carolina/statements/2018/mar/16/robert-pittenger/pittenger-misleads-about-his-opponents-support-tru/ | If Rep. Robert Pittenger has his way, the primary election for his seat will become a contest over loyalty to President Donald Trump. Pittenger, a Republican from the Charlotte area, faces an opponent in Rev. Mark Harris, who came within 134 votes of beating him for the District 9 seat in June 2016. The winner of the GOP primary faces the winner of the Democratic primary between Christian Cano and Dan McCready, as well as Libertarian Jeff Scott. Harris has attempted to position himself to the right of Pittenger. So Pittenger recently released an ad that casts Harris as a critic of Trump, who carried the district with 54 percent of the vote in 2016. In the ad, a newspaper headline appears on screen and reads, "Mark Harris worked to stop a Trump presidency." The ad’s narrator says, "Mark Harris worked to stop Trump from being president." In a news release accompanying the ad, Pittenger strategist Paul Shumaker said Harris "led the ‘Stop Trump’ campaign" before the GOP convention. Harris, for his part, told The Charlotte Observer that there’s "no record whatsoever that I was part of a Stop Trump movement." PolitiFact reached out to the Pittenger campaign about the claim. The campaign directed us to a WBT Radio clip from March 10, 2016, in which Harris talks about his support of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. A radio interview "He’s gonna be the next president of the United States," Harris said of Cruz during the interview. "It does seem that Donald Trump does have somewhat of a ceiling," Harris said. "And in these close primaries, he loses most of the time. So I think that’s an interesting aspect. So I think coalescing behind Ted Cruz is a way to stop Donald Trump and go into the convention, get our nominee and come out and beat Hillary Clinton in the fall. The radio host then asks Harris if he’d support Trump if Trump were to become the Republican nominee. "That’s an interesting question," Harris responds. "I think everyone is weighing that out and considering that." "To be honest, it’s a very concerning decision that will have to be made because we’re looking at one entire generation of Supreme Court justices being nominated that will affect us and I’m truly concerned most of all of Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders having that ability to choose," Harris continued. "I feel somewhat better about Donald Trump making those appointments but I can’t tell you I feel great about that by any stretch of the imagination." Lawrence Shaheen, a spokesman for Pittenger, provided a link to a story in the Independent in April 2016 that reported Harris campaigning for Cruz. He also pointed to Harris’ Facebook and Twitter accounts to argue that Harris was never enthusiastic about Trump. Those accounts show very few pro-Trump tweets until Trump won the presidency. Supporting Cruz at the primary PolitiFact contacted the Harris campaign about the radio clip. Spokesman Andy Yates acknowledged in an email that Harris had concerns about Trump prior to his nomination. But, Yates added, so did "the 60 percent of NC primary voters who voted for someone other than Donald Trump for president in the March primary, including Congressman Pittenger who was still supporting outspoken Trump opponent Marco Rubio." The North Carolina primaries took place on March 15, 2016. That’s when Trump won a plurality of the votes, with 40 percent, and Cruz was the runner-up with 36 percent. Yates provided a link to Pittenger’s Feb. 3 endorsement of Rubio and defended the "stop Trump" comment, pointing out that the radio interview took place four months prior to the Republican National Convention. "Dr. Harris was fully supporting President Trump well before the convention and never engaged in any efforts to try to stop President Trump from receiving the nomination he had won," Yates said. The Baptist Press reported in July that Harris was slated to attend the Republican National Convention as a Cruz delegate, but had to withdraw "to be with a ‘father in the ministry’ who has entered hospice care." When did his support shift? So, about four months before the Republican National Convention in Ohio, Harris said "coalescing behind Ted Cruz" was the best way to "stop Trump" and beat Democratic nominee Clinton. Does that mean Harris "worked" to stop Trump from being president? Certainly, campaigning for another candidate can be considered "working against" another. So how long did it take for Harris to support Trump? Harris "switched his support to Trump when it became clear to him that Trump had secured the delegates necessary to win the Republican nomination," Yates said. "Mark said that if he remembered correctly it was around the time of the California primary." The California primary in 2016 was held on June 7. By June 27 of that year, The Charlotte Observer wrote a story casting Harris as a defender of Trump’s. "There’s more than just a four-year term for a president at stake," Harris said, referring to Trump’s critics. "I think there’s a 40-year generation at stake. Decisions will be made by the next president that will affect us for 40 years." Pittenger, for his part, shifted his support to Trump that May. Shaheen forwarded an email that Pittenger sent to the Charlotte Observer on May 4. Pittenger was then quoted as supporting Trump in the Charlotte Agenda later that month. By the time November rolled around, the Daily Beast wrote a story that referred to Harris as "part of Trump’s North Carolina spiritual advisory group." Yates said Harris ultimately traveled to six states to support Trump and that he endorsed Trump from the pulpit at Charlotte First Baptist, where he was a pastor. He sent a clip of Harris speaking at a Trump rally. The video didn’t give a date for the rally but was published on Jan. 28, 2017. Our ruling Pittenger said, "Mark Harris worked to stop Trump from being president." He has a point that Harris supported Ted Cruz for president until Trump became the nominee. But he left out the important context that Pittenger also supported another candidate. It’s disingenuous to cast Harris as someone who tried to sabotage Trump without providing context that Harris not only supported Trump after he became the nominee, but was reported to be among his spiritual advisors. We rate this claim Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Robert Pittenger | null | null | null | 2018-03-16T15:00:04 | 2018-02-19 | ['None'] |
pomt-04889 | President Obama’s lawsuit claims it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges during the state’s early voting period. | false | /ohio/statements/2012/aug/06/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-lawsuit-filed-president-obamas-ca/ | After some Ohio voters faced hours-long lines at polling places during the 2004 presidential election, the state adopted reforms designed to prevent similar problems in the future. Those reforms included allowing voters to cast ballots at county boards of elections for an extended period before elections. In 2008, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign used those new laws to its advantage. The campaign made particular use of voting the Sunday before elections in Ohio and other states as African-American churches organized "Souls to the Polls" events that took congregants to vote after religious services. Republicans who control Ohio’s state government passed a law last year that would have reduced the time frame for early voting from five weeks to three, eliminated most weekend voting hours and dropped a requirement that poll workers redirect voters to the correct precinct if they show up at the wrong one in a location that hosts multiple precincts. Ohio legislators repealed that law when it became clear it would face a referendum this year, though its ban on early voting on the weekend before elections remained in place because it was part of a separate law. Democrats including U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown say Republicans wanted to eliminate that weekend’s early voting to cut turnout among African-Americans who vote after church, a demographic likely to vote for Obama. Brown said that in 2008, up to 19 percent of Ohio voters cast their ballots during the weekend before the election. Last month, President Obama’s re-election campaign filed a lawsuit against Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted to demand that in-person voting be allowed during the three-day weekend before elections. It noted that approximately 93,000 Ohioans voted in the three days before the 2008 presidential election. The lawsuit argues that all Ohio voters should be permitted to cast ballots that weekend, as members of the U.S. military are permitted to do. The complaint alleged that Ohio’s legislature failed to justify the disparate treatment between military and nonmilitary voters, and contended the "unequal burden on the fundamental right to vote violates the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution." That assertion by the Obama campaign riled more than a dozen military groups - including AmVets and the Military Officers Association of America. On Aug. 1, they filed a motion to intervene in the Obama campaign’s lawsuit. It said they want to "defend the fundamental constitutional right to vote of members of the U.S. Armed Forces, which includes the right to receive special accommodations, flexibility and extra time to facilitate their voting, whether absentee or in-person." Their legal filing said the means the Obama campaign was using to request an overall extension of Ohio’s early voting period - "a ruling that it is arbitrary and unconstitutional to grant extra time for early voting solely to military voters and overseas citizens - is both legally inappropriate and squarely contrary to the legal interests and constitutional rights" of members of the U.S. Armed Forces. On the same day as the military groups filed their briefs, attorneys for the state of Ohio filed their own response to the Obama campaign’s complaint. It said that special laws were enacted to help uniformed and overseas citizens cast absentee ballots because they are often not present in the areas where they vote, and that the state of Ohio doesn’t have to treat other voters the way it treats those uniformed and overseas citizens. "From the beginning of our Republic, military voters have had special problems in obtaining ballots and casting them," the state of Ohio’s legal filing says. "Ohio’s laws, allowing UOCAVA (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voter Act) voters the ability to cast an absentee ballot after the time during which non-military and domestic voters may do so has closed, rationally recognizes the unique circumstances that military voters may face." The state of Ohio filed a brief that backed intervention by the military groups. So did the Obama campaign. "Plaintiffs seek to restore for all voters access to early voting through the Monday before Election Day," the Obama campaign’s brief said. "Neither the substance of its Equal Protection claim, nor the relief requested, challenges the legislature’s authority to make appropriate accommodation, including early voting during the period in question, for military voters, their spouses or dependents. The question before the Court is whether, in the circumstances of this case, the State of Ohio may arbitrarily and without justification withdraw from all other Ohio eligible voters the same right they previously had to vote the weekend and Monday before election day." It didn’t take long for these dry legal exchanges to erupt into a political bonfire. Toward the end of last week, websites began to make the misleading claim that the Obama campaign was suing the state of Ohio to restrict military voting, when the lawsuit actually sought to permit all Ohio voters to vote the weekend before elections, as military voters can do. On Saturday, GOP Presidential candidate Mitt Romney issued a statement that accused Obama of trying to undermine the rights of military voters. "President Obama’s lawsuit claiming it is unconstitutional for Ohio to allow servicemen and women extended early voting privileges during the state’s early voting period is an outrage," Romney’s statement said. In an appearance on Fox News Sunday, Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod disputed the way that Romney and others were characterizing the lawsuit. "What that lawsuit calls for is not to deprive the military of the right to vote on the final weekend ," Axelrod told host Chris Wallace. "Of course, they should have that right. That suit is about whether the rest of Ohio should have the same right. And I think it’s shameful that Governor Romney would hide behind our servicemen and women to try and win a lawsuit to deprive other Ohioans. . . of the right to vote." Democrats lined up their own military members to protest how some were describing the lawsuit. Former Democratic congressman John Boccieri of Alliance, a Lt. Col. in the U.S. Air Force Reserves, issued a statement that accused Republicans of distortion. "This is about restoring equal and fair access to early voting and in no way asks for restrictions to voting," Boccieri said. "Anything said otherwise is completely false. Period. And as a member of the American Legion and a lifetime member of the AMVETS, I find these claims outrageous." Indeed, Obama’s lawsuit clearly states that it seeks to permit all Ohioans - not just members of the U.S. military - to vote during the three days before the election, as was the case in 2008. The suit in no way suggests restricting early voting by members of the military. It is simply dishonest for Romney and his backers to claim that Obama’s effort to extend early voting privileges to everyone in Ohio constitutes an attack on military voters’ ability to cast ballots on the weekend before elections. We rate the claim False. | null | Mitt Romney | null | null | null | 2012-08-06T17:20:00 | 2012-08-04 | ['Ohio', 'Barack_Obama'] |
para-00079 | Says Labor is the only party "that introduces new taxes or increases taxes without a mandate". | false | http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/aug/08/liberal-party-australia/labor-labor-only-party-introduces-new-taxes-or-inc/index.html | null | ['Economy', 'Tax'] | Liberal Party of Australia | Jonathan Pearlman, Peter Fray | null | Labor is the only party “that introduces new taxes or increases taxes without a mandate." | Thursday, August 8, 2013 at 7:06 p.m. | null | ['None'] |
snes-04585 | Three Syrian refugees raped and murdered a 5-year-old girl at knifepoint in Idaho. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/three-syrian-refugees-assault-5-year-old-girl-at-knifepoint/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Three Syrian Refugees Assault 5-Year-Old Girl at Knifepoint? | 20 June 2016 | null | ['Syria', 'Idaho'] |
pomt-00358 | A teacher watched hard-core pornography in his classroom, along with other inappropriate behavior, but Tony Evers didn't revoke the teacher's license and "the teacher is still in the classroom." | mostly false | /wisconsin/statements/2018/sep/13/scott-walker/scott-walker-misleads-claiming-tony-evers-could-ha/ | It hasn’t reached the ubiquity — yet — of advertising on NASCAR race cars. But in the race for governor, advertising about a teacher viewing porn case is all over television. There have been three ads on the case that we’ve checked attacking Tony Evers, the state schools superintendent and Democratic candidate for governor. Each were by the state Republican Party, with one dating back more than a year. There also have been two TV ads on the case that we’ve checked from two groups defending Evers, who will face Republican Gov. Scott Walker in the Nov. 6, 2018, election. Now comes another attack ad, this one from Walker, released Sept. 5, 2018. The narrator goes into lengthy detail, saying: A teacher watched hard-core pornography in his classroom, showed obscene images to female coworkers, commented about the chest sizes of middle-school girls, suggested one struggling student should brush up on her sex skills because it's the only thing she'd ever be good at -- then intimidated the female teacher who complained. Tony Evers should have revoked the teacher's license, but he didn't, and the teacher is still in the classroom with young girls. All our fact checks in the governor’s race. We’ll break down the statement into two parts: "A teacher watched hard-core pornography in his classroom," along with other inappropriate behavior, but Tony Evers didn't revoke the teacher's license and "the teacher is still in the classroom." The case Like the other ads, this one focuses on Andy Harris, a middle-school science teacher in the Middleton-Cross Plains Area School District, west of Madison. He was fired in 2010 for viewing images and videos of nudity on his school computer and showing them to co-workers. Harris got his job back after an arbitrator ruled he should have been given a suspension rather than be fired. Two courts, without ruling on whether the firing was illegal, concluded that the arbitrator was within her authority in making her decision. The arbitrator based her decision in part on her determination that Harris’ behavior, given that students were not present when he viewed the images, did not endanger any students, as defined by state law. Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter: @PolitiFactWisc. Now to what Walker’s ad claims about the teacher’s behavior. What the teacher did We’re relying on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel news reports on the case, the arbitrator’s report and the school district’s investigation of the case. ‘Watched hard-core pornography in classroom’: Correct, though "hard-core" might be debatable. Harris looked at pornographic material at school during the workday, via 23 emails sent by Harris' sister, that included pornographic photos, jokes and movies. ‘Showed obscene images to female co-workers’: Correct. Commented about chest sizes, sex skills: Undetermined. In the school district’s investigation, an unidentified employee said Harris made the remarks. But the Department of Public Instruction, which Evers heads, said neither the arbitrator nor the department could determine whether Harris made the remarks. ‘Intimidated the female teacher who complained’: Correct. The teacher who complained said Harris could sometimes be intimidating. The district’s investigation found that emails Harris sent to the teacher "suggests retaliation," but Harris denied they were retaliatory. So, the first part of Walker’s claim is partially accurate. But the second part is more important, given that it contains the attack on Evers. ‘Didn't revoke, teacher still in classroom’ This part of the ad states — particularly in saying Evers should have revoked Harris’ license — that even though the legal system returned the teacher to his job, Evers had the power to stop him from teaching. But when Harris was fired, state law defined immoral conduct, according to the Legislature’s nonpartisan legal advisers, "as conduct or behavior that is contrary to commonly accepted moral or ethical standards and that endangers the health, safety, welfare, or education of any pupil." And is the pivotal word. Evers’ department did have the discretion on whether to go through license revocation proceedings, which Harris could have challenged. The department has said it decided against that course after concluding Harris’ behavior didn’t endanger kids, as defined by the law. Walker, in effect, argues that Evers nevertheless should have tried revocation. But the lack of a legal basis to take away Harris’ license appears to be supported by the fact that in November 2011, nearly a year after Harris’ firing, Walker signed a bill, supported by Evers, that redefined immoral conduct to specify that what Harris did is legal cause for license revocation. So, the second part of Walker’s statement is misleading in claiming that Evers could have revoked Harris’ license and simply didn’t. (Before he was fired, Harris taught seventh-grade science at one of the district’s two middle schools; now he has the same job at the other.) Our rating Walker says: "A teacher watched hard-core pornography in his classroom," along with other inappropriate behavior, but Tony Evers didn't revoke the teacher's license and "the teacher is still in the classroom." The first part of Walker’s statement, about the teacher’s behavior, is correct on two points; but on two other points, the validity of the allegations is unclear. Meanwhile, the more important part of Walker’s statement is misleading in saying Evers could have and didn’t revoke the teacher’s license. There was a lack of legal basis for revocation at the time — made clear by the fact that Walkers and Evers backed a change in state law so that teachers can be fired for viewing pornography at school. For a statement that contains only elements of truth, our rating is Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2018-09-13T06:00:00 | 2018-09-05 | ['None'] |
tron-03153 | Heinz Endowments to Leftist Causes through The Tides Foundation? | disputed! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/teresakerry/ | null | politics | null | null | null | Heinz Endowments to Leftist Causes through The Tides Foundation? | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07896 | Says that in Ohio "right now, you could be 8½ months pregnant and have an abortion for no reason." | mostly true | /ohio/statements/2011/feb/04/lorraine-fende/rep-lorraine-fende-point-abortion-8-12-months-ille/ | A new bill to ban late-term abortions is gaining traction in the Ohio House of Representatives, reinvigorating debate over the state’s abortion laws. If passed, the bill would ban abortions when a woman is at least 20 weeks pregnant and tests show the fetus can live outside the womb – a condition known as being viable. The proposed ban contains exceptions for certain medical situations, a legal requirement for late-term abortion bans at the state level. The proposed ban is one of three bills related to abortion the Republican majority in the House introduced this week. The set of abortion bills comes on the heels of similar legislation Democratic Rep. Lorraine Fende of Willowick introduced earlier this year. Fende’s bill aimed to ban abortions when a woman is at least 22 weeks pregnant with a viable fetus. Fende’s bill is likely going nowhere now that Republicans have trumped her proposal with one of their own. But a case she made for her bill – involving the availability of late-term abortions in Ohio – also is central to Republicans’ plan to ban late-term abortions. "I had a conversation with someone quite some time ago that right now, you could be 8½ months’ pregnant and have an abortion for no reason," Fende told The Columbus Dispatch for a story published Jan. 17. Similarly, proponents of Republicans’ plan to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy decried the occurrence of abortions in Ohio up to the ninth month of pregnancy. While advocates and opponents of the proposed ban on late-term abortions prepare to debate this sensitive issue as it moves through the legislature, it is important to keep the facts straight. So we decided to check out Fende’s claim. Fende said she relied on statistics from the Ohio Department of Health. Doctors who perform an abortion in Ohio must submit to the department a Confidential Abortion Report, which does not include the woman’s name or other identifying information. According to the Ohio Department of Health, four abortions were performed in Ohio after 32 weeks (or eight months) of pregnancy in 2009, the most recent year in which statistics are available. Two abortions were performed when the mother was 32 weeks along; one abortion took place at 33 weeks; and one occurred at 35 weeks. Overall, 28,721 abortions were reported in Ohio in 2009. Of those, 613 involved pregnancies at least 20 weeks along and 116 of them were for women at least 24 weeks pregnant. The length of the pregnancy was unknown in 276 cases. The numbers confirm that at least one abortion occurred in Ohio when a mother was at least 8½ months’ pregnant. Fende said she was aware of this one abortion when she made her claim, and she said she did not know the reason behind it. Ohio law does not include an absolute ban on abortions when a woman is 8½, 8¾ or even 9 months’ pregnant. State lawmakers tried to pass a late-term abortion ban in 1995, but the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the ban was unconstitutional because medical exceptions to the ban were not sufficiently specific. Courts, however, have upheld Ohio’s a ban on partial-birth abortions, which are performed after part of the fetus has been removed from the mother’s body. Partial-birth abortion is associated with late-term pregnancy but the two are not mutually exclusive. There are other abortion procedures, permitted under Ohio law, that can terminate a late-term pregnancy. Although certain late-term abortions are legal, pro-choice advocates say they are only done for medical reasons – not for "no reason," as Fende suggested. Kellie Copeland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, said abortion clinics in the state will not perform an abortion if the woman has been pregnant for at least 24 weeks. She said any abortion performed afterward would take place in a hospital for medical reasons. Jessie Hill, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, said abortions when a woman is 8½ months pregnant don’t happen in Ohio for no reason. "It’s just one of those things that’s unheard of," said Hill, who has researched reproductive rights. Hill said she is pro-choice. Michael Gonidakis, executive director for Ohio Right to Life, said that most abortion clinics advertise for abortions at 24 weeks or earlier. But, Gonidakis pointed out, statistics from the Ohio Department of Health show abortions are happening beyond 24 weeks. The statistics do not show whether the abortions are taking place in a hospital or an abortion clinic. But, upon request from the Democrats for Life of Ohio, the Department of Health provided data on the medical condition of women receiving an abortion after they had been pregnant for at least 23 weeks. The data was taken from the abortion reports doctors submitted to the department. The report includes a question about the patient’s medical condition, whether it was "good," "fair," or "other." Of the 116 abortions in 2009 performed when the woman was reported to be 24 weeks pregnant or more, all of them were listed in good medical condition, according to the Department of Health. So where does this leave us? The law does not explicitly outlaw such an abortion, but state health records show there was just one such case in 2009, and Fende said she did not have the background of that case. And a law professor who is an expert in reproductive rights told us that abortions at 8½ months aren't done for just "no reason." Fende’s claim was legally sound. But by itself it does not reflect what the state Department of Health is documenting. That there was just one case out of more than 28,700 abortions in 2009 that fits her statement is an additional piece of information needed to fully understand the claim. On the Truth-O-Meter that rates as Mostly True. | null | Lorraine Fende | null | null | null | 2011-02-04T06:00:00 | 2011-01-17 | ['Ohio'] |
goop-01129 | Queen Elizabeth Crowning Prince William, Kate Middleton King & Queen? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/prince-william-kate-middleton-king-queen-elizabeth/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Queen Elizabeth Crowning Prince William, Kate Middleton King & Queen? | 1:44 am, April 24, 2018 | null | ['Prince_William,_Duke_of_Cambridge'] |
hoer-01283 | Message Proclaims Christmas is Banned: It Offends Muslims | fake news | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/bogus-message-proclaims-christmas-banned-offends-muslims/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Bogus Message Proclaims Christmas is Banned: It Offends Muslims | November 4, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01245 | The two friends who died trying to get into a Metallica concert and earned a Darwin Award | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/metallicamisadventures/ | null | crime-police | null | null | null | The two friends who died trying to get into a Metallica concert and earned a Darwin Award | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02696 | Money from Saudi Arabian McDonald’s helping terrorists | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/mcdonalds/ | null | money-financial | null | null | null | Money from Saudi Arabian McDonald’s helping terrorists | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-02765 | A video shows a monkey that was severely injured at a L'Oreal cosmetics testing facility. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/monkey-cosmetics-testing/ | null | Critter Country | null | Dan Evon | null | Does a Video Show an Abused Monkey at a L’Oreal Animal Testing Facility? | 16 March 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-09641 | Today and every day, an estimated 14,000 Americans will lose their health insurance coverage. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/dec/15/tom-harkin/harkin-repeats-claim-14000-people-lose-health-insu/ | During a Senate floor speech on Dec. 13, 2009, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, repeated a talking point that Democrats -- including President Barack Obama -- have cited frequently as evidence that the nation needs to pass a major health care reform bill. "Today and every day," Harkin said, "an estimated 14,000 Americans will lose their health insurance coverage." In July, PolitiFact rated a virtually identical statement by Obama as Mostly True. But because we based that evaluation on unemployment numbers that were current at the time -- and because Democrats have continued to repeat the statistic, including four lawmakers who made floor speeches on Nov. 7, 2009, the day the House passed its version of the health care bill -- we decided the talking point was due for a checkup. Before we look at the statement's validity today, let's recap how the statistic emerged in the first place. In July, the White House told us the number came from a report published by the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. A chart in the report was headlined, “14,000 People Became Uninsured Every Day in December and January.” This claim was, in turn, based on a model developed by Urban Institute health care scholar John Holahan. Holahan was the co-author, with A. Bowen Garrett, of the January 2009 study, “Rising Unemployment, Medicaid and the Uninsured,” published by the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured. That study provided the underpinning for the Center for American Progress report by estimating how many people can expect to lose their insurance, and not quickly get new coverage, when the national unemployment rate goes up. Essentially, what Holahan did is set up a model to measure the number of Americans who would lose their insurance when the unemployment rate rises from point A to point B. Holahan and his co-author, using a baseline of 4.6 percent unemployment in 2007, calculated that 2.6 million people would lose coverage if the unemployment rate climbed to 7 percent; 3.7 million if it went to to 8 percent; 4.8 million at 9 percent; and 5.8 million at 10 percent. The estimates took into account people who lost their jobs but then switched to a spouse’s plan or extended their coverage through COBRA, the federal law that guarantees people who lose their job can still get continued health coverage. Applying Holahan's calculations to the actual rise in unemployment from November 2008 to June 2009, we found that the number was right around the 14,000 people per month that Obama cited. We checked with health care experts, and they, too, agreed that the 14,000 number was just about right. But now, five months later, the unemployment situation has changed. We decided to run the numbers for two scenarios, one that started well before the period we had checked in July, and one that started later. • Health insurance lost since the start of the recession . The National Bureau of Economic Research is the official arbiter of when recessions begin and end, and it has declared the start of the current recession as December 2007. So for our first scenario, we looked at figures from December 2007 to November 2009, the last month for which we have unemployment statistics. During that two-year period, unemployment rose from 4.9 percent to 10 percent. In his paper, Holahan had said that a rise from 4.6 percent to 10 percent would leave 5.8 million people without insurance, so the slightly smaller rise in the actual unemployment figures should translate into about 5.5 million people losing insurance over that period. When you divide 5.5 million by 731 days, you get 7,524 people losing insurance per day -- only about half the amount regularly cited by Democrats. • Health insurance lost during the Obama presidency . If you take the period since Obama has been in office (and you count January 2009, even though he was only president for part of that month), the unemployment rate has risen from 7.6 percent to 10 percent. If you estimate the data based on Holahan's model, that would amount to 2.6 million jobs lost over 11 months. Dividing 2.6 million by 334 days, you get 7,784 people losing insurance every day -- a number very close to what we found for the recession as a whole, and, once again, only about half of what Democrats have been saying all these months. Estimates under the model "are very sensitive to the timeframe used," Holahan told PolitiFact. The way the model works, it requires monthly updating to make sure the talking point stays accurate. And we'll even accept a portion of the blame for validating the claim in July without updating it until now. When we made our initial assessment in July, we happened to look at a period of especially rapid job losses. That makes a difference because, under this model, the more the unemployment rate rises in a short period of time, the more Americans lose their insurance on a daily basis. As the rate of job losses has declined since July, the daily rate of Americans losing insurance has declined as well. If the number is now roughly 8,000 -- a number that's still nothing to sneeze at -- then Democrats should be saying it's roughly 8,000. So we rate Harkin's statement False. | null | Tom Harkin | null | null | null | 2009-12-15T17:00:53 | 2009-12-13 | ['United_States'] |
hoer-00160 | Optical Mouse Cancer Warning | bogus warning | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/optical-mouse-cancer.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Optical Mouse Cancer Warning Hoax | July 2007 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03819 | In the last two years, we have reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/mar/21/harry-reid/harry-reid-says-deficit-has-been-reduced-25-trilli/ | During a recent floor speech, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., touted his chamber’s role in cutting the deficit. "In the last two years," he said, "we have reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion." This claim struck us as odd, since the annual federal deficit has hovered around $1 trillion for the past three years -- and we knew from all the rhetoric about America’s deficit crisis that we hadn’t suddenly surged into a budget surplus. So we checked into it. First, some background on the deficit. A "deficit" refers to the amount by which spending exceeds revenues. It’s a measure calculated based on one year’s worth of spending and revenues. (The term "debt" refers to the cumulative total of all previous deficits, minus all previous surpluses.) In fiscal year 2011, the deficit was slightly below $1.3 trillion. By the following year, it had shrunk to less than $1.1 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. And by 2013, the CBO projects a deficit of $845 billion. By year’s end, the 2013 figure could end up being higher or lower. The deficit for 2013 could shrink due to across-the-board cuts known as the sequester, which are projected to reduce spending by an additional $85 billion in 2013. And the deficit could shrink further if tax revenues exceed their projected amount (or the deficit could expand if the economy sours and tax revenues don’t meet expectations.) But if we allow for some uncertainty, these figures show that the deficit has declined over the past two years by about $455 billion. That’s less than one-fifth of what Reid claimed. When we contacted Reid’s office, a spokesman pointed us to a memo written in January 2013 by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who chairs the Senate Budget Committee. In this memo, Murray uses CBO figures to calculate that the deficit fell by a combined $2.4 trillion due to the two major fiscal deals of the past two years -- the legislation that ended the 2011 debt ceiling standoff and the legislation that avoided the fiscal cliff around New Year’s Day 2013. Murray did not include the sequester cuts in this calculation. (According to Reid’s prepared remarks, he had intended to say $2.4 trillion but actually said $2.5 trillion on the floor.) But there are some asterisks included in Murray’s memo that Reid, in his floor speech, skipped over. The $2.4 trillion in deficit reductions include projected savings over a 10-year period -- 2013 to 2022. In Washington budget wonkery, this is par for the course -- when bills are being debated, their fiscal impact is usually calculated over the bill’s first 10 years of existence. But Reid transformed the memo’s headline number into a claim that "in the last two years, we have reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion." This is problematic for two reasons. First, by using the past tense "reduced," Reid implies that these deficit reductions have already taken place. Instead, they would take place in the future -- and there’s no guarantee that they will materialize. Second, he said "in the last two years," when in fact the $2.4 trillion in deficit reduction is projected to take place over the next 10 years. "I know this is oversimplifying and it doesn’t work this way, but a 10-year deficit reduction averages out to $240 billion per year, or $480 billion over two years," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. "That’s a big difference. Because it’s so easy to spin the numbers, precision is critically important in budget items." Our ruling Reid said, "In the last two years, we have reduced the deficit by $2.5 trillion." There has been some deficit reduction in recent years, but Reid's makes it sound much larger than it actually is. The $2.4 trillion number represents a projection of what is expected (but not guaranteed) to happen in the future over a 10-year period. It is not deficit reduction that has already been banked over the past two years. We rate the statement False. | null | Harry Reid | null | null | null | 2013-03-21T14:46:26 | 2013-03-19 | ['None'] |
pomt-15313 | Texas still owns all of its public lands. If the federal gov't wants to create a park, they must ask permission! | half-true | /texas/statements/2015/jul/17/glenn-hegar/glenn-hegar-says-texas-owns-its-public-lands-uncle/ | Before Independence Day, a Texas leader said the federal government needs permission to plant a park in the state. Glenn Hegar, the state comptroller, said in a June 24, 2015, tweet: "Texas still owns all of its public lands. If the federal gov't wants to create a park, they must ask permission!" Two national parks are in West Texas and the Padre Island National Seashore is on South Padre Island. Also in Texas at the time Hegar tweeted, the U.S. National Park Service listed a national preserve, a national monument, two national historical trails, two national recreation areas, three national historical parks, a national monument, a national memorial, a national preserve and a designated wild and scenic river in the state (all there before another monument, the Waco Mammoth Site, was announced after Hegar exclaimed). We noticed too that a park service web page displays the remarkably brief American Antiquities Act of 1906, signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt. That law authorizes a president to declare national monuments on lands owned or controlled by the federal government. The act states that "when such objects are situated upon a tract covered by a bona fide unperfected claim or held in private ownership, the tract, or so much thereof as may be necessary for the proper care and management of the object, may be relinquished to the Government, and the Secretary of the Interior is hereby authorized to accept the relinquishment of such tracts in behalf of the Government of the United States." So land can be given up for a park or such, per the act. But there’s nothing about seeking permission from a state. Hegar’s statement also intrigued us because of how little land the federal government owns in Texas. In August 2014, an advocate with the Colorado-based Center for Western Priorities pointed us toward a Nov. 14, 2008, Heritage Foundation map of the U.S., drawing on federal data, showing Uncle Sam owns 2 percent of the land in Texas but far more land in western states that as a condition of joining the union had agreed to give up any stake in otherwise unclaimed lands in their respective boundaries. Hegar’s backup To our inquiry about Hegar's tweet, Liz White of his campaign operation said Hegar reached his conclusion starting from a Random Facts website that included this entry: "Texas still owns all of its public lands. If the federal government wants to create a park or cut a stand of timber, it must first ask the state’s permission." On the site, a footnote attributed the "permission" statement to a 2003 book, "Texas: Facts and Symbols," which we found in the children’s section of a branch of the Austin Public Library. The 24-page book presents various facts (as in: Texas got its name from the Caddo word tejas [TAY-hawss]). But it lacks mention of Texas owning its public lands or the federal government needing the state’s permission to create a park. In her email to us, White suggested Hegar’s statement also was supported by a report by the Texas General Land Office, an agency that's been around since before Texas’s statehood; it lately oversees more than 13 million acres of land generating money for Texas public schools. The cited report, last updated in January 2015, states that before statehood, Texas in 1844: "submitted a treaty of annexation to the United States Congress. Under its terms, Texas would have given 175,000,000 acres of public land to the United States government and the United States would have assumed Texas's debts of $10,000,000. The United States Congress rejected the treaty on grounds that the Texas public domain was not worth $10,000,000. When Texas was annexed to the United States in 1845 by a joint resolution of Congress, Texas retained both its debts and its public land. Texas was the only state, other than the original 13 colonies, to enter the Union with control over its public land… Today, over 22.5 million acres of land remain in the Texas public domain." So Texas kept its public lands at statehood. White also pointed out a federal park service web page on the Big Bend park, which she described as demonstrating the federal government asked permission from the state to acquire land for a park. The cited passage: "In the 1930's many people who loved the Big Bend country saw that it was a land of unique contrast and beauty that was worth preserving for future generations. The State of Texas passed legislation to acquire land in the area which was to become the Texas Canyons State Park. In 1935, the Federal Government passed legislation that would enable the acquisition of the land for a national park. The State of Texas deeded the land that they had acquired to the Federal government, and on June 12, 1944, Big Bend National Park became a reality." That didn’t seem like an explicit mention of permission being sought. In the spirit of that excerpt, we looked briefly into how the pair of other major national parks came to be in Texas. A Texas State Historical Association web page says the Guadalupe Mountains park came about after a family in the 1930s offered to donate 300 acres of scenic McKittrick Canyon to the state of Texas. "By the 1960s, land donations and sales to the National Park Service paved the way for the establishment of a national park" in 1972, the web page says. And U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough initiated legislation to create the Padre Island National Seashore in 1957, a park service timeline indicates. Another agency web page says President Kennedy signed the park measure into law in 1962. Land was acquired from 1962 through 1969 and the park opened in 1970, the timeline says. Land commissioners divide Bumfuzzled about the "permission" part of Hegar’s tweet, we asked aides to the current land commissioner, George P. Bush, and a couple of his predecessors for guidance. Agency spokeswoman Brittany Eck said by email that if the federal government wanted to convert state-owned lands to a federal park, any sale would have to be approved by state lawmakers. By phone, two former land commissioners, Republican Jerry Patterson and Democrat Garry Mauro, separately gave contradictory answers. Patterson said that given that the federal government doesn’t already own a lot of Texas land convertible to parks, "they'd have to get it. They’d have to buy the land," he said, "which implies" getting permission. Mauro said the federal government doesn’t need permission from Texas to create a park. "That’s just a fact," Mauro said. "The federal government can condemn what it wants to condemn." Historian for park service We also reached out to Robert Sutton, chief historian of the National Park Service, who said by phone it was news to him that the federal government had to ask permission to open a park in Texas. By email, Sutton subsequently said he checked the March 1845 congressional resolution setting terms for Texas joining the union, which says Texas is to keep its public lands but doesn’t say anything about the federal government needing to ask permission to use Texas-owned land, Sutton noted, for any purpose. "So, and I'm certainly not a constitutional lawyer, but I would say that the claim that the feds need to ask for permission is incorrect," Sutton wrote. We shared Sutton’s take with Lauren Willis, spokeswoman for Hegar’s state office. By email, Willis said it struck her as "one historian’s opinion." Our ruling Hegar tweeted: "Texas still owns all of its public lands. If the federal gov't wants to create a park, they must ask permission!" The first part of Hegar’s statement is obvious: Texas owns its 22.5 million acres of public land, with the federal government owning less than 2 percent of Texas acreage, much of it in the Big Bend National Park. It also stands to reason the federal government wouldn’t open a park in the state without interacting with state officials, perhaps seeking a land deal. However, Hegar didn’t provide, nor did we turn up, evidence that the feds must ask permission to open a park in Texas. Hegar’s statement comes out half-obvious, half-unsupported--and Half True. HALF TRUE – The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Glenn Hegar | null | null | null | 2015-07-17T14:16:11 | 2015-06-24 | ['Texas'] |
pomt-06821 | In the '80s, Democrats promised spending cuts, but delivered only tax hikes. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/aug/10/ron-paul/ron-pau-ad-says-democrats-only-want-tax-increases/ | Rep. Ron Paul's first television ad hits a popular Republican theme. It says Democrats aren't serious about balancing the federal budget because they want only tax hikes, not spending cuts. The ad’s narrator says: "In the '80s they did it to Reagan. A debt ceiling compromise. Democrats promising spending cuts, but delivering only tax hikes. The 90s brought more compromises, more broken promises and more new taxes. This August, the next chapter will be written. A defining moment. $14 trillion in debt. Millions unemployed. The dollar in decline. We know where they stand, but will our party's leaders repeat the mistakes of the past? Will they choose compromise or conviction? One candidate has always been true: Ron Paul. Cut spending. Balance the budget. No deals. Standing up to the Washington machine, guided by principle. Restore America now." In this item, we'll explore Paul's claim that during the debt ceiling debate in the 1980s, the Democrats "delivered only tax hikes." After all, former President Ronald Reagan himself used "Trust, but verify," as a signature phrase throughout his presidency. We didn't get a response to multiple calls to Paul's campaign, but the ad cited a source for the claim: a New York Times story on Sept. 28, 1987. The story talks about debates over the 1988 federal budget, during which President Reagan and Congress were working on an agreement to reach a deficit of no more than $144 billion, or face $23 billion in spending cuts. The article refers to Reagan’s "reluctant agreement" on the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Reaffirmation Act of 1987, which amended the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit and Control Act of 1985, commonly referred to as the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act after its three chief sponsors. Contrary to Paul's claim, we found Democrats were involved in that law and other efforts at cutting spending in the 1980s. One of the sponsors of the 1985 act, Sen. Ernest Hollings, a Democrat from South Carolina, was one of the congressional leaders seeking deficit reduction in 1985. Hollings was a member of the Budget Committee in the 99th Congress, when the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act was enacted, a committee on which his co-sponsors Republican Senators Phil Gramm (Tex.) and Warren Rudman (N.H.) would later serve. "The Gramm-Rudman-Hollings process was bipartisan, it was two Republican Senators and a Democratic Senator, and it allowed both spending cuts and tax increases," Stan Collender, widely respected budget analyst and writer for Roll Call’s "Fiscal Fitness" column said, speaking of the 1985 act. "It didn’t distinguish" between the two approaches, Collender said. "The original version only had deficit targets, it didn’t tell you how to get here from there," Collender said. "It could’ve been easily used to raise funds or cut spending." The 1985 Balanced Budget Act aimed to eliminate the deficit by requiring fixed deficit targets, enforced through sequestration -- automatic, across-the-board spending cuts made by the beginning of the fiscal year -- if necessary, to keep the estimated deficit within determined limits. Its aim was reaching a balanced budget by FY 1991. Since the spending cuts would be automatic unless a deficit reduction plan was agreed to, it was considered a severe but effective incentive for Congress and the President to come together on budgetary goals. It passed 271-154 in the Democratic majority House and 61-31 in the Republican majority Senate before President Reagan signed the bill into law December 12, 1985. The process for determining the amount of automatic cuts was later determined unconstitutional in the case of Bowsher v. Synar in 1986. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act violated constitutional separation of powers, giving the Comptroller General (whom Congress can remove from office) authority to order the president to carry out the automatic cuts. The Balanced Budget Reaffirmation Act of 1987 amended Gramm-Rudman-Hollings’ sequestration procedure by giving its authority to director of the OMB. In addition, automatic spending cuts would be split, 50-50, between the military budget and other domestic spending areas -- excluding Social Security, federal pensions and many programs targeting the lower income Americans. Senate Budget Committee chairman Lawton Chiles (D-Fla.) and Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, were major supporters of the 1987 act, which is also referred to as Gramm-Rudman-Hollings. A Chicago Tribune article Aug. 2, 1987 quotes Rostenkowski as saying, "‘I’d like to put it right on Ron`s desk and say, ‘Okay, pal, you sign the . . . bill’ or defense will be slashed." John B. Gilmour’s book, Reconcilable Differences?: Congress, the Budget Process, and the Deficit highlights Democrats' efforts with the 1987 amendment, where "Prominent Democrats were among the (1987) plan's most energetic supporters while Republican leaders hung back and voiced their growing doubts...(Chiles and Rostenkowski) both supported the revival of Gramm-Rudman because they believed that the threat of defense cuts would force the president to accept tax increases." After the 1987 Act underwent amendments to satisfy the House and the Senate, a conference report was agreed to in the Democratic-Majority House by 230 to 176 and agreed to in the Democratic-Majority Senate by 64 to 34, before President Reagan signed the act Sept. 29, 1987. It is not accurate to say the Democrats supported only tax increases with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings and the amended version of the act of 1987, Collender said. "It wasn’t all tax increases (with Gramm-Rudman-Hollings). That’s just campaign speech hyperbole," Collender said. Not only did the 1987 act allow deficit reduction through mechanisms other than tax increases, the act was shaped in part by Republican senators and signed by a Republican president. Reagan was reluctant to sign the amended Gramm-Rudman-Hollings legislation because of potential harm it could cause through automatic cuts to military spending, if they were triggered. He ended up signing the Reaffirmation Act of 1987, however, because it included a debt ceiling increase. Following the signing of the 1987 Reaffirmation Act, efforts resumed between the president and Congress to reach a budget deficit compromise before the act's Nov. 20 trigger for the automatic cuts. Over time, Reagan softened his stance that he would veto any tax increases. President Reagan signed a final budget deficit reduction plan into law Dec. 23, 1987, a measure that included $9.1 billion in tax increases, spending cuts in a variety of domestic sectors and sales of some government assets. Automatic cuts put into place by Gramm-Rudman-Hollings did take place in FY 1986, FY 1988 and FY 1990. In FY 1987 and FY 1989, deficit reduction plans exceeded the targets by $5 billion and $17 billion, respectively, and automatic cuts were not triggered. Our ruling Paul claims that during the 1980 budget negotiations, Democrats only sought tax increases. But the record indicates that they supported deficit reduction packages that included significant reductions in spending. We find his claim False. | null | Ron Paul | null | null | null | 2011-08-10T11:23:42 | 2011-07-18 | ['None'] |
snes-05083 | Singer Adele died in a car crash in March 2016. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/adele-death-hoax-rumors/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Dan Evon | null | Death Hoax: Adele Didn’t Die in Car Crash | 11 March 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11914 | In the U.S. asylum system, "claims of 'fear to return' have skyrocketed, and the percentage of claims that are genuinely meritorious are down." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/oct/19/jeff-sessions/jeff-sessions-claim-about-asylum-system-fraudulent/ | Attorney General Jeff Sessions claimed the U.S. asylum system swelled with false cries for help during the presidency of Barack Obama, suppressing genuine claims and overloading the immigration system. Sessions said the the Obama administration allowed most immigrants who passed an initial credible fear review to be released into the United States pending a full hearing. "These changes — and case law that has expanded the concept of asylum well beyond congressional intent — created even more incentives for illegal aliens to come here and claim a fear of return," Sessions told the Executive Office of Immigration Review on Oct. 12. "The consequences are just what you’d expect. Claims of fear to return have skyrocketed, and the percentage of claims that are genuinely meritorious are down." Sessions and President Donald Trump share a goal of changing the asylum process. In his October list of immigration principles and policies, Trump outlined tighter controls of the asylum process, including elevating the threshold standard of proof in credible fear interviews. On the question of fewer meritorious asylum claims, however, there is no data that plainly speaks to that trend. Sessions pieced together an argument that relies on assumptions and ignores the growth of refugees. "Indeed, there has certainly been an increase in asylum claims — but this corresponds with the increase in refugees around the world," said Lindsay M. Harris, an assistant professor of law and co-director of the immigration and Human Rights Clinic at the University of the District of Columbia, David A. Clarke School of Law. She continued, "One of the humanitarian crises producing refugees happens to be south of our border, and this accounts for the exponential increase in asylum claims and individuals seeking protection in the U.S. through the credible fear system, rather than a sudden increase in fraudulent claims." Thousands of Central Americans have left their countries in recent years due to gang violence and poverty. Asylum claims in the United States Asylum in the United States may be granted to foreign nationals based on persecution or fear of persecution back in their home countries or last country of residence on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion. To Sessions, the process in which asylum officers find individuals have a credible fear of persecution "has become an easy ticket to illegal entry into the United States." Laws were "never intended to provide asylum to all those who fear generalized violence, crime, personal vendettas, or a lack of job prospects," Sessions said. The Obama administration in 2009 announced policy changes to automatically consider for parole individuals who had a credible fear of persecution or torture. (Previously, parole had to be requested in writing) The change became effective in January 2010. Harris said there’s been no evidence to suggest that the policy change influenced people to flee their homes and seek protection in the United States. The increase in people seeking asylum was "very much based on the humanitarian crisis in central America," she said. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com Credible fear numbers Federal data do show a significant spike in credible fear cases from 2009 to 2016. But it is not a simple comparison. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in fiscal year 2016 decided on nearly 93,000 credible fear cases, and fear was established in about 78 percent of the cases. The agency in fiscal year 2009 reviewed more than 5,000 cases, but that data does not specify in the number where fear was established. This information, however, would not answer whether the findings of credible fear were genuinely deserving. That is difficult to quantify, experts said. Sessions said that many individuals who are released after a credible fear determination never show up to their immigration hearings or even file an asylum application once they are in the United States — suggesting "they knew their asylum claims lacked merit and that their claim of fear was simply a ruse to enter the country illegally." The assessment that not applying for asylum is an indication of fraud is "absolutely not true," said Harris, the University of the District of Columbia professor. Asylum seekers are released with "very little orientation" of what’s expected next and many even think they have already applied by having articulated their case to asylum officers. Some even think they have already been granted asylum upon released, Harris added. Additionally, Sessions noted that in 2016 there were "700 percent more removal orders issued in absentia for cases that began with a credible fear claim than in 2009." But a failure to appear before a judge doesn’t necessarily mean the asylum claim was baseless, experts said. In-absentia orders and individuals’ failure to go to court may also be attributed to other factors, such as errors in address reporting by the respondent, errors in addresses in the notices from the courts to the respondents in proceedings, lack of education and inability to receive mail, said Geoffrey A. Hoffman, director of the University of Houston Law Center Immigration Clinic and a clinical associate professor. Individuals represented by counsel are also much more likely to attend court, Hoffman said. "The issue of fraud in individual cases should not overshadow the reality which is that grants of asylum are extremely low, especially for applicants who are not represented by counsel," Hoffman added. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com Federal agencies have limited capabilities to detect asylum fraud. Applicants may have fled their countries without a passport or birth certificate, may have left countries where "documentary evidence was not available," or may have fled using fraudulent documents in order to hide their identity and escape persecution, said a December 2015 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. "As such, asylum officers and immigration judges must make decisions, at times, with little or no documentation to support or refute an applicant’s claim," said the GAO report. "Like any administrative system, there has long been fraud in the asylum process. I don’t think anyone knows how widespread it is, but the Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate at USCIS has been in place since 2004 and has been successful in weeding out at least some of the fraud," said Jaya Ramji-Nogales, an immigration law expert and professor at Temple University. Our ruling Sessions said, "Claims of fear to return have skyrocketed, and the percentage of claims that are genuinely meritorious are down." The number of claims by immigrants citing credible fear to return to their home countries has significantly increased from 2009 to 2016. While there has been fraud in the asylum system, it’s uncertain and difficult to determine whether the percentage of "genuinely meritorious" credible fear claims is down, experts said. Sessions’ statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context. We rate it Half True. See Figure 3 on PolitiFact.com | null | Jeff Sessions | null | null | null | 2017-10-19T15:00:16 | 2017-10-12 | ['United_States'] |
snes-03923 | An operative for Hillary Clinton "swooped in" and took answers to debate questions off her lectern after the conclusion of the event. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/clinton-secret-folder-debate/ | null | Politicians | null | Bethania Palma | null | ‘Clinton Operative’ Removed Secret Folder from Her Lectern After Debate? | 28 September 2016 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02223 | Rand Paul’s Summer Break Eye Surgeries | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/rand-paul-summer-break-101713/ | null | medical | null | null | null | Rand Paul’s Summer Break Eye Surgeries | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02912 | Robert Mueller Called for One World Government, Religion | none | https://www.truthorfiction.com/robert-mueller-one-world-government/ | null | politics | null | null | ['donald trump', 'fbi', 'russia', 'united nations'] | Robert Mueller Called for One World Government, Religion | Jun 20, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08258 | Republican plan to extend Bush tax cuts "would double deficit projections going forward for the next couple of decades." | mostly true | /virginia/statements/2010/nov/11/tim-kaine/kaine-says-republican-effort-extend-bush-tax-cuts-/ | There’s a heavy cost to extending the Bush-era tax cuts, according to Tim Kaine, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. "What the Republicans want to do is extend these tax cuts, make them permanent to the wealthy, and the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) has estimated that would double the deficit projections going forward for the next couple of decades," Kaine, a former Virginia governor, said during a CNN interview. Double the deficit? We decided to check. First, a word of background. The tax cuts, enacted by Congress in 2001 and 2003, lowered rates on income, capital gains and dividends and: eventually eliminated the estate tax; eased burdens on married couples, parents and the working poor; increased tax credits for retirement savings and education. The cuts are set to expire at the end of the year unless Congress extends them. A spokesman for the Democratic National Committee said Kaine based on his statement on a CBO report released in September. We dug up the study and found Kaine was correct. "A permanent extension of all those tax cuts without future increases in taxes or reductions in federal spending would roughly double the projected budget deficit in 2020," the report said. The CBO projects the 2020 deficit -- based on an assumption that the tax cuts will not be extended -- at $685 billion. Republican congressional leaders want to make the tax cuts permanent. "This is from a Republican Party that’s been griping about deficits," Kaine said on CNN. But by bringing up deficits, Kaine also sawed at the branch President Obama and many other Democrats have perched on during the tax debate. They’ve wanted to eliminate that tax cuts for the "wealthy," defined as families with annual incomes exceeding $250,000 and individuals who make more than $200,000. Democrats have supported extending the reductions to families and individuals beneath those thresholds. Here’s the rub: Eliminating tax cuts for the wealthy and keeping them for everyone else doesn’t save big money. The Democratic tax plan would leave a projected deficit in 2020 that would be "roughly three-quarters to four-fifths" as high as that caused by the GOP plan to eliminate all the levies, according to the same CBO report cited by Kaine. Kaine didn’t mention this on CNN. "What he said is factually correct," said Roberton Williams, a senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center in Washington. "What he didn’t say is that the Democratic plan to extend taxes for 98 percent of the population shoots almost as big a hole in the budget as the Republican plan." We agree that the buyer must beware when browsing political statements. Kaine is correct in saying that the CBO estimates the Republican tax plan would double deficit in 2020. But he omits an important fact: The Democratic plan would would increase the deficit by almost as much. As a result, we rate Kaine’s statement Mostly True. | null | Tim Kaine | null | null | null | 2010-11-11T10:00:00 | 2010-09-19 | ['George_W._Bush', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
pomt-13766 | America has lost nearly one third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/21/donald-trump/trump-gives-half-story-trade-deals-clintons-and-fa/ | Donald Trump tapped into a deep well of bitterness over jobs and trade to win the Republican nomination and in his acceptance speech, he placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of his Democratic opponent. "America has lost nearly one third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton," Trump told a roaring crowd. Trump offered the same statistic when he laid out his economic policies at a speech in Pennsylvania in June. That speech went into more detail, and best of all for fact-checkers, his campaign footnoted his sources in the transcript. As he did at the convention, in that policy speech, Trump faulted the Clintons. "At the center of this catastrophe are two trade deals pushed by Bill and Hillary Clinton," he said in Pennsylvania. "First, the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. Second, China's entry into the World Trade Organization." As we looked into Trump’s words, we found that his numbers are fine. The impact of the trade deals on manufacturing, and his singling out of the Clintons, are more problematic. By the way, while Hillary Clinton played no official role in either deal, in the past, she came down in favor of both them, even if she noted their failings. The numbers Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that manufacturing jobs dropped by about 30 percent between 1997 and 2016. About 17.4 million people worked in manufacturing at the start of the period. Today, their ranks have fallen to about 12.3 million. Trump has his numbers right. Impact of the trade deals The North American Free Trade Agreement dates to 1994 and created an open trade zone across Mexico, the United States and Canada. The deal with China wasn’t a trade agreement in the same way. Instead, in 2001, Congress cleared the path for China to become part of the World Trade Organization. That locked in lower tariffs, spurred investment in China and produced a lot more movement of goods. While Trump regularly says that NAFTA sent jobs to Mexico, the net effect on all jobs, including manufacturing, is hard to pin down. In contrast, there’s broad agreement that the change with China did cost America millions of jobs. The Congressional Research Service, the nonpartisan think tank of Congress, concluded in 2015 that NAFTA likely had little impact on jobs one way or the other. That’s generally the consensus view, although some economists think NAFTA did hurt American jobs. On China, research by economists Justin Pierce at the Federal Reserve and Peter Schott at Yale University, suggests over 1 million jobs have been lost due to trade with China. Trump has relied heavily on the research of Robert Scott, director of trade and manufacturing policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, to make his point. The institute isn’t the sort of source traditionally used by Republicans. It supports a hefty increase in the minimum wage and higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Scott estimates that America lost over 700,000 jobs to Mexico and about 2 million manufacturing jobs due to a rising trade deficit with China. But Scott takes exception to Trump’s use of his work. "The story is complex, and certainly neither the Clinton’s, nor trade deals alone, explain the loss of 5.3 million manufacturing jobs since 1998 when manufacturing employment peaked," Scott told us. "No one has adequately teased apart all of the causes." In an op-ed, Scott listed several other factors that have hurt American workers, including the policies of the Federal Reserve, a stagnant minimum wage and a lack of public investment in infrastructure. Martin Baily, a trade economist at the Brookings Institution, an academic center in Washington, puts even less stock in the impact of the two trade deals. He points to longer term trends. "The share of manufacturing employment in total U.S. employment has been declining for at least 50 years and the rate of decline in that share did not accelerate either because of NAFTA or China," Baily said. He told us that as much as Americans like their flat-screen TV and other goods, our demand for services like health care has grown faster. That has cut into manufacturing employment. And then, there’s the impact of technology in factories. "Productivity growth has meant that it takes fewer people to make the goods," Baily said. So it’s fair to say that NAFTA may or may not have reduced American manufacturing jobs (with the consensus falling on the side that it didn’t), and that the China deal probably did. But in no case do economists put the entire number of jobs lost on either of the trade deals. Blaming the Clintons The third part of Trump’s claim is that the trade deals and their alleged failures are the fault of the Clintons. This is another shaky part of Trump’s claim. Scott at the Economic Policy Institute noted that "most of the votes needed to pass NAFTA in 1993 were provided by members of Trump’s own party." President Bill Clinton was certainly a supporter, but he had plenty of Republican help. Susan Houseman, senior economist at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a labor policy center in Michigan, said that manufacturing jobs grew in the years immediately following passage of NAFTA. It wasn’t until the China deal that they fell rapidly. Houseman told us the details of that were worked out under President George W. Bush. "The sharp drop in manufacturing jobs coincided with China's accession to the WTO in 2001, which in any event was supported by both Democratic and Republican administrations," Houseman said. Our ruling Trump said that America has lost about a third of its manufacturing jobs since 1997 after enactment of two trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton. Government figures show about a 30 percent decline in manufacturing jobs. Bill Clinton advocated for both deals. And while Hillary Clinton played no official role, she has spoken in favor of trade agreements. But Trump’s statement overlooks that manufacturing employment climbed after passage of NAFTA. The general consensus among economists is that overall, NAFTA has neither helped nor hurt American workers. There’s broad agreement that China’s entry to the WTO has come at the price of many American manufacturing jobs, with estimates ranging from about a million to over 2 million. But that would be less than half of the manufacturing jobs lost that Trump talked about. Trump’s focus on the Clintons also overlooks the key role played by Republicans. In naming the Clintons, he leaves out at least half of the picture. There’s a measure of truth in Trump’s words, but he omits a lot of important information. We rate this claim Half True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/874386ed-8192-432c-b8c0-2e23b3e98f4f | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-07-21T23:11:31 | 2016-07-21 | ['United_States', 'Hillary_Rodham_Clinton', 'Bill_Clinton'] |
snes-03794 | Tim Kaine threatened to ban the Catholic Church from the United States if they didn't change their stance on gay marriage. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tim-kaine-ban-catholic-church/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Tim Kaine: ‘The Catholic Church Will Change Its Same-Sex Marriage Stance or It Will Be Banned from the U.S.’ | 15 October 2016 | null | ['United_States', 'Catholic_Church'] |
pomt-12720 | 122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/mar/07/donald-trump/donald-trump-wrongly-blames-barack-obama-former-gu/ | For his entire term, former President Barack Obama wanted to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but he was unsuccessful. President Donald Trump promises to keep it open, and he took to Twitter the morning of March 7 to criticize Obama for releasing Guantanamo detainees at all. "122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!" Trump tweeted — from both his personal account and the official White House account, @POTUS. Guantanamo detainee transfers are likely in the news because a March 2, 2017, U.S. military airstrike killed a former Guantanamo prisoner, Yasir Ali Abdallah al Silmi, who Obama released to Yemen in 2009. Trump’s claim that the Obama administration released 122 prisoners from Guantanamo that "returned to the battlefield" is right on the numbers but wrong on who is to blame. The vast majority of detainees who fall into Trump’s total were actually released during the administration of President George W. Bush. The 122 prisoners About every six months, the Director of National Intelligence releases figures about detainees transferred from Guantanamo and how many are known to have re-engaged in some sort of terrorist activity. The most recent report was published in September 2016 and includes data from 2002, when the prison opened, through July 2016. Here are the key figures: 693 detainees released from Guantanamo (532 while Bush was president, 161 during Obama’s two terms); of those: 122 confirmed of re-engaging in terrorist activity (113 Bush, 9 Obama); 86 suspected of re-engaging in terrorist activity, of those (75 Bush, 11 Obama); See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com So in the 15 years between when Guantanamo opened in 2002 and when the latest data was collected in 2016, 122 detainees were transferred out of the prison who the government believes have returned to some sort of terrorist activity. However, just nine of those transfers happened during the Obama administration. The remaining 113 — or over 92 percent — happened under Bush. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in his March 7 press briefing that Trump meant "in totality the number" of individuals released from Guantanamo who returned to the battlefield. An expert view Talking to PolitiFact for a related article in January, DePaul University counterrorism professor Thomas Mockaitis raised questions about the veracity of the numbers because of difficulties in monitoring the former detainees’ and their activity. "I do have concerns over the use of such figures without explanation or context," he said. "Many of those released are handed over to foreign states who assume responsibility for them. Tracking their activities after they leave Guantanamo can be problematic." In June 2014, the New America Foundation, a centrist think tank, compiled its own numbers of released former detainees, using Pentagon reports, news stories and other public information. At the time there were 620 released prisoners, and the foundation found that 54 of them "are either confirmed to be or suspected of engaging in militant activities against either the U.S. or non-U.S. targets." That was about one-third of the government’s figure of 184 at the time. The foundation has not updated the report since then. Our ruling Trump said, "122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield." The United States government has transferred nearly 700 detainees out of Guantanamo, and and 122 of them are "confirmed of re-engaging" in some sort of terrorist activity. But Trump wrongly rests the blame solely on the Obama administration. Of the 122 prisoners in question 113 were released before Obama took office. We rate Trump’s claim Mostly False. Update: On March 7, after Trump made his claim, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence published updated data about recidivism of former Guantanmo detainees. As of Jan. 15, the DNI reports 121 former detainees confirmed of re-engaging in terrorism, eight of whom were released during the Obama administration. That's one fewer than the earlier data we used in our report. Our rating of Mostly False remains the same. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2017-03-07T14:47:50 | 2017-03-07 | ['Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp', 'Presidency_of_Barack_Obama'] |
vees-00418 | VERA FILES FACT SHEET: Explaining martial law | none | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-sheet-explaining-martial-law | According to Fr. Joaquin G. Bernas, a member of the 1987 Constitutional Commission, martial law is essentially police power borne out of public safety as the main concern. | null | null | null | Martial Law,president duterte | VERA FILES FACT SHEET: Explaining martial law | May 24, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04904 | NC police tased and "brutally ejected" a woman from a ladies' restroom because they thought she was transgender. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/transgender-bathroom-arrest/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Woman Kicked Out of Ladies’ Bathroom by Police After Being Mistaken for Transgender | 18 April 2016 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00617 | Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones Locker Room Speech | incorrect attribution! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/dallas-cowboys-owner-jerry-jones-locker-room-speech-incorrect-attribution/ | null | celebrities | null | null | ['patriotism', 'sports', 'veterans'] | Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones Locker Room Speech | Sep 15, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
vees-00167 | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Debunked news on opinion of 'legal expert' about ICC back on social media | fake | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-debunked-fake-news-opinion-legal-exper | null | null | null | null | fake news | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Debunked FAKE NEWS on opinion of 'legal expert' about ICC back on social media | June 22, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00593 | Was Sarah Huckabee Sanders Voted Among the ‘Most Admired’ Women in the United States? | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/sarah-huckabee-sanders-voted-among-admired-women-united-states/ | null | Politics | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Was Sarah Huckabee Sanders Voted Among the ‘Most Admired’ Women in the United States? | 15 May 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14449 | The Great Wall of China, built 2,000 years ago, is 13,000 miles (long). | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/07/donald-trump/donald-trump-right-great-wall-china-2000-years-old/ | One of Donald Trump’s signature policy proposals during the 2016 presidential campaign has been to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. In remarks after the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses, Trump drew an explicit comparison between his proposed wall and the Great Wall of China. "They say you’ll never be able to build a wall," Trump said on March 2, 2016. "Well, it’s 2,000 miles but we really need 1,000 miles. The Great Wall of China, built 2,000 years ago, is 13,000 miles, folks, and they didn’t have Caterpillar tractors, because I only want to use Caterpillar, if you want to know the truth, or John Deere. … We can do that so beautifully. And this is going to be a serious wall. This is going to be a high wall. This is going to be a very serious wall." A number of people asked us to check whether Trump’s description of the Great Wall -- that it was built 2,000 years ago and that it’s 13,000 miles long -- was accurate. After checking with scholars of the period, we found that the numbers Trump are grounded in reality, but that there’s a lot of nuance that’s been lost in the process. The wall was ‘built 2,000 years ago’ As a starting point for the Great Wall’s construction, "2,000 years ago" has some merit. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other groups say that around 220 B.C., efforts began to link together existing earthen walls on modern-day China’s northern frontier. But today, those early walls are barely discernible, if at all. Better constructed portions of the wall only came into existence much later -- and over many centuries, said Lynn A. Struve, an East Asian historian at Indiana University and author of Time, Temporality, And Imperial Transition: East Asia From Ming To Qing.. "Almost every dynasty contributed to building the wall," said Arthur Waldron, an East Asian historian at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of the seminal 1992 volume, The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth. (The bottom portion of the figure below shows the full historical timeline.) Indeed, the most familiar and best-preserved portions of the wall are more recent than Trump indicated -- only 300 to 600 years old. They were built during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), when the Great Wall became the world's largest military structure, according to UNESCO. "The Great Wall you see today was almost entirely built in the 1500s under the Ming dynasty," said Kenneth M. Swope, a University of Southern Mississippi historian and author of A Dragon's Head and a Serpent's Tail: Ming China and the First Great East Asian War, 1592-1598. The wall’s length ‘is 13,000 miles’ In citing this figure, Trump can point to an official statistic. In 2012, China's State Administration of Cultural Heritage released a five-year-long study that the wall is 13,170 miles long -- much longer than the previous estimate of 5,500 miles, which was limited to the Ming-era structures. But this number should be taken with a grain of salt, experts said. For starters, this includes all of the wall, not just the Ming-era portions. And just a fraction of these 13,000 miles includes intact walls. And contrary to the wall in Trump’s proposal, the wall "is not contiguous," Swope said. (This can be seen in the map portion of the graphic above.) Waldron calls the Chinese government’s estimate the most generous measurement. "China is endlessly puffing up the wall for the benefit of tourism," he said. He said his fairest estimate would be perhaps 1,700 miles, "with a solid line" around Beijing and "elsewhere a dotted line." In the view of the scholars we contacted, the wall also doesn’t serve as a particularly good model for Trump’s point. Historically, trade was generally a far more successful policy than warfare. Indeed, walls didn’t stop the Mongols and the Manchus from crossing the frontier and causing serious trouble, including, ultimately, the fall of the Ming and the establishment of the Manchu, or Qing, dynasty that lasted from 1644 to 1912. "The wall never worked," said Michael Szonyi, a professor of Chinese history at Harvard University and author of Practicing Kinship: Lineage and Descent in Late Imperial China. Waldron, who added that he is sympathetic to the notion of closing off U.S. borders more completely, nonetheless agreed with Szonyi’s assessment of the Great Wall. The Great Wall "didn't do what it was supposed to do, it was enormously costly, and there's no question that it caused great suffering among the people who built it," he told Mother Jones magazine. He added to PolitiFact, "I would say Trump is one of a long train of Western and Chinese people who bought into the mythology of the wall." Our ruling Trump said that the Great Wall of China was "built 2,000 years ago" and "is 13,000 miles" long. He has repeated two figures that are widely cited and, superficially at least, seem credible. But when we ran them by several experts in Chinese history, we found that the reality is more nuanced. Major unifications of early portions of the wall did occur about 2,200 years ago. However, the wall was built over the course of many centuries, and the best preserved, most iconic portions of the wall are a lot younger -- roughly 500 years old. Meanwhile, a Chinese government survey from 2012 reported a total length of 13,000 miles. However, this figure includes many bits and pieces of wall, some of them quite isolated. Trump’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate it Half True. | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-03-07T11:56:49 | 2016-03-02 | ['China'] |
hoer-01134 | Myer Australia Go Crazy in One of Our Stores | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/myer-australia-go-crazy-in-one-of-our-stores-like-farming-scam/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Myer Australia Go Crazy in One of Our Stores Like-Farming Scam | June 2, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07146 | Says the state’s new collective bargaining law effectively eliminates police unions' ability to negotiate. | mostly true | /ohio/statements/2011/jun/15/steve-loomis/union-president-steve-loomis-says-ohios-new-labor-/ | Organized labor groups and Democrats started a campaign to repeal Ohio Senate Bill 5 as soon as Republican Gov. John Kasich signed it on March 31. They hope to have the issue on the Nov. 8 ballot. SB 5 is designed to give public employers more control over labor contracts to deal with declining revenue. Sharply reducing collective bargaining for public workers, the new law gives management a strong hand at the bargaining table because it eliminates binding arbitration in favor of a system that is weighted toward local governments. The replacement of binding arbitration has been a cornerstone issue for Republicans. Kasich made it a priority of his administration, arguing that public unions are too powerful at the bargaining table and that taxpayers had no say in costly labor contracts. Cleveland Police Patrolmen's Association President Steve Loomis and other labor leaders rallying for repeal said the new law effectively eliminates the ability of unions to negotiate at all. In fact, SB 5 explicitly gives police and fire unions the right to collectively bargain for wages and safety equipment. PolitiFact Ohio asked Loomis to explain. "He (Kasich) is not taking away our right to sit at the table," he said. "He is taking away the right to collectively bargain. "As it stands right now, both sides negotiate to an end or to a neutrally agreed upon position. If we come to an impasse, we solicit a professional arbitrator, usually American (Arbitration Association)." The neutral, third-party arbitrator is chosen by mutual agreement, Loomis said, and is empowered to impose a contract settlement. Under SB 5, if a union and governmental body cannot agree on a contract, a fact-finder from the State Employment Relations Board must be appointed to make recommendations. If the union and management reject the recommendations, the legislative body that oversees the workers, such as a city council, must vote to choose between the "last, best" offers of the workers and management. If the council does not act, the management offer becomes the new contract. And if council approves the higher-cost offer, there is a procedure by which both offers can be placed on the ballot to let voters choose. "There's no more neutrality," Loomis said. "One party gets to decide the outcome. The city council -- the people that we are negotiating with -- gets to decide whether the fact-finder's report is acceptable or not. If they decide it's acceptable, then we're done. If they decide it's unacceptable, then we go to arbitration. Who are the arbitrators? City council. So there is no collective bargaining here. "When you listen to the governor and he talks about 'I've given them the tools to control their costs,' that's exactly what he's talking about. He means 'I've given them the ability to create their own contracts by unfair arbitration.' " The new process is, in fact, heavily weighted by design for local officials and government bodies -- and for taxpayers, say SB 5 supporters such as Rep. Louis Blessing, a Cincinnati Republican. Under binding arbitration, "an unelected arbitrator can force a spending decision on local officials and the people they represent," he said. "There is no consent of the governed." Safety forces were given binding arbitration as part of Ohio's 1983 collective-bargaining law for public employees. In what was considered a trade-off, that law banned strikes by police and firefighters. In an interview, Senate President Tom Niehaus was asked what leverage or recourse would be left for safety forces without binding arbitration. "They're still going to have civil-service protections," he told The Columbus Dispatch. Sen. Bill Seitz of Cincinnati, one of six Republicans who voted against SB 5, said it imposes a "fundamentally rigged process" giving managers an unfair advantage over safety workers. "There is no collective bargaining process (with Senate Bill 5)," said another of the six, Sen. Tim Grendell of Chesterland. "Senate Bill 5 replaces public worker collective bargaining with public worker collective begging ... Under Senate Bill 5, we lose the ability to bargain." So there is accuracy in Loomis statement. Even some top Republican legislators would agree with him. SB 5 does greatly reduce safety force workers’ collective bargaining abilities and gives management the last word on which offer is chosen. But that last word kicks in if the two sides can’t agree on a contract. Safety forces do still have the ability to try to negotiate terms on wages and safety equipment. That’s a point of clarification. On the Truth-O-Meter, Loomis' statement rates as Mostly True. | null | Steve Loomis | null | null | null | 2011-06-15T06:00:00 | 2011-05-09 | ['None'] |
snes-00139 | A photograph captured the injuries a man received when he set fire to the Nike shoes he was wearing. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nike-shoes-boycott-burn/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Did a Man Injure Himself by Setting the Nike Shoes He Was Wearing on Fire? | 4 September 2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01899 | Gwen Stefani, Fergie Performing Grammys Duet After Ending Feud? | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/gwen-stefani-fergie-grammys-duet-performance-feud/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Gwen Stefani, Fergie Performing Grammys Duet After Ending Feud? | 10:22 am, January 5, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08323 | Mr. Hurt would re-open that darn (Medicare) doughnut hole. | half-true | /virginia/statements/2010/oct/29/tom-perriello/tom-perriello-says-robert-hurt-wants-reopen-medic/ | It is legislation that shall remain nameless. But that didn't stop freshmen Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello of Virginia from attacking his opponent for opposing a provision in it, whatever it is. Perriello's ad, called "Seniors Can't Afford a World of Hurt," accuses his opponent, Republican state Sen. Robert Hurt, of wanting to reopen the so-called "doughnut hole" in Medicare prescription drug coverage for seniors. The ad begins in darkness with an elderly woman saying, "Bad people are trying to scare seniors into thinking our Medicare is going to get cut." She's apparently referring to Republican ads that have suggested Democrats cut Medicare when they approved the health care law. "Poppycock!" says the woman, turning on a light. "Tom Perriello has voted to protect my Medicare and to save me 50 percent on my prescriptions. "Mr Hurt would reopen that darn doughnut hole," she says. "And would start bankrupting Medicare in just six years. Shed some light on the facts and you'll see...Seniors can't afford a world of Hurt." First, let's be clear what we're talking about here: the controversial health care bill passed by Democrats earlier this year. You might not get that from the ad, unless you caught the fine print in the ad that sourced H.R. 3590. Of course, you'd also have to know that H.R. 3590 is the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka the health care reform bill. Talk about soft-pedaling a controversial issue. Now, about that darn doughnut hole. The "hole" is a gap in coverage in the Medicare prescription drug program, which was passed by Congress in 2003. In 2010, seniors in the Medicare Part D program must pay the first $310 for prescriptions before coverage kicks in. For subsequent total drug costs between $310 and $2,830, the government will pay 75 percent and beneficiaries pay 25 percent. Then comes the hole: Starting at $2,830, beneficiaries must pay the entire costs until they hit an out-of-pocket limit of $4,550. After that, "catastrophic coverage" begins, with the government paying 95 percent of costs. The health care bill Democrats passed in March would phase out that gap over the next 10 years. This year, beneficiaries who reach the doughnut hole will receive a $250 rebate. After that, federal subsidies will enable the patient's share of the payment to be gradually reduced from 100 percent to 25 percent by 2020. At 25 percent, the doughnut hole range will have the same co-pay rate as the prior range. Closing the "doughnut hole" in the Medicare prescription drug plan was one of Obama's campaign promises, which PolitiFact tracks on our Obameter. In March, after the bill passed and was signed by Obama, we rated it a Promise Kept. Now, has Hurt said he wants to reopen the hole? He has been crystal clear about his opposition to the health care bill. At a Tea Party debate in March, for example, Hurt warned the bill would "kill jobs," add more regulation and higher taxes and amount to "government-run health care." Hurt has signed the DeFundIt.org pledge to withhold budget funding for the new health care law if he is elected. And he has vowed to fight to repeal the law altogether. OK, so the health care bill would eventually close the Medicare doughnut hole, and Hurt has vowed to defund and ultimately repeal the health care bill. Does that mean, necessarily, that he would reopen the doughnut hole? Republican leaders in Congress offered an alternative health care bill back in November of 2009. We read through the bill and couldn't find any plan to close the doughnut hole. Republicans said the main goal of their alternative plan was to lower the cost of health insurance in general. We also couldn't find anywhere that Hurt has spoken publicly on what he would do, specifically, about the Medicare doughnut hole. Hurt's campaign said he favors health care reform based on market oriented solutions that maintain quality of care and reduce costs. Back in March, the Hurt campaign told the The Daily Progress, in Charlottesville, Va., that Hurt supports "commonsense, market-based health care reforms" such as portability of plans, tort reform and allowing young people to remain on their parents' health insurance coverage for longer. "However, Senator Hurt does not believe that Draconian cuts to Medicare affecting every senior citizen in the 5th District, half-a-trillion in higher taxes, medical decisions made by bean-counters in Washington and not doctors in Charlottesville -- not to mention the largest increase in government power in generations -- is the answer to healthcare reform," Hurt's strategist, Chris LaCivita, wrote in an e-mail to the paper. We followed up with the Hurt campaign to get his position specifically on the doughnut hole. "Working to close the doughnut hole is an area that we all can agree should be addressed," said Amanda Henneberg, a spokeswoman for the Hurt campaign. The ad's claim is based on Hurt's position that he wants to repeal the Democrats' health care bill in general, and it included a provision to phase out the doughnut hole. Hurt has not explicitly said he wants to reopen the hole, so Perriello is connecting some dots to make his case. In fact, Hurt's campaign says that while he wants to repeal the health care bill, Hurt believes working to close the doughnut hole is an area that should be addressed. That doesn't strike us as a full-throated pledge to close the gap the way the Democratic bill did, but it suggests Hurt is willing to consider retaining that aspect of the health care law. So we rate the ad's claim Half True. | null | Tom Perriello | null | null | null | 2010-10-29T11:10:49 | 2010-10-06 | ['None'] |
pomt-01088 | If people work and make more money, they lose more in benefits than they would earn in salary. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jan/14/marco-rubio/new-book-marco-rubio-says-lose-more-benefits-they-/ | At the center of Sen. Marco Rubio’s new book, American Dreams, is the conservative idea that government stands in the way of lower- and middle-class Americans getting ahead. Why don’t more Americans start small businesses? Government regulation, Rubio says. Why do Americans pay so much for higher education? Government subsidies for students drive up prices. Why don’t low-income workers try to work more hours or strive for a promotion? Government assistance disincentivizes it. "If (low-income) people work and make more money, they lose more in benefits than they would earn in salary," Rubio wrote in the book, released Jan. 13. This idea is at the heart of Rubio’s plan to tackle poverty, so it’s one we wanted to look at in depth. Welfare vs. work Government benefits for low-income individuals and families come in many forms: housing assistance, health care and money to purchase food, among others. Additionally, some states provide further assistance with local programs. These programs, reserved for poor people, tend to ramp down as income goes up, meaning the more money you make, the fewer benefits you receive. Makes sense. That phasedown, though, creates cliffs that sometime lessen the value of the increase in earnings. A similar effect occurs when people move into a higher tax bracket as their income goes up. Economists look at these changes in benefits and tax rates in terms of their impact on every additional dollar earned. When the impact is high, and a large chunk of the amount of every additional dollar earned goes to taxes or to offset a decrease in benefits, it can affect people’s desire to work more, said the Congressional Budget Office, the chief fiscal scorekeeper for lawmakers. This situation becomes an incentive for people "already in the workforce to put in fewer hours or be less productive," the CBO said. Is it possible that the benefits lost could be so great, that a person would lose more in benefits than they would gain by an increase in wages? Sure. The Cato Institute, a libertarian policy shop, released a study in 2013 that made this exact point. By analyzing the total benefits an individual can receive in each state and from the federal government, they determined that in nine states assistance payouts exceeded $35,000 a year. Welfare paid better than a minimum wage job in 34 states, plus the District of Columbia, they reported. We asked Rubio’s office for more evidence, and we didn’t hear back. Under such a scenario, an individual could lose more by working than staying in their current situation. ‘Typical’ low-income family But what is that situation? To reach its headline-grabbing conclusions, Cato claims it focused on a typical welfare family. But the study focused on what a single mother with two children might qualify for. That’s an important distinction, and one that significantly alters the playing field. Single mothers with multiple children are eligible for considerably more benefits than poor individuals or married couples with no children. The report goes on to assume that the "typical" family receives seven different forms of public assistance, but that assumption is a pretty big leap. Here’s why: There are four main federal programs: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps); Medicaid or Child Health Insurance Program (health care); Section 8 (housing assistance); and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (welfare). According to the Congressional Budget Office in 2012, most families do not receive assistance from more than one of these programs. In fact, just a quarter of single parents with children earning up to 250 percent of the federal poverty line are enrolled in two of those programs. About 11 percent are enrolled in three or four. If we look at all low-income households of every size and makeup, then 17 percent of low-income households are enrolled in multiple federal programs and only 1 percent receive benefits from all four of them. So choosing to look at a single mother receiving benefits from seven programs, as Cato does, is an extreme example. Also, there are two widely used programs, the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit, that actually increase benefits for very low-income individuals the more money that they make for their first $10,000 in wages. The benefits then ramp down after someone earns about $17,000 annually. This incentivizes and rewards poor parents who work more, and therefore it actually decreases the marginal tax rate for many low-income workers. In part because of these two tax credits, it is quite uncommon that someone would go from not working to working and lose more in benefits than they would gain in income. ‘Possible but rare’ Let’s go back to looking at this issue in terms of income lost on additional earnings. According to the Congressional Budget Office, there are very few instances when all 100 cents of an additional dollar earned would go to taxes and replacing lost benefits. In fact, among low- and moderate-income taxpayers, less than one percent lose 80 cents or more of every additional dollar earned. Those most affected would likely be individuals who earn near or just above the poverty level (about $20,000 in a three-person household), who are also enrolled in multiple benefit programs that are set to phase out with any additional income. This is not the norm. Most people earning at or near the poverty level lose about 30 percent in taxes and offset benefits on their additional income. Losing 100 percent of every dollar earned to taxes or replacing lost benefits is "possible but rare," said Eugene Steuerle at the Urban Institute. "High 40 to 60 percent rates are more common, and, if one adds in cost of transportation and clothing (not a tax but a loss from working), higher still." It’s difficult to know when or how people factor lost benefits in their employment decisions, the Congressional Budget Office said. Benefits from government assistance programs are complex and determined by a multitude of factors, both financial (like salary, enrollment in other assistance programs) and nonfinancial (marital status, number of children). It would be hard for an individual to decide if working an extra few hours a week or taking that promotion is going to impact their benefits. Our ruling In his book, Rubio wrote, "If people work and make more money, they lose more in benefits than they would earn in salary." There is evidence that when a large chunk of the amount of every additional dollar earned goes to taxes or to offset a decrease in benefits, people work less. Further, there are scenarios where a low-income individual with children receiving assistance from the government through multiple programs could potentially lose more in benefits than he or she would gain by a slight or modest increase in income. But these examples are a small minority. The vast majority of people face some higher taxes and lost benefits when they make more money, but they would still take home more in pay than they would under a lower salary. The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would leave a different impression. We rate the statement Mostly False. Help fund PolitiFact’s Kickstarter to live fact-check the 2015 State of the Union and GOP response. | null | Marco Rubio | null | null | null | 2015-01-14T11:56:56 | 2015-01-13 | ['None'] |
pomt-02927 | Under President George W. Bush, "we added $4.9 trillion to the debt. Under President Obama … we’ve added $6.5 trillion to the debt." | true | /new-hampshire/statements/2013/nov/01/kelly-ayotte/ayotte-counts-amount-debt-accrued-presidents-bush-/ | During a swing through New Hampshire in October 2013, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., hammered home her concern about the country’s growing national debt. When she met with about 60 people at a town hall forum in Hudson, N.H., Ayotte stood beside a national debt counter projected onto a screen. It ticked away each new dollar added to the country’s debts, which recently topped $17 trillion. Ayotte said both parties bear responsibility, and that the debt can only be addressed through bipartisan cooperation. "It took two parties to get us into debt. It’s going to take two parties to get us out of debt," she said. "Under President (George W. Bush), we added $4.9 trillion to the debt. Under President Obama, since he’s been in office, we’ve added $6.5 trillion to the debt," she said. "I think all of us sort of on a gut basis understand why the $17 trillion debt is bad for the country, because at home, if we didn’t pay our bills, eventually we get to a point where if our bills end up being more than we’re taking in, we go bankrupt." Throughout his first term, Obama was saddled with criticism that deficit spending has ballooned under his watch. PolitiFact has checked a variety of these claims in the past, but with Ayotte again drawing attention to the national debt, we thought it would be useful to take another look. It’s somewhat tricky to calculate how much money Obama is responsible for adding to the national debt. The point at which Obama starts to bear responsibility for debt increases is a matter of dispute. Normally, presidents inherit budget policies from their predecessors, but because Obama took office during an economic free-fall, several big-ticket budgetary items, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program, could plausibly be ascribed to a combination of the two presidents. (See a full discussion here and here.) However, the simplest way to analyze Ayotte’s claim is to look at the size of the debt on the day Obama took office -- January 20, 2009 -- and compare it to the debt level today. This is what Ayotte was getting at when she cited the increase in the national debt "since he’s been in office." Another challenge in assessing Ayotte’s claim is the fact that there are at least two ways to measure the national debt. "Public debt" is one measurement commonly used by the U.S. Department of Treasury. It includes all debt borrowed by the federal government and held by investors through Treasury notes and other securities. Another commonly cited figure is the country’s total debt, or gross federal debt. This number is higher. It includes public debt plus government debts, such as the money borrowed from the Social Security and Medicare trust funds to fund government operations, which are effectively government IOUs to itself. Here, the context in which Ayotte made her claim is helpful in determining whether she was referring to public debt or total debt. Before discussing Obama, Ayotte said that former president Bush added $4.9 trillion to the national debt during his time in office. Bush did in fact increase the national debt by $4.9 trillion if you measure by total debt, or gross federal debt. For this reason, we’ll assume Ayotte was also speaking about total debt when she discussed the $6.5 trillion increase under Obama. Crunching the numbers On Jan. 20, 2009, the date of Obama's inauguration, the debt held by the public stood at roughly $6.307 trillion, according to the Treasury Department’s "Debt to the Penny" calculator. The total debt, or gross federal debt, was about $10.627 trillion. Next, we need to calculate how much the debt increased as of Oct. 24, 2013 -- the date Ayotte made her remark in Hudson. By that date, the debt held by the public was about $12.122 trillion and total debt had climbed to nearly $17.1 trillion. So, since Obama took office, debt held by the public increased by about $5.815 trillion, and total debt increased by about $6.451 trillion. So she was right on the money. Ayotte overstated the increase by about $49 billion, which is a lot of money, but it’s a tiny fraction of the country’s multi-trillion dollar debt. One final note: On claims where a speaker takes credit or assigns blame for a statistic, we usually take a two-part approach to rating the claim’s accuracy. Is the number right? And is the credit or blame correctly assigned? In this case, Obama doesn’t deserve full "blame" for the debt growth on his watch, since about two-thirds of the annual deficit during his term has been from entitlements and interest. Entitlements, such as Social Security and Medicare, are less susceptible to a president’s policy preferences than discretionary spending that Congress must approve on an annual basis. Entitlements are also more heavily driven by demographic factors, such as the aging of the population, which is also out of any president’s control. Meanwhile, a sizable share of the interest being paid today is paying off debts accumulated under previous presidents. That said, we’re not going to dock Ayotte for how she assigned blame, because her claim was carefully evenhanded. Even as she applied "blame" to Obama, she said the same applied to Bush. Her statement that "it took two parties to get us into debt. It’s going to take two parties to get us out of debt" is distinctly bipartisan in tone. Our ruling Ayotte said that the country has added $6.5 trillion to the national debt since Obama took office and $4.9 trillion under Bush. When measuring by total debt, she’s correct on both counts. We rate her claim True. | null | Kelly Ayotte | null | null | null | 2013-11-01T15:45:23 | 2013-10-24 | ['George_W._Bush', 'Barack_Obama'] |
snes-03239 | Mark Twain said that Its easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-mark-twain-say-its-easier-to-fool-people-than-to-convince-them-that-they-have-been-fooled/ | null | Politics | null | Dan Evon | null | Did Mark Twain Say ‘It’s Easier to Fool People Than to Convince Them That They Have Been Fooled’? | 29 December 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05733 | ABC banned on-air news personnel from wearing American flag pins after 9/11. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/abc-news-bans-flag-lapel-pins/ | null | September 11th | null | Snopes Staff | null | Did ABC News Ban Flag Lapel Pins? | 8 October 2001 | null | ['United_States'] |
snes-04408 | An image shows that Democratic interns are much more diverse as a group than Republican interns. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/republican-and-democratic-interns/ | null | Politicians | null | Dan Evon | null | Diversity Among Democratic and Republic Interns | 20 July 2016 | null | ['Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
pose-01350 | “First, I'm going to reinstitute a five-year ban on all executive branch officials lobbying the government for five years after they leave government. I'm going to ask Congress to pass this ban into law so that it cannot be lifted by executive order, right. Second, I'm going to ask Congress to institute its own five-year ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and their staffs.” | compromise | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/promise/1442/enact-5-year-ban-white-house-and-congressional-off/ | null | trumpometer | Donald Trump | null | null | Enact 5-year ban on White House and congressional officials from lobbying | 2017-01-17T08:41:44 | null | ['United_States_Congress'] |
chct-00115 | FACT CHECK: Is Trump To Blame For $3 A Gallon Gas? | verdict: unsubstantiated | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/06/15/fact-check-trump-price-gas/ | null | null | null | David Sivak | Fact Check Editor | null | null | 1:51 PM 06/15/2018 | null | ['None'] |
afck-00407 | “The overall crime rate has decreased by 21 percent since 2002…” | misleading | https://africacheck.org/reports/a-first-look-at-president-jacob-zumas-2014-state-of-the-nation-address/ | null | null | null | null | null | President Jacob Zuma’s sixth State of the Nation address fact-checked | 2014-02-14 12:39 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04521 | Says Ohio's Issue 2 will create a redistricting commission that will "have a blank check to spend our money." | false | /ohio/statements/2012/oct/03/ohio-republican-party/ohio-republican-party-says-issue-2-would-create-re/ | A frequent criticism of Issue 2, the redistricting reform proposal before Ohio voters on Nov. 6, is its cost to taxpayers. The Ohio Republican Party played that card when it sent out a campaign flier Sept. 11, 2012, with a warning about the 12-member redistricting commission that Issue 2 would establish. Its claim: "They’ll have a blank check to spend our money." The claim is a common theme used in the campaign against Issue 2. PolitiFact Ohio decided to check it out. Issue 2 is a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution that would reform the way the state’s Congressional and legislative boundaries are drawn, a process known as redistricting that happens every 10 years. Elected officials, including the governor and legislative leaders, control the current process. District boundary lines typically are drawn to favor whichever party is in power. Last year, Republicans, who control state government, drew new lines that grouped voters into districts designed to help Republicans win future elections. Issue 2 would remove elected officials from the redistricting process and hand the responsibility over to a new redistricting commission. Should Issue 2 pass, a commission would be appointed next year to draw new maps for the 2014 election. The GOP claim is based on language in Issue 2 that addresses funding for commission members’ salaries, staff, office space, legal counsel and other expenses. The proposal says "the General Assembly shall make appropriations necessary to adequately fund the activities of the commission." But that that’s not the same as having a blank check. "Necessary to adequately fund" the commission’s activities indicates there must be some basis of support for funding. Subsequent to the GOP sending out the mailer, the Ohio Supreme Court took that very position. The group supporting Issue 2, Voters First Ohio, sued to challenge a summary of Issue 2 that would appear on voters’ ballots. The Ohio Ballot Board, as it does with all state ballot issues, approved a summary ballot language. Voters First said in its lawsuit that the summary was misleading -- specifically a portion that said Issue 2 would "mandate the General Assembly to appropriate all funds as determined by the commission." That sounds similar to the Ohio GOP’s claim that the commission would have a blank check. In its Sept. 12 ruling, the Ohio Supreme Court specifically said the proposal would not provide the commission with a "blank check." The court, by a 6-1 vote, agreed with Voters First that the ballot summary was misleading. "The actual text of the proposed constitutional amendment does not state that the redistricting commission would have – as the ballot board’s language indicates – a blank check for all funds as determined by the commission. Rather, the proposed constitutional amendment expressly limits appropriations for the commission to those ‘necessary to adequately fund the activities’ of the commission," the ruling said. A lawyer representing the Republican Party defended using the term blank check at a recent Ohio Elections Commission hearing. The commission held a probable cause hearing Sept. 20 on the GOP’s campaign literature after Voters First filed a complaint saying the mailer was inaccurate. Attorney Terrence O’Donnell told the commission that blank check is a "well understood political figure of speech" and that the average voter would not infer that the commission literally would be allowed to fill in the dollar amount on a blank check. The elections commission’s probable cause panel split along party lines, 2-2, about whether to hold a full hearing to examine whether Republicans’ claim about the blank check was accurate. Without a majority, the matter was dropped. We asked the Ohio GOP if it wanted to offer any other arguments to support its claim. Spokesman Matthew Henderson directed us to Carlo LoParo, spokesman for the anti-Issue 2 group, Protect Your Vote Ohio. LoParo said the claim was not meant to suggest to voters that the commission would have unlimited funds. He said the phrase was meant to convey "an amount that is unknown, yet substantial." Citing a story published June 9, 2012, in The Sacramento Bee, LoParo said a redistricting commission in California, similar to the one proposed in Ohio, spent $10 million drawing political boundaries. The California redistricting commission initially estimated its work would cost about $3 million. LoParo said Issue 2’s vague wording, which does not cap spending at a specific dollar amount, would allow the commission to sue for more money if it decided lawmakers did not give them enough. That may be true, but it would still require a showing that additional money was "necessary to adequately fund the activities." So, where does that leave us? Issue 2 would provide the redistricting commission with funds "necessary to adequately fund the activities" of the commission. The Ohio Supreme Court said this qualification does not entitle the commission to a blank check. But the Ohio Republican Party and Issue 2 opponents argue the court was being too literal, that the term blank check is a figure of speech that conveys a large, unknown amount of money. Even if most voters don’t take the Ohio Republican Party’s statement to mean an actual blank check would be presented to the redistricting commission, the phrase "blank check" does presume an unchecked spending authority. But, as the Ohio Supreme Court ruled, the proposed amendment places a qualification on spending. If the commission were to ask for more money than initially provided, as LoParo hypothesized, it would have to show the spending is necessary. There is no specific cap on spending in the amendment, but that does not mean the commission will be able to spend as much as it wants. The GOP’s statement is not accurate. On the Truth-O-Meter, the claim rates False. | null | Ohio Republican Party | null | null | null | 2012-10-03T06:00:00 | 2012-09-11 | ['None'] |
pomt-12783 | Look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/feb/19/donald-trump/donald-trump-florida-rally-laments-attack-last-nig/ | Defending his immigrant travel ban at a Feb. 18 campaign rally, President Donald Trump referred to several places that have taken in a large number of refugees and have recently been attacked. Trump mentioned well-documented terrorist attacks in Europe alongside an apparently sinister occurrence we had not heard about — in Sweden. "We've got to keep our country safe. You look at what's happening. We've got to keep our country safe. You look at what's happening in Germany. You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden," Trump said at the Melbourne, Fla., event. "Sweden? Who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible. "You look at what's happening in Brussels," he continued. "You look at what's happening all over the world. Take a look at Nice. Take a look at Paris." Was there an immigrant-linked incident in Sweden the night before Trump’s rally? Call it the "Bowling Green massacre," part II. Sweden has let in a large number of immigrants and refugees. But we couldn’t find any evidence that indicates Sweden’s immigration policy is causing the types of problems with terrorist incidents that Trump suggested — and we couldn’t find any record of an attack by terrorists or immigrants in Sweden on the night of Feb. 17, or any night recently. So, what really happened in Sweden on Friday? Not much. Swedish officials were quick to share their dismay of Trump’s comments on Twitter. "Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking? Questions abound," Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister and foreign minister, said on Twitter. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com One of the country's official Twitter accounts, @swedense, shared tweets from a verified account controlled by a different person each week. "Nothing happened here in Sweden," one tweet read. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com Sweden's Aftonbladet tabloid snarkily summarized the news from the evening of Feb. 17 in English in response to Trump’s claim. Among six news stories highlighted: a man set himself on fire in Stockholm, a popular Swedish singer had technical difficulties during a performance, and harsh weather closed roads in northern Sweden. We scoured international reports from the LexisNexis database and still came up short on attacks or anything particularly newsworthy. In addition to Swedish officials, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Foreign Ministry told the Associated Press on Feb. 19 that the Swedish government was not aware of any "terror-linked major incidents" that occurred on the night of Feb. 17. We wondered what Trump could have been referring to. The White House did not respond to our query. Some reports linked Trump’s comment to a clip that aired on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News show Feb. 17. Carlson interviewed Ami Horowitz, who directed a documentary about Sweden and refugees. "Sweden had its first terrorist Islamic attack not that long ago, so they’re now getting a taste of what we’ve been seeing across Europe already," Horowitz said during the interview. Shortly after this fact-check published, Trump issued a response on Twitter that confirmed he was going off of a Fox report on Swedish immigration. See Figure 5 on PolitiFact.com It’s unclear what attack Horowitz was referencing, but there are a few notable Sweden attacks worth mentioning. In October 2016 in the city of Malmo, a Syrian national targeted a mosque and community center with a Molotov cocktail. No one was killed, and this attack was cited by the White House in its list of 78 incidents "under-reported" by the media (even though each was covered). And back in 2010, suicide bomber Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly struck central Stockholm. The perpetrator, an Iraqi-born Swede, died and injured two others. The most recent example of an attack in Sweden happened in early January 2017, though it wasn’t linked to immigrants or refugees. Three neo-Nazis attacked an asylum-seeker center with homemade bombs. The incident left one person injured, according to reports. Sweden’s immigration policy Until recently, Sweden had welcomed immigrants and refugees. The Nordic country has taken in more than 250,000 refugees and immigrants applications since 2014, according to the Swedish Migration Agency. Between 2014 and 2015, asylum applications doubled in Sweden from about 81,000 to 163,000 as more Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and unaccompanied minors sought entry. In 2016, that number dropped dramatically with Sweden only processed about 29,000 applications. Because of the large number of refugees taken in 2015, the Swedish government announced it would be changing its policies to encourage people to seek refuge in other countries. Henrik Selin, a political scientist and deputy director of the Swedish Institute, told the New York Times he was perplexed by Trump’s insinuation. "I do not have a clue what he was referring to," Selin told the New York Times. "Obviously, this could be connected to the fact that there has been a lot of negative reporting about Sweden, since Sweden has taken in a lot of refugees." He recently completed a study looking at the negative news reports about Sweden’s intake of refugees. It concluded that the news reports were "highly exaggerated and not based in facts," he told the newspaper. Sweden found support via Twitter from their Finnish neighbor. "Dear @realDonaldTrump, Sweden is immigration friendly, international & liberal," said Alexander Stubb, the former prime minister of Finland. "One of the most prosperous, richest, safest places on earth." See Figure 4 on PolitiFact.com Our ruling Decrying countries who accept immigrants and refugees, Trump told supporters to "look at what’s happening last night in Sweden." We couldn’t find any reports that support Trump’s narrative. It’s possible Trump was referring to another event, but there hasn’t been a fatal terrorist attack in Sweden since 2010. Even though Sweden has taken in a large number of immigrants, nothing was amiss Feb. 17. We rate Trump’s claim False. UPDATE: This fact-check was updated shortly after publishing to include Trump's tweet confirming he watched the Fox report. The rating did not change. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/1408093c-03fb-4409-a012-5eabe9c618f5 | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2017-02-19T15:54:31 | 2017-02-18 | ['Sweden'] |
pomt-15234 | $700 billion was robbed (from Medicare) to pay for Obamacare. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/aug/07/mike-huckabee/obamacare-robbed-medicare-700-billion-says-huckabe/ | Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee accused "illegals, prostitutes, pimps, (and) drug dealers" of freeloading off the Social Security system during the Aug. 6 GOP primary debate. Huckabee's provocative comment concluded a wonkish back-and-forth between him and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie about entitlement reform. Christie defended his plan to raise the retirement age and change benefits for Social Security and Medicare, but Huckabee stressed that Uncle Sam was to blame. "If Congress wants to mess with the retirement program, why don't we let them start by changing their retirement program, and not have one, instead of talking about getting rid of Social Security and Medicare that was robbed $700 billion to pay for Obamacare?" Huckabee said. This claim -- that the Affordable Care Act is funded by plundering the health care program of seniors -- is an old Republican talking point, dating back to the 2010 midterm elections. We’ve checked out many versions of this claim, which contains some truth but is misleading. Obamacare doesn’t literally "rob" Medicare. But the Affordable Care Act does include provisions that reduce future increases in Medicare spending. In other words, the law slows down the rising costs of Medicare. It’s also important to note that the savings come at the expense of insurers and hospitals, not beneficiaries. (The $700 billion figure is also old, from a 2012 report by the Congressional Budget Office. It’s now updated to about $800 billion.) Under President George W. Bush, private insurers began to run a subset of Medicare plans with the idea that more competition produced lower costs. However, those plans grew to cost more than traditional Medicare, so the Affordable Care Act pared down the payments to private insurers. Hospitals would also find their checks docked when they failed to to meet benchmarks for patient care. On the flip side, the Affordable Care Act also funds illness prevention benefits, expands preventive care benefits, and provides $48 billion for prescription coverage. It’s possible that some beneficiaries could experience additional costs, reductions in service, or fewer hospitals that accept Medicare. "While ‘robbed’ is a bit loaded, the idea that Medicare beneficiaries are getting less generous benefits in order that the ACA can offer health benefits to younger people isn’t outrageous," said Andrew Biggs, resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. But that’s a potential impact and a less direct effect of Obamacare than the claim suggests. The prior critiques of the claim "remain relevant," the head of Medicare and Medicaid under George H.W. Bush told PolitiFact in 2014. Our ruling Huckabee said, "$700 billion was robbed (from Medicare) to fund Obamacare." It’s an old claim and an old figure. The law does reduce Medicare spending, but not in the way Huckabee suggests. The Affordable Care Act aims to cut future Medicare costs by reducing payments to private insurers and hospitals, not beneficiaries, though this could indirectly squeeze beneficiaries. The claim is partially accurate but leaves out important context. We rate it Half True. | null | Mike Huckabee | null | null | null | 2015-08-07T00:27:51 | 2015-08-06 | ['Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act', 'Medicare_(United_States)'] |
pomt-04559 | Barack Hussein Obama will .. force Christian organizations to pay for abortions. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/sep/26/government-not-god-pac/pac-ad-says-obama-will-force-christian-groups-pay-/ | A super PAC called Government is Not God is running an ad in newspapers around the country warning readers of dire consequences if the president wins a second term. "Barack Hussein Obama," the ad says, "will move America to force Christian organizations to pay for abortion." That claim tops a list of numerous charges about abortion, immigration, Islam and even the Declaration of Independence, which we’ll look at in separate-fact checks. For this one, the topic is abortion. HHS rule The claim is based on a rule to implement the new health care law that was announced in January 2012 by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. It addressed women’s preventive health services that must be covered by insurers without a co-pay, co-insurance or a deductible. At issue is how much organizations with religious ties would be bound by the rule. It was a clarification of the provision in the Affordable Care Act, often known as Obamacare, for co-pay-free preventive care. For individual and small-group plans, the law requires that policies cover "essential health benefits." The idea of co-pay-free preventive care stems from studies that show that even moderate co-pays kept women from getting care, such as mammograms or pap smears, according to HHS. The nongovernmental Institute of Medicine recommended that preventive services include all FDA-approved forms of contraception: physical methods such as condoms, diaphragms, cervical caps and IUDs, as well as hormonal methods such as the pill, implants and hormone shots. It includes emergency contraceptives such as Plan B and Ella, though not so-called "abortion drugs" like RU-486 that end early pregnancy by blocking the activity of progesterone. Most health insurance plans will have to cover them without a co-pay, co-insurance or a deductible. For most new and renewed health plans, that requirement kicked in Aug. 1, 2012. Religious exemptions The HHS rule provides an exemption for "certain non-profit religious employers" that meet a four-part test -- essentially churches and synagogues, but also some primary and secondary religious schools. That left other religious-affiliated organizations, such as universities and hospitals, outside the exemption and in a position where they could be required to cover services to which they have a moral objection. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with other groups and conservative leaders, rose up to fight the rule. Here’s why: Plan B and Ella -- the "morning-after pill" -- prevent fertilization of an egg, but taken later can prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg. To some, that’s tantamount to inducing an abortion. "In a Catholic moral perspective and in the view of many other pro-life people, this is an early abortifacient effect, not merely contraceptive, because it ends a life that has already come into being. However, federal law would not define this as an abortion, because it only covers the interruption of an implanted pregnancy," Richard Doerflinger, associate director of Pro-Life Activities at the bishops conference, told PolitiFact. In response to the uproar, the administration offered a compromise in February, requiring insurance companies instead of employers to cover contraception if the employer objects. The organizations were also given an extra year to comply with the rule. A White House fact sheet says religious organizations will not have to provide contraceptive coverage or refer their employees to organizations that provide contraception, religious organizations will not be required to subsidize the cost of contraception, and contraceptive coverage will be offered to women by their employers’ insurance companies directly, with no role for religious employers who oppose contraception. To those objecting to the rule, the compromise is little more than a shell game. Said Doerflinger: "The actual money for this coverage will still come from the premiums paid in by the employer and employee. … The Catholic employer, as much as before, is deprived of its freedom to provide a health plan (and its employees are deprived of the freedom to receive a health plan, for themselves and their minor children) that conforms to their moral and religious principles." More than two dozen lawsuits against the Obama administration over the rule are pending around the country. So, is the claim accurate? Doerflinger says yes. "The mandate includes drugs that can cause an abortion; and we haven’t seen a workable scenario in which the money for covering such drugs comes from anywhere but the premiums paid by many Christian employers and their employees," he said. We also asked NARAL Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, for its take: "The new contraceptive-coverage policy referenced in the claim … will not force Christian organizations to pay for abortion. The policy requires coverage of all FDA-approved forms of birth control, including emergency contraception (EC). EC is not abortion, rather, it prevents pregnancy. Therefore, no one is required to cover abortion under this policy," said Samantha Gordon, spokeswoman for NARAL. "Also, the administration explicitly exempts religious houses of worship from the contraceptive-coverage requirement. Moreover, the policy allows religiously affiliated employers that presently refuse to offer their employees contraceptive coverage a one-year grace period to come into compliance. These organizations also will be allowed to opt out of the policy permanently if they oppose it." Our conclusion: There is a narrow window in this claim that has some truth. The wording -- "Christian organizations will be forced to pay for abortions" -- is clearly an overreach. Christian organizations won’t be "forced" to hand over money for abortion procedures performed at clinics by doctors. But because employers are now required to provide health insurance for employees under the Affordable Care Act (or otherwise face fines) and because that law dictates that preventive care must be provided at no cost to the insured person, there is some force being applied by the federal government. Preventive care, as defined by HHS, encompasses birth control, emergency contraceptives and sterilization -- health services that some people equate with abortion. Overall, the statement creates a misleading impression. But that one element of truth leads us to rate it Mostly False. | null | Government is Not God PAC | null | null | null | 2012-09-26T18:01:41 | 2012-09-23 | ['None'] |
tron-00675 | The saga of the hotel soap | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/berman/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | The saga of the hotel soap | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02625 | Is Jennifer Garner Turning To Scientology? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-garner-scientology-scientologist/ | null | null | null | Michael Lewittes | null | Is Jennifer Garner Turning To Scientology? | 10:50 am, July 30, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14445 | Says Bernie Sanders "was against the auto bailout" and "voted against the money that ended up saving the auto industry." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/07/hillary-clinton/michigan-hillary-clinton-says-bernie-sanders-was-a/ | Sen. Bernie Sanders didn’t support the bailout that saved the auto industry, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said of her opponent ahead of the primary in Michigan, a state built on the auto business. "He was against the auto bailout," Clinton said at a March 6 CNN debate in Flint, Mich. "In January of 2009, President-elect Obama asked everybody in the Congress to vote for the bailout. The money was there and had to be released in order to save the American auto industry and 4 million jobs and to begin the restructuring. We had the best year that the auto industry has had in a long time. I voted to save the auto industry. He voted against the money that ended up saving the auto industry." Sanders seemed skeptical of this line of critique. "Well, if you are talking about the Wall Street bailout, where some of your friends destroyed this economy," he responded. Immediately a bunch of readers asked us to look into this claim to see if Sanders really did oppose the auto bailout, which many people believe rescued major automakers struggling to stay afloat during the 2008 Great Recession. First we’ll lay out the auto bailout timeline, then we’ll explain Sanders’ votes. Basically, Sanders had two opportunities to show his support for auto bailout funds through Senate votes. He supported the bailout in one instance but not the other. In October 2008, Congress approved the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The money was intended to assist financial institutions, but it also ended up bailing out the auto industry. That December, Congress tried to pass a separate $14 billion bailout program specifically for the auto industry, which was in really bad shape. But the measure failed in the Senate, so President George W. Bush instead used his authority to allocate some of the TARP funds to General Motors and Chrysler. Just days before President Barack Obama started his first term in January 2009, some members of Congress tried to block the release of the the second half of the $700 billion TARP funds, a package that included some auto bailout money. The attempt failed, and the TARP funds went out to the banks and motor companies. So Sanders could have shown his support for the auto bailout in December 2008 when Congress tried and failed to pass an auto bailout and again in January 2009 when members considered blocking TARP funds. Sanders (and Clinton, too) voted in favor of the December separate auto bailout. "I think it would be a terrible idea to add millions more to the unemployment rolls," Sanders said, according to Vermont Public Radio, explaining why he supported the measure. However — and this is what Clinton is talking about — Sanders voted to block the release of the second half of the TARP funding, including the auto bailout funds, while Clinton voted for the funds. (Sanders opposed and Clinton supported the initial TARP bill.) Sanders said he opposed bailout funding for financial firms, which is where the majority of TARP dollars were headed. "I have strong reservations about continuing this bailout without strong taxpayer protections written into law," he said in a statement. "I also object to using middle-class taxpayer money to bail out the exact same financial institutions whose greed and recklessness led to the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression." It’s unclear how much of the second half of TARP funds Obama intended to use for the auto bailout at the time. In a letter to congressional leaders encouraging them to release the funds, Obama economic adviser Larry Summers said only that auto companies would "only receive additional assistance in the context of a comprehensive restructuring designed to achieve long-term viability." Both of Michigan’s then-senators, Democrats Debbie Stabenow and Carl Levin, advocated to continue TARP funding specifically to aid the auto industry, which has a heavy presence in their home state. Auto companies ended up receiving about about $85 billion in TARP funds, according to the New York Times. It’s possible the auto industry would not have received such a robust bailout if Congress had successfully blocked the second half of the TARP funds and withstood an Obama veto. HELP US RAISE $15,000 TO HIRE AN EXTRA FACT-CHECKER Our ruling Clinton said Sanders "was against the auto bailout" and "voted against the money that ended up saving the auto industry." Sanders did vote against a set of funds that financed most of the auto bailout — though the funds’ primary purpose was bailing out Wall Street firms, which Sanders strongly opposed. The claim, though, leaves listeners with the impression that Sanders’ opposed bailing out the auto industry. But he voted in favor of providing auto companies with $14 billion, which was separate from the Wall Street bailout funds he opposed. That standalone measure failed. We rate Clinton’s claim Half True. | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2016-03-07T16:03:00 | 2016-03-06 | ['Bernie_Sanders'] |
tron-02487 | Extending the Range of Car Key Remotes by Touching Key Them to Your Head | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/car-key-remote-trick/ | null | miscellaneous | null | null | null | Extending the Range of Car Key Remotes by Touching Key Them to Your Head | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05943 | A photograph shows a deadly 'snow snake' that has reportedly bitten and killed several people in the U.S., causing their blood to freeze. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/snow-snake/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Snopes Staff | null | Is This a ‘Snow Snake’? | 3 March 2014 | null | ['United_States'] |
pomt-00803 | White men account for 69 percent of those arrested for violent crimes. | false | /punditfact/statements/2015/apr/02/sally-kohn/sally-kohn-white-men-69-percent-arrested-violent/ | Recent incidents of overt racism and abuse of women at college fraternities led liberal columnist Sally Kohn to comment that the press and the public fail to grasp the threat of violence from white men. "Although the news media and popular culture constantly cast suspicion on young Muslim and African-American men and the supposedly disproportionate and ever-present threats these communities pose, the fact is young white men are just as dangerous," Kohn wrote in a CNN opinion piece. "But because our biases have us so busy looking the other way, we're ignoring the magnitude of this reality." Kohn went on and offered some statistics to bolster her point. Among them was this line: "Although black men are more than six times more likely to be sent to prison than white men, white men account for 69 percent of those arrested for violent crimes." A reader asked us to look into the statistic that white men account for 69 percent of those arrested for violent crimes. Correcting Kohn’s numbers Kohn’s claim about 69 percent of white men runs into trouble on two counts. The figure she cited is not for white men. It’s for all whites. And it’s not for "violent" crimes. It’s for all crimes, from loitering to murder. It’s not simple to replicate the percentage of white men arrested for violent crimes, as we’ll show you in a bit. But we can look at violent crimes, sorted solely by race. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, white men and women were arrested for 60 percent of all violent crimes in 2012. Violent crimes include murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. Here’s the arrest data: All races Whites (incl. Hispanics) Blacks (incl. Hispanics) Murder and Nonnegligent Manslaughter 10,351 4,955 5,138 Forcible Rape 15,571 10,038 5,030 Robbery 82,189 38,041 42,460 Aggravated Assault 352,017 223,426 116,984 Total 460,128 276,460 169,612 Percent 100% 60.1% 36.9% Population 240.165 million 192.319 million 30.971 million Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Arrest Data Analysis Tool Drilling down on the number of crimes committed by whites who are also male is more challenging. Federal data allows you to sort on race and sex, but not both at the same time. The exception is for homicides. While you won’t find that information on the Justice Department website, it can be culled from federal records, which is what James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, has done for many years. Fox sent us the following homicide arrest numbers: Year Race Sex Reported Percent Rate per 100K 2012 White Male 4,631 41.5% 4.9 2012 Black Male 5,095 45.6% 35.2 2013 White Male 4,486 41.7% 4.7 2013 Black Male 4,863 45.2% 33.0 Source: James Alan Fox (The percentages are based on all homicide arrests, not just the ones you see in the table.) Looking solely at murders, black men are arrested more for murder than white men, and at a much higher rate when you account for population. We can’t draw conclusions beyond that, however, because the arrest data simply doesn’t allow us to draw firm conclusions about the number of arrests for violent crimes by white and black men. We should note that data show that the majority of black murder victims are murdered by blacks, and the same holds true for whites. There are other caveats. The arrest data blends Hispanic offenders into both the white and black groups, which further muddies the discussion of ethnicity and crime. Also, arrests are not the same as criminal acts themselves. Setting homicide aside, many violent crimes go unreported and many offenders are never caught. Also, a single criminal could be counted several times if he is arrested for different offenses. To further complicate the picture, police departments patrol certain neighborhoods more than others, which makes arrests in those places more likely. When we contacted Kohn, she agreed that her number was off. The percentage she used included both white men and women, and applied to all sorts of crimes, from loitering to murder. Kohn corrected that error in her opinion piece. Accounting for population size Setting aside using the wrong number, the larger problem with Kohn’s claim is that her data point tells only half the story. There are two ways to talk about threats. Kohn chose one -- looking at what fraction of arrests for violent crimes are by a certain type of person, in this case, white men. The other way is to assess the likelihood that a certain type of person will be arrested for a violent crime. This second approach typically comes down to stating the number of crimes for every 100,000 people who are white, black, etc. Kohn used this method herself when she talked about incarceration rates for blacks compared to whites. It is true that blacks are imprisoned at about six times the rate as whites, but the source she used compared the incarceration rates for every 100,000 blacks and whites. When Kohn said that 69 percent of arrests for violent crimes were white males, she left out the population factor. "You can't talk about risk without talking about population size," Fox told PunditFact. "There are many more whites than blacks so it makes sense that the number of crimes will be high." Using the homicide count (again, the only crime where we can separate on both race and gender) whites and blacks were arrested in about equal numbers. But cast as a rate, the results shift. For 2013, Fox calculated that black men were about seven times more likely than white men to be arrested for murder. That would be a rate of 33 murders for every 100,000 black men, compared to 4.7 for every 100,000 whites. Drawing on the 2012 figures, whites were arrested for over 275,000 violent crimes. For blacks, the number is about 170,000. So while whites were arrested more, the arrest rate for blacks is nearly four times that for whites. Does that mean that from the point of view of the average citizen that blacks pose a greater threat? Not necessarily. "If one considers the absolute number of offenders and it turns out there are a larger number of offenders from Group A than Group B, then it stands to reason that Group A is the greater threat in terms of likelihood of criminal acts," said Lorie Fridell, a criminologist at the University of South Florida. Robert Brame, a criminology professor at the University of South Carolina, echoed Fridell’s assessment. "The statistical fact is that you’re more likely to be a victim of a white perpetrator than a black one just because there are so many more whites in the population," Brame said. But, Brame, continued, it is not enough to speak of either the total number or the population-based rate. "My preference would be for both statistics to be provided to give the full context," Brame said. "Neither statistic is complete without the other." Our ruling Kohn said that white men are at least as dangerous as black men and cited as proof that white men represent 69 percent of people arrested for violent crimes. When presented with the inaccuracies in using that specific figure by PunditFact, Kohn corrected herself. Criminologists we contacted also told us that those absolute figures -- when used correctly -- tell only half the story. When talking about risks to society, it is equally important to provide the population-based rate. When we do that, the threat of violent crimes posed by blacks looks larger than that of whites. For these two reasons, Kohn’s claim that "white men account for 69 percent of those arrested for violent crimes" is inaccurate. We rate it False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Sally Kohn | null | null | null | 2015-04-02T09:58:11 | 2015-03-19 | ['None'] |
snes-02469 | Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was hospitalized in New York after being beaten by a group of "liberals." | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-oreilly-beaten/ | null | Junk News | null | David Mikkelson | null | Bill O’Reilly in Critical Condition After Being Attacked by ‘Tolerant’ Liberals? | 9 May 2017 | null | ['New_York_City', 'Fox_News_Channel'] |
pomt-14265 | It’s clear that Hillary Clinton "violated national security laws." | false | /colorado/statements/2016/apr/08/Jack_Graham/jack-graham-says-its-clearhillary-clinton-violated/ | During a debate among Republicans seeking to be Colorado's U.S. Senate nominee, candidate Jack Graham blasted Hillary Clinton's use of personal email as secretary of state. "It's clear she's lied to us about her emails, that she's violated national security laws in that regard," Graham said in the debate on 9NEWS. We’re focusing on Graham’s claim that "it’s clear...she violated national security laws." Questions about whether Clinton mishandled classified information have dogged her frontrunner pursuit of the Democratic presidential nomination. But what Graham states as a clear-cut fact is very much in dispute. We’ll delve into Clinton’s email problems to explain why. The media learned in the summer of 2014 that Clinton exclusively used a private email account as secretary of state. That’s when State Department officials were responding to a records request from the House Select Committee on Benghazi. Its members were interested in how Clinton’s email choices may have affected the 2012 terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya and its aftermath. In July 2015, the inspector generals for the Intelligence Community and the State Department -- both of whom are independent of their respective agencies -- sent what is called a security referral to the Justice Department. A security referral is essentially a notification that classified information might be stored outside of the government’s secure network. In this case, the location was Clinton’s private email server located at her New York home. FBI agents were assigned to look into the security setup for Clinton’s home email server and a thumb drive that contained copies of Clinton’s work emails. But what started as a security review soon became an investigation into whether anyone had committed a crime in handling classified information, the New York Times reported, citing multiple, anonymous law enforcement officials. Clinton has apologized for what happened: "Yes, I should have used two email addresses, one for personal matters and one for my work at the State Department. Not doing so was a mistake. I’m sorry about it, and I take full responsibility." She has maintained that "nothing I ever sent or received was marked classified at the time." The situation with Clinton’s email is downright confusing -- for several reasons. As PolitiFact has reported, federal agencies have the ability to classify information after the fact. So some of the emails weren’t classified when Clinton sent or received them, but they were later classified after a government review. On top of that, government agencies regularly disagree over what should be classified. Independent inspectors general have said Clinton’s emails contain some classified intelligence information, but the Clinton campaign and the State Department dispute those findings -- saying the information was not classified. Meanwhile, the State Department has released more than 50,000 of Clinton’s emails, which the public can search on the agency’s website. Overall, 2,093 of the emails were redacted because they contained some classified details. Most were rated "confidential," the lowest classification level. But the State Department has said that, at the request of intelligence agencies, 22 emails were deemed "top secret," and will not be made public, the Washington Post reported. Some of the released emails show Clinton’s State Department team cautiously avoiding emailing each other classified information. Senior adviser Alec Ross noted in a February 2010 email that he was keeping his comments "within the boundaries of unclassified email… regarding the country we discussed." But Clinton’s defense that she never sent or received email that was "marked classified at the time" doesn’t wash with Ronald J. Sievert, a former federal prosecutor and with experience in national security issues who now teaches at the University of Texas School of Law. In a USA TODAY commentary, Sievert called the defense a "smokescreen," saying the relevant federal law "does not even once mention the word ‘classified.’ " Instead, the law makes it a crime for anyone "entrusted with … any document ... or information relating to the national defense … through gross negligence (to permit) the same to be removed from its proper place of custody," he writes. "The courts have held repeatedly that ‘national defense information’ includes closely held military, foreign policy and intelligence information and that evidence that the information is classified is not necessary for a prosecution." Few details have become public about the ongoing FBI investigation. Last month, the Washington Post reported that the Justice Department has granted immunity to a former State Department staffer in exchange for his cooperation in the investigation. The former employee, Bryan Pagliano, installed the email server in Clinton’s New York home in 2009. He also worked on her 2008 presidential campaign. The Post, citing current and former officials, also reported that FBI agents working to wrap up the investigation in the coming months are likely to want to interview Clinton and her senior aides about the decision to use a private server, how it was set up, and whether any of the participants knew they were sending classified information in emails. An expert in government secrecy says nothing revealed to date supports Senate candidate Jack Graham’s assertion that "it’s clear" Clinton violated national security laws. "It is not at all clear that Clinton violated any national security law, and Mr. Graham did not indicate what law he had in mind," said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists. "The laws that govern classified information are a patchwork of statutes dating back as long as a century ago (before today's classification system even existed), and their application is often unclear," Aftergood said. "But most of those statutes require criminal intent in order to commit a violation. There is no known evidence of criminal intent on Clinton's part. If Mr. Graham has such evidence, he should immediately provide it to law enforcement officials." Graham’s campaign manager Dick Wadhams sent us this message when we asked for evidence: "I am confident you are very familiar with this Clinton controversy and by googling ‘Hillary Clinton Email Scandal’ or similar words you will find a multitude of sources that agree with Jack Graham and his statement." Our ruling Graham said: "It’s clear ... she violated national security laws." Hypothetically, the evidence may someday support Graham’s accusation against Clinton. But at this time, there is no clear evidence that Clinton has broken the law. No one has been charged with a crime in this case -- let alone convicted. Graham goes too far in stating that possibility as fact. We rate his claim False. | null | Jack Graham | null | null | null | 2016-04-08T16:44:36 | 2016-04-05 | ['None'] |
snes-02685 | An immigrant put peanut butter in a little girl's sandwich causing her to have an allergic reaction. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/immigrant-peanut-butter-sandwich/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Bethania Palma | null | Did an Immigrant Make a Girl Sick by Putting Peanut Butter in Her Sandwich? | 4 April 2017 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05765 | Doctors have performed the first successful human head transplant. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/worlds-first-head-transplant-success-nineteen-hour-operation/ | null | Media Matters | null | Snopes Staff | null | Was the World’s First Head Transplant a Success After a Nineteen-Hour Operation? | 13 April 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00188 | Barack Obama and Joe Biden will declare the cyber infrastructure a strategic asset, vital to national security and the global economy, and develop and deploy systems to protect it. ... Barack Obama and Joe Biden will establish the position of national cyber advisor who will report directly to the president and will be responsible for coordinating federal agency efforts and development of national cyber policy. | compromise | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/202/create-a-national-cyber-adviser-to-coordinate-secu/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Create a national cyber adviser to coordinate security of electronic infrastructure | 2010-01-07T13:26:51 | null | ['Joe_Biden', 'Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-13662 | In Arizona, "there are only one and a half (Border Patrol) agents per every 10 square miles." | false | /arizona/statements/2016/aug/04/kelly-terry-willis/sister-border-patrol-agent-killed-near-arizona-bor/ | The Arizona-Mexico border became a brief focal point during day one of the Republican National Convention. Live from the border via video, Kelly Terry-Willis and Kent Terry, relatives of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, who was killed in a shootout with Mexican bandits near the border in December 2010, bashed President Barack Obama for leaving Border Patrol agents "thinly equipped." "In Arizona, for example, there are only one and a half agents per every 10 square miles," Kelly Terry-Willis said July 18. "This is unacceptable." Kent Terry continued, "Only one candidate is serious about border security, and that’s Donald Trump." Here at PolitiFact Arizona, we wondered, is immigration enforcement really as unmanned as Kelly Terry-Willis claimed? Linear vs. square miles We did not hear back from Terry-Willis, but found the numbers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Arizona spans a total of 113,998 square miles and 4,795 agents for the two sectors along the Arizona-Mexico border. We did the math using square miles and found that there is actually one Border Patrol agent per every 23.77 square miles in Arizona. That comes out to .4 agents per every 10 square miles. So Terry-Willis’ math is off. But Border Patrol notes that trying to use the state’s total square miles as a statistic is irrelevant since most agents are deployed far to the south, closer to the border. The number of agents per linear mile is much higher. In fiscal year 2015, the Tucson, Ariz., sector had 3,991 Border Patrol agents covering 262 linear miles of border. That’s just over 15 agents per mile. The Yuma, Ariz., sector had 804 Border Patrol agents covering 126 linear miles of border. That’s just over six agents per mile. Both sectors cover the more than 360 total miles along the Arizona-Mexico border, as well as the rest of the state. Border Patrol also notes that agents are deployed to areas based on the threat of criminal activity. In their 2012-16 strategic plan, they even outline a "risk-based approach" to patrolling the border. Michael Lytle, a criminal justice professor and border security expert at the University of Texas at Brownsville, notes that there are some agents in more places along the border than others. Technology, terrain and other barriers could be at play. "Patterns of activity shape a section of the border, and may not necessitate the presence of an officer on that particular milemarker," Lytle said. Our ruling Terry-Willis said, in Arizona,"there are only one and a half (Border Patrol) agents per every 10 square miles." Based on our calculations, she actually overestimates the number of Border Patrol agents compared to square miles. But that’s still misleading -- and leaves out important context. Most Border Patrol agents survey areas closer to the Arizona-Mexico border, not the rest of the state. The number of agents per linear mile is much higher. We rate the statement False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/09e06b8f-2783-494a-bf52-bfb4f264e462 | null | Kelly Terry-Willis | null | null | null | 2016-08-04T15:00:00 | 2016-07-18 | ['Arizona', 'United_States_Border_Patrol'] |
snes-00629 | The "Deodorant Challenge" is "sweeping" schools and playgrounds as of May 2018. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/deodorant-challenge-sweeping-schools-playgrounds/ | null | Viral Phenomena | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Is the Deodorant Challenge ‘Sweeping’ Schools and Playgrounds? | 9 May 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01823 | Katie Couric banished Hillary Clinton from her set in August 2017 after Clinton used a racist word to describe President Obama. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-trash-talk-obama/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Was Hillary Clinton Caught on a Hot Mic Trash-Talking Obama? | 28 August 2017 | null | ['Bill_Clinton', 'Barack_Obama', 'Katie_Couric', 'Hillary_Rodham_Clinton'] |
hoer-00894 | Heathrow Boeing 777 Crash - RF Interference Rumour | unsubstantiated messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/heathrow-777-crash.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Heathrow Boeing 777 Crash - RF Interference Rumour | 19th March 2008 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-00754 | We are in the sixth year of recovery, and median income is below what it was at the start of the recovery. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/apr/16/jeb-bush/jeb-bush-correct-median-income-has-fallen-us-end-r/ | Jeb Bush is making economic opportunity a major theme of his not-yet-official presidential campaign. One of his main gripes with the economy is that income isn’t going up. "If we grew at a far faster rate, the middle would no longer be as squeezed as they are," Bush said. "We are in the sixth year of recovery, and median income is below what it was at the start of the recovery." Bush, the former Republican governor of Florida, made the remarks during a recent visit to Ohio, where he talked with Pittsburgh Tribune-Review political writer Salena Zito before addressing the Ohio Chamber of Commerce's annual meeting. (Zito paraphrased part of Bush’s quote in her article, but she provided us with the full text of Bush’s comment.) We knew that the national employment picture has improved, slowly but surely, since the official end of the recession in mid 2009. But has the typical household income in the United States really fallen since the end of the recession? If true, that would be pretty startling. As it turns out, median income has fallen, once you take inflation into account. Here are the details. In September 2014, the U.S. Census Bureau published its annual roundup of data on income and poverty. Table A-2 in the report provides data on the inflation-adjusted, median household income for the most recent 10 years: Year Inflation-adjusted, median household income 2009 $54,059 2010 $52,646 2011 $51,842 2012 $51,759 2013 $51,939 This shows that, despite a slight uptick between 2012 and 2013, real median household income has fallen since the start of the recovery in 2009 by $2,120. That’s about 4 percent, or roughly 1 percent per year, every year. The only caveat we should mention is that the most recent data stops at the end of 2013, and we don’t know yet whether income gains accelerated enough in 2014 to make up for the losses between 2009 and 2013. Still, we won’t mark down Bush for this, since he was using the most current data available. "It's sad but true that real median income is below what it was in 2009 and 2010," said Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist. "Real median income kept dropping well after the official end of the recession and has been pretty close to flat since 2011." She added that the losses have not been experienced equally. Incomes, Sinclair noted, "have fallen in the lower parts of the income distribution," whereas the the top 10 percent of the income spectrum, and even more elite segments, have experienced gains. Still, Bush was clearly speaking about the overall national picture, so we find no fault with his claim. Our ruling Bush said that "we are in the sixth year of recovery, and median income is below what it was at the start of the recovery." He’s right, once you take inflation into account and if you use the most recent data available, which goes through 2013. We rate his claim True. | null | Jeb Bush | null | null | null | 2015-04-16T15:41:25 | 2015-04-14 | ['None'] |
goop-00091 | Chris Hemsworth’s Wife Elsa Pataky Tired Of Him Putting Work Before Family? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/chris-hemsworth-wife-elsa-pataky-work-family/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Chris Hemsworth’s Wife Elsa Pataky Tired Of Him Putting Work Before Family? | 1:56 pm, October 24, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00163 | New California Traffic Laws | bogus warning | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/california-traffic-laws-2007.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | New California Traffic Laws Hoax Email | June 2007 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00112 | Launch an innovative supportive services-housing program to prevent at-risk veterans and veteran families from falling into homelessness in the first place. | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/117/launch-a-supportive-services-housing-program-for-v/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Launch a supportive services-housing program for veterans to prevent homelessness | 2010-01-07T13:26:48 | null | ['None'] |
chct-00292 | FACT CHECK: Has The US Economy Annually Grown ‘At Less Than 2%’ During The Past Decade? | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2017/10/23/fact-check-has-the-us-economy-annually-grown-at-less-than-2-during-the-past-decade/ | null | null | null | Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 4:34 PM 10/23/2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04591 | Eight million Americans have dropped out of the work force since (Barack) Obama became president. ... The real unemployment rate is 19 percent. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2012/sep/21/restore-our-future/mitt-romney-aligned-group-says-real-unemployment-r/ | A campaign ad by the pro-Mitt Romney group Restore Our Future blames President Barack Obama not only for the current high rate of unemployment, but also for leading many Americans to simply stop looking for jobs. "Millions of Americans are disappearing from the work force because they can't find jobs," the ad says. "The overall unemployment rate doesn't even count them any more. Eight million Americans have dropped out of the workforce since Obama became president. Counting people who dropped out or can't find full-time jobs, the real unemployment rate is 19 percent." Everybody knows the jobs bounceback from the most recent recession has been frustratingly modest. But have eight million Americans really "dropped out of the work force since Obama became president"? And has that left the "real" unemployment rate at 19 percent? Restore Our Future, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment on what went into the group’s calculation. But the ad itself did offer its source: a Wall Street Journal column from Sept. 7, 2012, by businessman and editor Mortimer Zuckerman. Zuckerman wrote: "How many people are out of work but not counted as unemployed because they hadn't sought work in the past four weeks? Eight million. ... The key indicator of our employment health, in all the statistics, is what the government calls U-6. This is the number who have applied for work in the past six months and includes people who are involuntary part-time workers — government-speak for those individuals whose jobs have been cut back to two or three days a week. They are working part-time only because they've been unable to find full-time work. This involuntary army of what's called ‘underutilized labor’ has been hovering for months at about 15 percent of the workforce. Include the eight million who have simply given up looking, and the real unemployment rate is closer to 19 percent." Zuckerman didn’t answer our inquiries. But we’ll look at the two pieces of the claim -- the 8 million and the 19 percent -- in order. Eight million labor-force dropouts The eight million figure has been bouncing around the conservative blogosphere in recent weeks, such as a widely shared column from Investor’s Business Daily that said that during the Obama recovery, "the ranks of those who aren't in the labor force at all have swelled by nearly 8 million." We were able to track down a Bureau of Labor Statistics category that jibes with the 8 million claim. Called "not in labor force," this statistic counts people age 16 years and older who are neither employed nor unemployed. (Being unemployed, according to BLS, means being available for work and having looked for work sometime during the previous four weeks.) Between Obama’s inauguration and today, a 44-month period, the number of Americans "not in the labor force" rose by 8.4 million. Using a slightly different time frame -- starting the count at the end of the recession in June 2009 -- produces a rise of almost exactly 8 million. So the figure has a grain of truth. But what does this number really mean? For starters, it’s actually not a measurement of people who "can’t find jobs" -- at least not entirely. In addition to discouraged job-seekers, it includes parents who decided to become a full-time mom or dad. It includes people who have decided to go back to school. And it includes people who have chosen to retire. There’s no question that some of these decisions may have been influenced by a perception of weak job prospects ahead. But people make these career-changing decisions all the time; if you’re going to lay the blame for a shrinking workforce on today’s economy, it’s important to tell how much more common labor-market departures are now compared to what would have been happening in a more "normal" job market. The retirement numbers are particularly important, given the aging of the baby-boomer workforce. Fortunately, there’s a way to get a rough sense of this, by looking at the trendline over a longer period of time. For the 44 months prior to January 2009, people left the labor force at a stable, predictable rate -- in fact, essentially the same rate back to 2002. During that time, 3.8 million people left the labor force. So if you consider this the "normal" amount of departures from the labor force over 44 months, Obama’s presidency has seen departures increase by an "extra" 4.6 million. This 4.6 million number checks out if you look at the trendline for the civilian labor force -- that is, the number of people who are either employed or officially unemployed. After a steady rise through January 2009, this number has flatlined. If you were to extend the same pace of growth after January 2009 as there was before, the labor force would have had almost exactly 4.6 million extra members today. Bottom line: An extra 4.6 million people leaving the labor force (or never joining it in the first place) is still a big number. But it’s not 8 million. A 19 percent "real" unemployment rate The statistic Zuckerman referred to in his column -- the U-6 unemployment rate -- is sometimes offered as a more "complete" picture of joblessness. It doesn’t just include those who BLS officially considers "unemployed" but also those working part time for economic reasons as well as those who are "marginally attached" to the work force (meaning they want to work but have not looked for work recently enough to count as being actively in the labor force). Currently, the U-6 rate of "labor underutilization" -- which is the broadest measure of unemployment and under-employment that BLS calculates -- is 14.7 percent. That’s a whole lot higher than the more familiar 8.1 percent unemployment rate, but it’s also well below the 19 percent claimed in the ad. As we can see from Zuckerman’s column, he has reached 19 percent by taking U-6 as his base and then broadening its definition of under-employment. The ad then ran with his calculation. Labor economists we interviewed said that what Zuckerman did is fine in theory. Even though U-6 is the broadest measurement of under-employment that BLS calculates, it still doesn’t capture everyone affected by a bad job market, such as recent graduates who never entered the labor market in the first place because they feared there would be no jobs for them. The problem is that no reasonable expansion of U-6 gets the figure as high as 19 percent. First, as we noted above, the more accurate figure to use for labor-force dropouts due to economic conditions is 4.6 million, not 8 million. Second, a big chunk of these 4.6 million are already counted in BLS’ basic U-6 calculation -- they’re "marginally attached" workers. In the most recent month, the marginally attached numbered 2.6 million. So to avoid double-counting, you have to subtract 2.6 million. This leaves 2 million labor-force dropouts to add to the existing U-6 calculation. Running the new numbers -- perhaps we can call this new statistic "U-7" -- produces an under-employment rate of 16 percent, not 19 percent. Again, this is just about double the already high "official" unemployment rate of 8.1 percent. But it’s not, as the ad claimed, 19 percent. Our rating Restore Our Future’s ad spotlights a reasonable attempt to quantify some of the hidden victims of today’s weak labor market. But due to errors of concept and calculation, the final numbers cited in the ad are too high. A more accurate measure of workforce dropouts due to the weak job market is 4.6 million, not 8 million, and what the ad would call the "real" unemployment rate is actually about 16 percent, not 19 percent. We rate the ad’s claim Mostly False. | null | Restore Our Future | null | null | null | 2012-09-21T14:41:41 | 2012-09-19 | ['Barack_Obama', 'United_States'] |
goop-00615 | Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller Dating Or More Than Friends, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/robert-pattinson-sienna-miller-dating-friends/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Robert Pattinson, Sienna Miller NOT Dating Or More Than Friends, Despite Report | 11:18 am, July 19, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01620 | Lindsay Lohan Begging Ben Affleck To Help Her Get Batgirl Role? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/lindsay-lohan-ben-affleck-batgirl-movie-role/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Lindsay Lohan Begging Ben Affleck To Help Her Get Batgirl Role? | 1:20 pm, February 8, 2018 | null | ['Lindsay_Lohan', 'Ben_Affleck'] |
pomt-06377 | China is "trying to develop nuclear capability." | pants on fire! | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/nov/02/herman-cain/herman-cain-said-china-trying-develop-nuclear-weap/ | People are talking about Herman Cain and allegations of sexual harassment from the time he was head of the National Restaurant Association. But what about his China policy? Cain, the former head of Godfather’s Pizza, is seeking the Republican nomination and has been leading the polls in recent weeks. He sat down for an interview with the PBS Newshour that began with questions about two female employees who left the National Restaurant Association in the 1990s. Cain said the charges against him were false. The interview then turned to questions about policy, leading to this exchange: Judy Woodruff: "Do you view China as a potential military threat to the United States?" Cain: "I do view China as a potential military threat to the United States." Woodruff: "And what could you do as president to head that off?" Cain: "My China strategy is quite simply outgrow China. It gets back to economics. China has a $6 trillion economy and they're growing at approximately 10 percent. We have a $14 trillion economy -- much bigger -- but we're growing at an anemic 1.5, 1.6 percent. When we get our economy growing back at the rate of 5 or 6 percent that it has the ability to do, we will outgrow China. "And secondly, we already have superiority in terms of our military capability, and I plan to get away from making cutting our defense a priority and make investing in our military capability a priority, going back to my statement: peace through strength and clarity. So yes, they're a military threat. They've indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability, and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So yes, we have to consider them a military threat." Cain got our attention by saying that China is "trying to develop nuclear capability." We were under the impression that China has been a nuclear power for some time now. So we decided to check his statement. Our first stop was the U.S. State Department website. Its background note on China has the following summary of China’s nuclear capability: "In 1955, Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party decided to proceed with a nuclear weapons program; it was developed with Soviet assistance until the Sino-Soviet split ended that assistance. After its first nuclear test in October 1964, Beijing deployed a modest but potent ballistic missile force, including land- and sea-based intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles." Then there’s this, from the U.S. Defense Department 2010 Nuclear Posture Review Report: "While facing the increasingly urgent threats of nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation, the United States must continue to address the more familiar challenge of ensuring strategic stability with existing nuclear powers – most notably Russia and China. … The United States and China are increasingly interdependent and their shared responsibilities for addressing global security threats, such as weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation and terrorism, are growing. At the same time, the United States and China’s Asian neighbors remain concerned about China’s current military modernization efforts, including its qualitative and quantitative modernization of its nuclear arsenal. China’s nuclear arsenal remains much smaller than the arsenals of Russia and the United States. But the lack of transparency surrounding its nuclear programs – their pace and scope, as well as the strategy and doctrine that guides them – raises questions about China’s future strategic intentions." In recent years, the United States has been concerned that China is sharing nuclear technology and weapons with other countries, particularly Pakistan and Iran. In January 2011, the United States and China signed an agreement to create a Center of Excellence in China to promote nuclear security and safeguards. We contacted the Cain campaign for comment on this, but we didn’t hear back. Cain said that China "indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability." According to the U.S. State Department, China conducted its first test of a nuclear weapon in 1964. So Cain’s approximately 40 years behind the times. China is a long-standing nuclear power. We rate his statement Pants on Fire. Editor's note: After we published this item, Cain addressed his statement in an interview with the Daily Caller website. "Maybe I mispoke," Cain said. "What I meant was, China does not have the size of nuclear capability that we have. They do have a nuclear capability." | null | Herman Cain | null | null | null | 2011-11-02T13:40:47 | 2011-10-31 | ['China'] |
pomt-01054 | In President Barack Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address, "the words ‘al-Qaida’ were never used, the first time those words have not been used in a State of the Union address since February 2001." | true | /punditfact/statements/2015/jan/21/bret-baier/fox-host-obama-first-president-2001-not-say-al-qai/ | Fox News’ chief political anchor said President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address was remarkable for what it left out. "The words ‘al-Qaida’ were never used," said host Bret Baier, "the first time those words have not been used in a State of the Union address since February 2001." The omission was particularly notable because of the speech’s proximity to the Charlie Hebdo attacks tied to al-Qaida jihadists in the Arabian Peninsula and heightened warnings from British authorities about a possible attack from "core" al-Qaida, Baier said. Instead, as Baier noted, Obama talked about ISIS and asked Congress to officially authorize a military fight against Islamic State terrorists, which broke off from al-Qaida. Still, Baier’s point about al-Qaida not being in the address is right. Every State of the Union address since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by al-Qaida have included references to this specific jihadist movement. We checked copies of speeches by President George W. Bush and Obama from the American Presidency Project of the University of California Santa Barbara. The Bush speeches As Baier said, the last time we didn’t hear "al-Qaida" in a State of the Union-like setting was Bush’s Feb. 27, 2001, "budget message" to a joint session of Congress. (Obama’s first speech to Congress in 2009 was also not technically a State of the Union, though it was covered and delivered like one.) In Bush’s 2001 speech, delivered nearly seven months before the day that changed everything, Bush did allude to "terrorists who threaten with bombs" as one of the widespread threats of the new 21st century. But he did not mention al-Qaida by name. Bush’s speech in 2002 was heavily centered on the new war on terrorism in Afghanistan, not surprisingly, but only mentioned al-Qaida once in reference to flight attendants who spotted a man trained by the group and wearing explosives and foiled his attack before Christmas. The group’s name resurged in 2003 as Bush described advances in capturing its leaders and made the case to go after Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein for his pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and because he "aids and protects terrorists, including members of al-Qaida." Subsequent speeches by Bush mainly mentioned al-Qaida in connection with captured leaders or defending the need for the PATRIOT Act’s surveillance programs. Bush’s last two State of the Unions talked about al-Qaida way more often as the country grew more weary of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was reminding Americans why they were there. There were 10 mentions in 2007 and 11 mentions in 2008, including this excerpt: When we met last year, al-Qaida had sanctuaries in many areas of Iraq, and their leaders had just offered American forces safe passage out of the country. Today, it is al-Qaida that is searching for safe passage. They have been driven from many of the strongholds they once held. And over the past year, we've captured or killed thousands of extremists in Iraq, including hundreds of key al-Qaida leaders and operatives. Last month, Osama bin Laden released a tape in which he railed against Iraqi tribal leaders who have turned on al-Qaida and admitted that coalition forces are growing stronger in Iraq. Ladies and gentlemen, some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt. Al-Qaida is on the run in Iraq, and this enemy will be defeated. The Obama speeches Obama took office criticizing Bush’s handling of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, so it’s no surprise that his early mentions of al-Qaida come in a different context. "And with our friends and allies, we will forge a new and comprehensive strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat al-Qaida and combat extremism," Obama told a joint session to Congress, "because I will not allow terrorists to plot against the American people from safe havens halfway around the world. We will not allow it." This was the same speech -- again, technically not a State of the Union -- in which Obama called for the closure of the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (which is still open). Three years later, Obama reminded the country about the killing of Osama bin Laden and top al-Qaida fighters in his 2012 State of the Union. We gather tonight knowing that this generation of heroes has made the United States safer and more respected around the world. For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al-Qaida's top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban's momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home. Obama’s 2013 and 2014 remarks discussed the demise of core al-Qaida, calling the group that organized the 9/11 attacks a "shadow of its former self." But "core" was the key distinction, as Obama also highlighted the rise of affiliate extremist groups not long after the attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya. And as for last night’s speech (see our annotation)? No direct mention of al-Qaida, but Obama did reference terrorists. First, we stand united with people around the world who've been targeted by terrorists, from a school in Pakistan to the streets of Paris. We will continue ... to hunt down terrorists and dismantle their networks, and we reserve the right to act unilaterally, as we have done relentlessly since I took office, to take out terrorists who pose a direct threat to us and our allies. ... And tonight, I call on this Congress to show the world that we are united in this mission bypassing a resolution to authorize the use of force against ISIL. Our ruling Baier said, "The words ‘al-Qaida’ were never used, the first time those words have not been used in a State of the Union address since February 2001." This is accurate, so we rate it True. | null | Bret Baier | null | null | null | 2015-01-21T14:58:38 | 2015-01-20 | ['State_of_the_Union_address', 'Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-13610 | Says Hillary Clinton once "wanted a wall" on the Mexican border. | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2016/aug/15/donald-trump/donald-trump-right-hillary-clinton-once-wanted-wal/ | Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has said her party "builds bridges not walls." During a campaign appearance in Green Bay, Republican nominee Donald Trump said Clinton had once been in favor of a wall with Mexico. Building a wall along the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico, of course, has been a central part of Trump’s campaign. He has even vowed to force the Mexican government to pay for it. But did Clinton once back a wall? Here is how Trump phrased it in his Aug. 5, 2016 rally at the KI Convention Center: "We’re gonna have strong borders. We’re gonna have a wall -- a big, powerful wall. You know that Hillary Clinton wanted a wall, a number of years ago. She wanted a wall." Let’s take a closer look. Secure Fence Act To be sure, both Trump and Clinton say they support secure borders. In the 2016 campaign, Trump has said he would secure borders by building a wall. Clinton hasn’t detailed specific plans but has said she will protect U.S. borders through a combination of efforts, one being physical barriers. But this factcheck is not about Clinton’s current platform. Rather, it is about what she may have supported in the past. When asked for backup, Trump’s campaign pointed to a 2006 bill that Clinton voted for while a senator from New York. The bill -- the Secure Fence Act of 2006 -- authorized about 700 miles of fencing to be installed along the country’s southern border, along with other security measures. It was the beginning of an attempt to pass comprehensive immigration reform. The original bill specifically called for double-layer fencing across 700 miles of the border. Clinton, and 25 other Democratic senators, voted in favor of the bill. It passed the Senate 80-19 and was signed into law by President George W. Bush. So, it’s fair to say she once supported a barrier along a large portion of the border. Today, 702 miles of fencing separates the United States from Mexico, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. But just 36 miles are double-layered. That’s because a 2007 amendment in the federal budget bill let the U.S. Department of Homeland Security determine what was necessary. Wall vs. fence Trump campaign adviser Stephen Miller said of Clinton: "Her vote is self-explanatory." Practically speaking, what’s the difference between Trump’s wall and the fence proposed in 2006? Television news anchor Jorge Ramos asked Clinton this question Jan. 11, 2016 at the Iowa Black and Brown Forum, broadcast on the Fusion network, a Hispanic news channel. "What the difference between your idea and Donald Trump’s idea on building a wall with Mexico?," Ramos asked. "So we do need to have secure borders and what that will take is a combination of technology and physical barrier," Clinton said. "You want a wall then," Ramos interjected. "No, we’ve --" she said. "You said that." "Well, I voted for border security and some of it was a fence," Clinton said. "I don’t think we ever called it a wall. Maybe in some places it was a wall." Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst for the libertarian Cato Institute said the semantic differences are irrelevant. "Whether it’s a wall or a fence, it blocks people," Nowrasteh said. "Quibbling between a wall and fence -- it’s just a word game at that point." He noted a 700-mile barrier is substantial. Indeed, it represents about one-third of the length of the border. "Maybe it’s fair to say she doesn’t support a wall along the entirety but she certainly supported a barrier along a large portion of it," Nowrasteh said. Jon Feere, a legal policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, agreed. The center favors reduced immigration. "It's clear that, at one point, Clinton supported a secure border that includes physical barriers," Feere said. Our rating In a Green Bay speech, Trump said "Hillary Clinton wanted a wall." Clinton did vote for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, which authorized building a fence along about 700 miles of the border between the United States and Mexico. For our purposes, the differences between a wall and a fence in this claim are not significant -- both block people. But the fence Clinton backed is not nearly as expansive as the wall Trump is promoting. And in his phrasing, Trump seemed to equate the two. For a statement that is partially accurate but leaves out important details or takes things out of context, we rate Trump’s claim Half True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/eb1bee6a-2961-40be-ba2f-877183cc7bc4 | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-08-15T05:00:00 | 2016-08-05 | ['Mexico'] |
goop-00694 | Tristan Thompson “Ditching” Khloe Kardashian In L.A. To Return To Cleveland, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/tristan-thompson-khloe-kardashian-ditching-leaving-la-return-cleveland-untrue/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Tristan Thompson NOT “Ditching” Khloe Kardashian In L.A. To Return To Cleveland, Despite Report | 10:08 am, July 5, 2018 | null | ['Los_Angeles', 'Cleveland'] |
snes-03822 | WNBC received documents proving Donald Trump paid $40 million in federal income tax in 2013. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-2013-taxes-leaked/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Leaked 2013 Trump Tax Return Shows He Paid Over 40 Million in Taxes | 12 October 2016 | null | ['Donald_Trump', 'WNBC'] |
snes-02598 | Al Gore predicted that Earth’s “ice caps” will melt away by 2014. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ice-caps-melt-gore-2014/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Did Al Gore Predict Earth’s Ice Caps Would Melt by 2014? | 17 April 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08463 | Says David Wu has presided over "137 months" in which "Oregon's unemployment rate has been above the national average." | half-true | /oregon/statements/2010/oct/14/rob-cornilles/rob-cornilles-attacks-david-wu-over-oregons-high-u/ | Oregon's unemployment rate has hovered around 10.6 percent for nearly a year and a half, a full point or so above the national jobless rate. Economists have offered a slew of reasons why the state's jobless rate has remained consistently above most other states’. Those explanations range from a net in-migration of new residents, who increase the number of people looking for jobs, to quality-of-life considerations that tend to keep newly jobless Oregonians from wanting to wander elsewhere. First District congressional challenger Rob Cornilles, the Tualatin Republican taking on veteran Democrat David Wu, has his own views on the matter. "For each and every one of the 137 months that David Wu has been in Congress," Cornilles' statement in The Oregonian’s Voter Guide asserts, "Oregon's unemployment rate has been above the national average. We deserve better!" The basis of Cornilles' claim appears to be that policies and practices endorsed by Wu have led to higher joblessness here than elsewhere for the past 137 months, or 11.5 years. Specifically, Cornilles criticizes Wu for "not providing tax certainty" by failing to extend the Bush-era tax cuts; for supporting the federal stimulus bill; and for failing, after during 12 years in Congress, to gain the kind of influence that would help create jobs across the First Congressional District. He’s right that Wu and the rest of Congress did not extend the tax cuts before the current break. He’s right Wu voted for the stimulus. And on the 137-month claim, Cornilles is also correct. And then some. But is it fair to link Wu to that statistic? PolitiFact Oregon looked back to 1976, when the state began tracking employment rates. According to state and federal data, Oregon has traditionally and consistently been above the national unemployment figure. Only for 66 of the past 418 months, in fact, has Oregon's unemployment rate dipped below the federal rate. Oregon nearly pulled even with the U.S. rate for the first few months in 2008. Both the national and state unemployment figures hovered just above 5 percent before skyrocketing in ensuing months as the worst overall economy since the Great Depression took hold. The most recent time Oregon's unemployment rate was below the national rate was February 1996, according to Tom Potiowsky, state economist. That was nearly three years before Wu took office. "With a few exceptions, we were pretty much below the national average from the mid-1990s until February 1996," Potiowsky said. Oregon's high-tech boom years accounted for much of that boost, he said. State economists cite several reasons for the state generally lagging behind the nation on this measure. In addition to the quality of life and net in-migration factors cited above, they include the lack of a really large metropolitan area in Oregon. If the Portland area's population were on the order of 4 million, for instance, it could support a labor market large enough to let someone who had lost a job more easily find a comparable one, said David Cooke, an Oregon Employment Department economist. Could Wu have done much to reverse any of these factors? Doubtful, Cooke said. "There are so many factors that influence the economy,'' he said. "One congressperson's actions are a very small contributor, especially when you move down to the state level." So while Cornilles' 137-month figure is correct, it's quite a reach to imply that Wu had much to do with it. We find his claim is Half True. Comment on this item. | null | Rob Cornilles | null | null | null | 2010-10-14T06:00:00 | 2010-10-12 | ['Oregon'] |
chct-00145 | FACT CHECK: Is Kanye The Highest Paid Person In Footwear? | verdict: false | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/04/26/fact-check-kanye-highest-paid-footwear/ | null | null | null | David Sivak | Fact Check Editor | null | null | 4:11 PM 04/26/2018 | null | ['None'] |
goop-00657 | Alex Rodriguez Refuses To Appear In Music Video With Jennifer Lopez? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/alex-rodriguez-jennifer-lopez-music-video/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Alex Rodriguez Refuses To Appear In Music Video With Jennifer Lopez? | 4:16 pm, July 11, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-11229 | Black men arrested In Philadelphia Starbucks settle for $2 million | false | /punditfact/statements/2018/may/07/blog-posting/radio-shows-headline-falsely-claims-philadelphia-s/ | A headline on the website for a nationally syndicated radio show falsely claimed that two black men who were arrested at a Starbucks while waiting for an acquaintance settled for $2 million. "Black men arrested in Philadelphia Starbucks settle for $2 million," said the headline of a May 2 post on The Rickey Smiley Morning Show’s website. The show’s Twitter account on May 2 tweeted a link to the story with a similar caption about a $2 million settlement. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com Facebook users flagged the website’s post as being potentially wrong. The original headline was. But the post has since been updated. Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson were arrested April 12 at a Philadelphia Starbucks while waiting for a business meeting. The two men were sitting at a table waiting for a friend, but had not made purchases. When they refused to leave, a store manager called the police and they were eventually escorted out in handcuffs, according to Philly.com. The incident was caught on video, prompting national news and allegations of racism. The two men settled with the city for $1 each. Also, the city agreed to create a $200,000 fund to assist Philadelphia’s young entrepreneurs. A joint statement from Starbucks, Nelson and Robinson said they reached "a confidential financial settlement as well as a commitment to continued listening and dialogue between the parties as a means toward developing specific actions and opportunities." While the headline on the The Rickey Smiley Morning Show incorrectly said the men had settled for $2 million, the story itself accurately represented the outcome. "Instead of a long and drawn-out legal battle, the men at the center of the Philadelphia Starbucks arrest incident have taken an incredibly low settlement from the city with a perk that speaks to their interests," the post said. "Taking $1 dollar settlements each, Rashon Nelson and Donte Robinson will help spearhead a $200,000 grant program designed to aid young entrepreneurs like themselves." As of early afternoon May 4, the headline said the settlement was for $2 million. It has since been amended to say it was for $2. While The Rickey Smiley Morning Show has updated its headline, the original version claimed the settlement was for $2 million, not $2. We rate the headline False. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2018-05-07T14:06:51 | 2018-05-02 | ['None'] |
goop-01095 | Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom Engaged But Keeping It Secret? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/katy-perry-orlando-bloom-engaged-secret-not-true/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom Engaged But Keeping It Secret? | 8:50 pm, April 30, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-15186 | We have an Army that just cut 40,000 spots. | mostly true | /florida/statements/2015/aug/20/marco-rubio/marco-rubio-says-army-just-cut-40000-spots/ | U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said at the Iowa State Fair that to face threats from across the globe, ranging from the Middle East to Asia to Russia, the United States needs to keep its military strong. "The most important obligation of the federal government is to keep you safe and me safe and our family safe," Rubio said on Aug. 18, 2015. "And it’s not doing that now, because we are eviscerating our defense spending." One example he cited: "We have an Army that just cut 40,000 spots." We were curious if that number was correct, so we decided to check it out. Army announcement Army officials had been talking about reducing the size of their force for several months when they announced specific plans in July 2015. The Army said it will cut the size of the regular Army from 490,000 to 450,000 by fiscal year 2018 -- that’s 40,000 -- with some of the largest cuts at sites in Georgia and Texas. Those cuts will start in October 2015 and end by October 2018. That means the cuts to the Army haven’t happened yet and will be finished under the next president. The cuts are expected to come through attrition, early retirements and layoffs. That’s in addition to plans to cut 17,000 civilians. The Army has been substantially scaling back its force the past few years. In 2012, the Army had about 570,000 soldiers. In 2013, the Army announced a drawdown of 80,000 to bring the size to the current 490,000. The new cuts will save about $7 billion. Army officials said the cuts are a result of the Budget Control Act of 2011 and the budget sequestration that followed. If sequestration continues, the Army expects to shrink to about 420,000 soldiers sometime in 2019. "We think 450,000 is the minimum force to meet our obligations across the globe," Army spokesman Lt. Cmd. Joe Buccino told PolitiFact. Some lawmakers have questioned the cuts in light of the current situation with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, among other crises. In an op-ed in the Washington Post in May, Rubio was critical of Obama’s actions in Iraq and Syria. He called for the president to "increase the number of U.S. forces in Iraq." Rubio correctly cited the number that the Army plans to cut, but he omitted some caveats, including that the cuts haven’t taken place yet. And it’s difficult to predict if the cuts will be fully implemented as the end date in 2018 will be under a new president and Congress. "The reduction in active Army end-strength is likely but far from certain, given that lots of people in the Congress would like to get the Army more money," said Benjamin Friedman, a military expert at the libertarian Cato Institute. Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense expert at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said she expects the cuts to occur. "The Army waited as long as possible to even start this latest reduction in force size," she said. While the talking about the reduction in soldiers makes good political fodder, it doesn’t address whether higher troop counts are needed, said Charles Knight, co-founder of Project on Defense Alternatives, a group that advocates for lower levels of armed force and military spending worldwide. "The only circumstance in which the Army needs those soldiers is if the U.S. were to reoccupy Iraq, invade and occupy Syria or Iran, or such," he said. "Current government policy is explicitly against such options." But the next president -- whether it’s Rubio or someone else -- "could easily reverse current policy starting in 2017," Knight said. A few experts took issue with Rubio’s statement that we are "eviscerating" defense spending. "The term eviscerate is, to my mind, entirely unwarranted for a military that continues to spend almost $600 billion a year, well above the Cold War average and nearly 40 percent of the world’s total," said Michael O’Hanlon, a defense expert at the Brookings Institution. Our ruling Rubio said, "We have an Army that just cut 40,000 spots." Rubio was referring to an announcement by the Army in July that it will cut 40,000 spots by fiscal year 2018. Those cuts had been talked about for several months, but the specifics were released in July. The cuts will start this fall but are expected to continue under the next president. Since the end date is under a new president and Congress, it’s difficult to guess if they will all happen, but that’s the plan for now. We rate this claim Mostly True. | null | Marco Rubio | null | null | null | 2015-08-20T17:02:30 | 2015-08-18 | ['None'] |
pomt-02921 | Providence has more of its pension fund invested in hedge funds and is less transparent about it than the state. | mostly true | /rhode-island/statements/2013/nov/03/gina-raimondo/ri-general-treasurer-gina-raimondo-says-providence/ | Rhode Island General Treasurer Gina Raimondo has come under fire because, on her recommendation, the State Investment Commission, in 2012, put more pension money in hedge funds. Critics say the funds, which are designed to retain value or increase in value for large investors when the overall market is performing poorly, are risky and charge exorbitant rates. On Oct. 21, after a report commissioned by the largest state employees union accused Raimondo of selling out Rhode Island's public workers and retirees for an "opportunity to enrich herself and her hedge fund backers," Raimondo sent out a fundraising letter trying to put the investment strategy in perspective. One portion focused on Providence's pension fund, overseen by Mayor Angel Taveras, a declared candidate for governor who is expected to face Raimondo in a Democratic primary. "Providence has more of its pension fund invested in hedge funds and is less transparent – and yet isn’t included in the [union-financed] report because this is about attacking one individual and a comprehensive reform," she said. We wondered whether her points about hedge funds and transparency were accurate. Looking at how much each fund is investing in hedge funds, the most recent monthly numbers show that, as of Sept. 30, Raimondo is correct on a percentage basis. The report, available on the treasurer's website, says 14.2 percent of Rhode Island’s $7.8 billion retirement account is invested in hedge funds. In Providence, hedge funds on Sept. 30 made up 16.6 percent of the $241 million in Providence's retirement account, according to a city report. That's nearly two and a half percentage points higher than the state’s ratio. However, when Providence made part of its annual required pension contribution nine days later, that percentage dropped to about 14.3 percent, virtually identical to the state ratio. (The value of the hedge funds hadn’t declined, only their percentage of the overall fund. When the city made the rest of its annual contribution, the ratio dropped to 13.2 percent, according to city spokesman David Ortiz, who noted that Taveras is trying to move away from hedge funds while Raimondo has embraced them.) So whether Raimondo is correct or not depends on when you look. Raimondo's office said her fundraising letter was based on a May 8, 2013, blog post at WPRI.com, which reported that Providence had just under 20 percent of its pension money invested in hedge funds at a time when the state's ratio was 14.6 percent. "The media report from May 2013 was the only information that we could publicly find regarding Providence’s investment allocation to hedge funds," said Collin Berglund, spokesman for Friends of Gina Raimondo. That has changed. After Raimondo made her comment and PolitiFact called Providence to check it on Oct. 23, the city posted more of its retirement fund data online, including the Sept. 30 numbers and an Oct. 22 tally that included the $33 million infusion of cash from the city that made hedge funds an even smaller slice of the retirement pie. Which brings us to the issue of transparency. Raimondo's office has bragged about its openness because detailed information about the investments is posted on the general treasurer's website. Raimondo has also, for the first time, included information on the hidden fees that some funds charge the state and most states don't report. City spokesman Ortiz responded in an Oct. 24 email: "Reports prepared by our pension investment advisers have always been provided to the media without any redaction, and are now publicly available on the city’s open data portal: https://data.providenceri.gov/." He said that Raimondo has denied public records requests and redacted "key data" regarding fees and performance for some investments. He did not respond when we pressed him for specifics. But earlier this year, Raimondo’s office denied a request by The Providence Journal to see certain details that each hedge fund gives to the state, saying it is bound by contractual confidentiality agreements. An Aug. 4, 2013 Journal story reported that much of that information was redacted from documents Raimondo’s office provided to the newspaper. When we asked Raimondo's office about Ortiz's allegations about disclosure, spokeswoman Joy Fox said in the few instances where information has been withheld, it had to be kept secret to avoid violating contracts. We found some hedge fund report information on the Providence website that seemed to offer more detail than what Raimondo offered, but it's not clear whether the report was available before PolitiFact began inquiring about Raimondo's claim about openness. Our ruling Rhode Island General Treasurer Gina Raimondo said Providence has more of its pension fund invested in hedge funds than the state does and is less transparent about it. Based on the Sept. 30 financial statements, the first part of Raimondo's statement would have been true. The city had 16.6 percent of its pension money in hedge funds, compared with the state’s 14.2 percent. That's no longer true because Providence subsequently made its annual pension payment, increasing the proportion of non-hedge fund investments. But that information was not public at the time Raimondo made her statement. On the issue of disclosure, the city has released pension information when asked, but there’s much more pension information -- particularly historical information -- widely available to the public on the state’s website. Raimondo’s statement was accurate on Sept. 30, but recognizing that a key element had changed by the time she made it on Oct. 21, we rate it Mostly True. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at politifact@providencejournal.com. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | null | Gina Raimondo | null | null | null | 2013-11-03T00:01:00 | 2013-10-21 | ['None'] |
hoer-01126 | Watch Out For Luxury RV Giveaway | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/watch-out-for-luxury-rv-giveaway-scams-on-facebook/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Watch Out For Luxury RV Giveaway Scams on Facebook | July 5, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
abbc-00039 | The claim: Treasurer Joe Hockey says that Treasury documents show "that electricity prices have come down $550 per household as a result of us abolishing the carbon tax". | in-the-red | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-17/joe-hockey-550-electricity-prices-carbon-tax-fact-check/6668552 | The claim: Treasurer Joe Hockey says that Treasury documents show "that electricity prices have come down $550 per household as a result of us abolishing the carbon tax". | ['electricity-energy-and-utilities', 'environmental-policy', 'federal-government', 'hockey-joe', 'liberals', 'australia'] | null | null | ['electricity-energy-and-utilities', 'environmental-policy', 'federal-government', 'hockey-joe', 'liberals', 'australia'] | Fact Check: Have electricity prices dropped $550 since the carbon tax was abolished? | Thu 3 Mar 2016, 1:33am | null | ['None'] |
pomt-15063 | When (Ronald) Reagan came in, from 1978 to 1982, economic growth averaged less than 1 percent a year. There’s only one other four-year period where that’s true. That’s true from 2008 to 2012. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/sep/25/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-says-slow-economic-growth-under-jimmy-car/ | Newly installed CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert tangled, politely, with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, on his Sept. 21 show regarding the legacy of President Ronald Reagan. Colbert asked Cruz, who’s running for the Republican presidential nomination, whether he could agree with Reagan’s support of "amnesty" for undocumented immigrants and the late president’s willingness to raise some taxes amid budget shortfalls. Cruz said "of course not" before pivoting to Reagan’s most conservative accomplishments, one being that he "signed the largest tax cut in history" and spurred economic growth. "When (Ronald) Reagan came in, from 1978 to 1982, economic growth averaged less than 1 percent a year," Cruz said. "There’s only one other four-year period where that’s true. That’s true from 2008 to 2012." His point was that Reagan rescued the U.S. economy from the ravages it suffered under his Democratic predecessor, President Jimmy Carter, and that the only other equivalent economic distress occurred under Carter’s fellow Democrat, Barack Obama. Colbert responded, "But when conditions changed in the country, he reversed his world’s ‘largest tax cut’ and raised taxes when revenues did not match the expectations. So it’s a matter of compromising." We wondered if Cruz was correct about the periods of low GDP growth. (In a separate fact-check, we explore Colbert’s rejoinder.) Excepting the unusual post-World War II period of 1945 through 1949 -- when the nation was demobilizing from an all-encompassing war -- Cruz has put his finger correctly on the two general periods in which the annual average growth of gross domestic product over four-year periods has sunk below 1 percent. They are the late 1970s era of "stagflation" (that is, stagnant growth combined with rapid inflation) and the aftermath of the Great Recession. The full annual data can be found here. But there were actually three distinct four-year periods during and after the Great Recession that fit Cruz’s criteria, rather than one -- that is, the four-year periods starting with 2006, 2007 and 2008. (With every four-year period beginning after 2009, average annual GDP growth has exceeded 1 percent.) Here’s the rundown of the four post-World War II periods that fit Cruz’s criteria: First year Second year Third year Fourth year Average annual GDP growth 1979 1980 1981 1982 0.2 percent 2006 2007 2008 2009 0.3 percent 2007 2008 2009 2010 0.4 percent 2008 2009 2010 2011 0.4 percent So Cruz overlooked two additional four-year periods. Also, the implication of his comment -- that Democrats bear the primary responsibility for these periods of poor economic growth -- is not so clear. For starters, as we’ve discussed previously, economists say it’s hard to determine how much credit or blame a president deserves for successes or shortcomings in the economy at large on their watch. Factors outside their control, from energy-price shocks to technological changes to pure luck, can have a significant impact on the nation’s economic record. In addition, Cruz’s groupings suggest some contradictory standard-setting. For the 1979-1982 period, Carter was in office for the first two years and Reagan was in office for the third and fourth years. But in the next two periods -- 2006-2009 and 2007-2010 -- George W. Bush, a Republican, was president for at least half of the time. In fact, Bush was in charge for the first three years in 2006-2009, and the first two years in 2007-2010. If Carter, Democrat, is to take blame for the slow growth in the first period, then logically Bush, a Republican, should shoulder the same blame in the next two four-year periods. By the same token, if Reagan, a Republican, escapes blame in the first example, then so too should Obama in the second and third four-year periods. And the 2005-2008 period -- which occurred entirely on Bush’s watch -- barely escapes inclusion on this list, with an average annual growth rate of 1.13 percent. (During the 2008-2011 period, Obama was president for the final three of those years.) Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution, said he doesn’t blame either Reagan or Obama for the economic shortcomings early in their tenures that fall under Cruz’s statistical claim. Still, he sees a logical inconsistency in Cruz’s comparison as stated on Colbert’s show. "It seems doubtful whether poor economic performance early in any president's term can be attributed to the impact of his administration's policies," Burtless said. "If you take office when economic output is plunging, it does not seem legitimate to attribute the economic plunge to the person who just took office." He added a footnote: Unlike Obama, who unquestionably inherited a recession already under way, the economy actually grew through the first couple of months of Reagan’s first term. GDP grew in the third and fourth quarters of 1980, right before he was elected, and continued to grow during the first quarter of 1981 after he was in office, before a "double-dip" recession hit. Cruz spokesman Phil Novack told PolitiFact that our analysis misses the point. "The focus on who exactly held office in each of those individual time periods is not as important as the contrast between the two periods in terms of how quickly the economy was growing before and after those identified time periods, which is the point Cruz was making," Novack said. "His point was obviously referring to policy results, and we know the results of the policies that followed those slow-growth years of below 1 percent growth that Sen. Cruz identified. Reagan's policies brought us a boom, and Obama's policies have been a bust." For what it’s worth, we also compared Carter and Reagan on their economic records and found them more similar than one might expect. During Carter’s four years in office, the growth rate averaged 3.23 percent a year. If you take the first four years of Reagan’s presidency, it averaged 3.34 percent. Essentially, each president had two good years and two bad years, which more or less averaged out. Our ruling Cruz said that "when (Ronald) Reagan came in, from 1978 to 1982, economic growth averaged less than 1 percent a year. There’s only one other four-year period where that’s true. That’s true from 2008 to 2012." Cruz missed two other four-year periods that fit the criteria. In addition, his implication -- that Democrats are largely to blame for those conditions -- doesn’t stand up to logical consistency, particularly when he excluded the period beginning in 2006 (which included three years solely under Bush) and 2007 (which included two years solely under Bush). This goes on top of general uncertainty about how much blame to assign presidents for poor economic conditions. On balance, we rate the claim Mostly False. | null | Ted Cruz | null | null | null | 2015-09-25T11:50:16 | 2015-09-21 | ['Ronald_Reagan'] |
pomt-10440 | For what we spend in just one week in Iraq, 800,000 children could get health insurance for an entire year. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/may/07/florida-consumer-action-network/that-money-could-insure-twice-as-many-kids/ | Moments after Sen. John McCain fleshed out details of his health care plan in Tampa on April 29, 2008, opponents of his proposal were lining up to poke holes in the ideas of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. One criticism: McCain is willing to spend billions on the war in Iraq but not to help cover the 47-million Americans who don't have health insurance. McCain's plan takes a free-market approach to health insurance and avoids the government involvement proposed by his Democratic rivals. Among other things, McCain has suggested offering a $2,500 tax credit to individuals and a $5,000 credit to families to help pay for health insurance independent of their employers and setting up a nonprofit to negotiate health insurance for people denied coverage by private companies. The plan shows McCain's mixed-up priorities, contends Bill Newton, executive director of the Florida Consumer Action Network. "For what we spend in just one week in Iraq, 800,000 children could get health insurance for an entire year," Newton said to highlight McCain's support of the war and his record of voting against expanding federal funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. He made the statement April 29 at a news conference co-hosted by FCAN, Moveon.org and health care workers in the same hotel where McCain was attending a fundraiser. Newton's point is accurate, but his numbers are significantly understated. In fact, one week of war spending in Iraq would insure more than twice as many children. To check the claim, we looked at the cost of the war in Iraq versus how much Medicaid spends to insure one child for a year. The Bush administration war chest request for 2008 was $196-billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with $159-billion going to Iraq, according to a summary by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. That amounts to $3-billion a week. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicaid payments in 2005 were about $1,617 per child. So $3-billion would actually insure about 1.9-million children a year. Newton said he got his figure from a federal budget trade-off calculator on the National Priorities Project Web site. A spokeswoman for National Priorities said the organization put the annual cost of insuring a child at about $1,800, based on costs in 2000 and forecasting for 2005. The calculator estimates the weekly war funding would insure about 1.1-million children based on spending in 2007. The calculator doesn't offer a figure for total proposed 2008 funding. The most current figures only make Newton's case stronger. When ruling on claims where numbers are overestimated, PolitiFact often gives the benefit of the doubt. But in this case, we're taking points off because the figure is so wildly off the mark. It makes us wonder how much homework the Florida Consumer Action Network even did. We rate the claim Mostly True. | null | Florida Consumer Action Network | null | null | null | 2008-05-07T00:00:00 | 2008-04-29 | ['Iraq'] |
pomt-10904 | Says Donald Trump contradicted his own administration when he said the decision to allow blueprints for 3D-printed guns to be distributed "doesn’t seem to make much sense." | mostly true | /punditfact/statements/2018/aug/02/blog-posting/how-trump-state-permitted-3-d-printed-gun/ | A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order to block the online publication of blueprints outlining how to create untraceable and undetectable 3D-printed firearms. The blueprints were originally scheduled for an Aug. 1 release after a government settlement ended five years of litigation. But word of the release prompted panic as legislators and officials scrambled to block the action. Before the federal judge’s ruling, at least 21 attorneys general filed suit to stop the blueprints from going live. As conversation heated up, President Donald Trump weighed in on Twitter. "I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public," he said. "Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t seem to make much sense!" See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com Politicians and pundits jumped at the president’s words as proof that he was unfamiliar with a decision from his own administration. "Trump: My own administration’s latest decision ‘doesn’t seem to make much sense!’" said a July 31 headline from Addicting Info, a liberal website. This story was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Trump’s last-minute statement gave us pause, too, so we decided to look at the settlement. Was the Trump administration — or Trump — actually behind it? The White House did not respond to a request for comment (though Trump's press secretary said later that he did not get a chance to weigh in). So we searched elsewhere for our answer. Litigation has roots in Obama years On May 5, 2013, Defense Distributed uploaded blueprints online that could be used to make a working 3D-printed gun called "The Liberator," as well as a 53-second video of founder Cody Wilson firing one. Wilson soon received a letter from the Obama administration’s State Department demanding that he remove the files from the internet. The letter said the "technical data" amounted to an illegal gun export in violation of the Arms Export Control Act and International Traffic in Arms Regulations, because it could be accessed in countries where the United States does not sell weapons. The State Department instructed Wilson to take down the files until he applied for specific approval of the gun’s multiple components. By that point, the blueprints had already been downloaded 100,000 times. In response, Wilson filed a lawsuit against the State Department with the help of Second Amendment Foundation, a guns-rights organization, in which he sought a preliminary injunction to allow continued publication of the gun files online. Under both the Obama and Trump administrations, the government stuck by its assertion that the "technical data" constituted an illegal gun export. Wilson countered that the government’s intervention violated his First Amendment right to free speech. Ultimately, district and appeals courts both rejected Wilson’s injunction request. But as the case turned to the First Amendment claim, the government made an unexpected settlement offer. Settlement offer from Trump’s State Department With the settlement, reached in June and announced July 10, the government waived the relevant export restrictions and allowed Wilson to post the blueprints online as early as Aug. 1. Specifically, the State Department announced that it was "in the interest of the security and foreign policy of the United States" to temporarily modify the U.S. Munitions List to exclude the technical data for the 3-D-printed guns. Defense-related items on the munitions list face tight restrictions, because they offer a critical military or intelligence advantage to the United States. The U.S. Commerce Department manages a separate export list with fewer restrictions. It is not clear what role Trump or the White House played in the settlement decision, though White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said during an Aug. 1 press briefing that the Department of Justice instructed the State Department to settle without White House approval. The State Department has said that its role in this issue relates solely to regulation of exports of certain types of firearms and any related technical data. But the move to shift the 3D-printed guns’ technical data outside of the State Department’s purview was not without precedent. The government’s decision came amid a longstanding but relatively behind-the-scenes administrative project — started under the Obama administration and known as "export control reform" — to restructure the regulations governing exports of weapons and technologies. Why is Obama’s export control reform relevant? Just as the litigation against Wilson can be traced back to the Obama years, so, too, can the export control changes that may have opened the door for the State Department’s settlement. Beginning in 2009, the Obama administration launched an overhaul of export control in order to refine regulations for items that were subject to both the State Department’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations and the Commerce Department’s Export Administration Regulations. The goal of the reform was to streamline export controls by transferring commercially available items — such as consumer guns — off the USML and onto the less restrictive Commerce Control List. The State Department began reviewing the munitions list, sifting through each category and removing items that were not considered military-sensitive. By 2016, it had finished reviewing all but three categories: firearms, ammunition and artillery. However, reform of those final categories stalled before it could become policy. A proposed rule would have handed jurisdiction of commercial firearms export controls to the Commerce Department in 2012, but it was delayed following the Sandy Hook school shooting. That proposed rule did not regain momentum until 2018, under Trump. On May 24, the Departments of State and Commerce simultaneously published proposals in the Federal Register to amend the final three categories of the munitions list. The proposed revisions would keep military-grade weapons under State Department jurisdiction and place commercially available firearms under the purview or the Commerce Department. According to the New York Times, these proposals strongly resemble the Obama administration’s 2012 version. CNN reported that the government is currently reviewing them. This may explain the State Department’s sudden decision to settle its case with Wilson. By recommending that commercial firearm exports move under Commerce Department oversight, the May 24 proposals would likely free Wilson’s blueprints from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations that previously restricted them. "My guess is that it was somehow wrapped up in the movement of items from the (U.S. Munitions List) to the (Commerce Control List)," said Rachel Stohl, managing director at the Stimson Center and an expert in the international arms trade. "If you deregulate the weapons themselves, it would follow that the technical specs could be deregulated as well." Stohl added that the settlement was "unexpected" and "the State and Commerce Departments have been less than forthcoming on these details." For his part, Wilson has agreed to refrain from posting his blueprints for at least another month while the multi-state lawsuit travels through the courts. Our ruling A headline suggested that the government settlement that would have made 3D-printable guns available for download was actually a Trump administration decision, and that Trump said that didn't "make much sense." We could not independently determine the extent of Trump’s involvement, although Sanders said the president was not afforded the opportunity to approve of the settlement decision. But the State Department under Trump did initiate the settlement after previously taking steps to clear a path for it. However, the Obama administration’s export control reform made those steps possible, and it is not far-fetched to consider the Trump administration’s move a continuation of that initiative. We rate this statement Mostly True. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2018-08-02T12:02:37 | 2018-07-31 | ['None'] |
pomt-11376 | NASA Has Just Confirmed Earth Has A New Moon | false | /punditfact/statements/2018/mar/30/blog-posting/no-nasa-has-not-confirmed-earth-has-new-moon/ | There’s more than one moon orbiting Earth? That’s what smartmindmag.com claimed on an undated post headlined "NASA Has Just Confirmed Earth Has A New Moon." "According to new reports from NASA, there is a quasi-moon orbiting around Earth for almost a century, and we have missed it all along," the website claimed. "The new moon isn’t as big as THE MOON is, but, it still keeps our original moon company while traveling across space." Not quite. The post heavily borrows from a June 2016 NASA report but takes liberties to stretch the truth. NASA in 2016 announced the discovery of a small asteroid which as it orbits the sun, "appears to circle around Earth as well." But NASA did not say that the asteroid, labeled 2016 HO3, was a new moon orbiting Earth. "It is too distant to be considered a true satellite of our planet, but it is the best and most stable example to date of a near-Earth companion, or ‘quasi-satellite’," the NASA report said. A satellite is an object that moves around a larger object, and both the Earth and the moon are considered "natural" satellites, NASA explains. 2016 HO3’s characteristics only elevate it to "quasi-satellite." The smartmindmag.com post included legitimate quotes that appear on NASA’s 2016 post, but jumped to a conclusion that NASA did not establish. Both the NASA report and smartmindmag.com quote Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object (NEO) Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., as saying: "Since 2016 HO3 loops around our planet, but never ventures very far away as we both go around the sun, we refer to it as a quasi-satellite of Earth." Other more prominent news outlets ran similar headlines in 2016 about Earth having two moons, based on NASA’s report. Business Insider: SURPRISE: Earth has two moons. But other websites covered the story more accurately. Slate’s headline hinted that details matter: Another Moon for Earth? Well, Not Really, but It Depends on Your Point of View. Gizmodo also explained the nuances in a story headlined: Earth's New 'Quasi' Moon Will Stick Around for Centuries. NASA has not confirmed that Earth has a new moon, as smartmindmag.com claimed. We rate the claim False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2018-03-30T09:28:49 | 2018-03-29 | ['None'] |
snes-02914 | Did a Judge Rule that CNN is 'Fake News'? | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cnn-fake-news/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Did a Judge Rule That CNN Is ‘Fake News’? | 17 February 2017 | null | ['CNN'] |
snes-00142 | Claims made in a widely-shared 2018 meme about the personal and family history of Congressman Beto O'Rourke are accurate. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/beto-orourke-reality-check/ | null | Politics | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Beto O’Rourke’s ‘Reality Check’ | 1 September 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13194 | 400 bills have my name on them either as a sponsor or a co-sponsor. You don’t get that done unless you work with folks on the other side. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/24/hillary-clinton/clinton-says-400-bills-have-her-name-them-thanks-b/ | Hillary Clinton insists that her track record as a U.S. senator is proof that she could bring a spirit of bipartisanship to a presidential administration. Speaking from her campaign jet following a rally in Pittsburgh on Oct. 22, Clinton said her prior political experience shows she’s been willing to work with Republicans. "I think you can go back and look at the record that I compiled by working with practically every Republican I served with," she said. "I think last time we had it counted, 400 bills have my name on them either as a sponsor or a co-sponsor. You don’t get that done unless you work with folks on the other side." We wanted to check whether Clinton sponsored or co-sponsored 400 bills, and whether she was as chummy with her Senate rivals as she claimed. Tallying bills Clinton won election to the U.S. Senate in 2000 to represent New York and was re-elected in 2006. Her tenure was from January 2001 to January 2009, when she resigned to become secretary of state. We first wanted to know to which 400 bills Clinton was referring. She’s used that figure before, such as the Oct. 9 presidential debate, but we couldn’t find a clear definition of which legislation she meant. We contacted Clinton’s campaign, which sent us a list of 400 measures they said had passed Congress and become law. The list included more than bills, which are written by lawmakers and become laws if they pass Congress and are signed by the president. Clinton’s list included resolutions, which often are used to express lawmaker opinions or affect congressional workings, and amendments, which are parts of bills added on while legislation is being considered. Clinton’s 400-bill list also includes House versions of her measures (bills, amendments and resolutions) that passed. Again, Clinton said "bills" as a senator, not "House bills," not "amendments," and not "resolutions." Those things may eventually have the effect of laws, but that doesn’t mean they are bills that "have my name on them." According to the official website for federal legislative information, Congress.gov, Clinton introduced 713 pieces of legislation over her two terms. Of that count, 363 were Senate bills, while the rest were amendments or resolutions. Of the bills Clinton sponsored, only three actually became law. One established a historic site in New York, one renamed a post office and one named a highway. Her Democratic New York counterpart Charles Schumer was the single co-sponsor for all three. (Co-sponsoring is just a way for a lawmaker to show he or she supports a piece of legislation after it has been written.) The laws were uncontroversial and passed by unanimous consent in the Senate and voice vote in the House before being signed by President George W. Bush. Clinton is listed as a co-sponsor on 74 bills that became law. Of those, 27 bills were sponsored by a Republican. Working with Republicans So Clinton is exaggerating a bit when talking about the number of bills she sponsored or co-sponsored. But what about her claim that she worked in a bipartisan fashion? According to our count, of the 363 bills she introduced in the Senate, 93 were co-sponsored by Republicans, or about 26 percent. A single Republican co-sponsored 48, while two or more members of the GOP signed onto 45 of the bills. We also checked GovTrack.us for Republican senators who co-sponsored a Clinton bill. Republicans were listed as a co-sponsor 241 times in the 355 bills she sponsored that were referred to a Senate committee. But that could include the same senator listed multiple times in different bills. Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, for instance, co-sponsored six pieces of Clinton legislation. Four of those measures had 10 or more Republican co-sponsors, so there’s plenty of duplication. Clinton’s campaign noted that almost every Republican senator co-sponsored a Clinton bill at one time or another. They provided a list showing that 57 of the 65 GOP senators who served at the same time as Clinton signed onto her bills. Experts who study Congress have told us that the number of sponsored or co-sponsored bills signed into law isn’t a thorough measure of effectiveness or productivity for a member of the Senate. Adding amendments, writing language for bills, holding hearings and helping constituents are all good indicators of performance. "By any reasonable standard, including the private comments of her colleagues on both sides of the aisle when she was in the Senate, she was very effective," American Enterprise Institute scholar Norman Ornstein told PolitiFact for an earlier fact-check. Our ruling Clinton said "400 bills have my name on them either as a sponsor or a co-sponsor" in the Senate, which is proof I worked "with practically every Republican I served with." Clinton’s list includes a lot of things that don’t meet the strict definition of a bill as we’d know it from middle school civics. Clinton passed three of her own bills, plus an additional 74 she co-sponsored. There is evidence Clinton worked with Republicans while in the Senate. About 26 percent of the bills she sponsored had support from a Republican. Clinton’s claim is partially accurate. We rate her statement Half True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/d7f47a1b-07b0-4bfb-b5c5-90d965e4e554 | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2016-10-24T17:32:03 | 2016-10-22 | ['None'] |
pomt-09875 | Forty-five percent of Americans went without needed care because of costs in 2007. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/30/bill-pascrell/pascrell-says-45-percent-americans-went-without-ne/ | The debate over reforming the U.S. health care system has inspired a torrent of often-conflicting statistics. We will look at three assertions made by Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey. In this item, we will test his assertion that 45 percent of Americans went without needed care because of costs. On July 28, 2009, Pascrell took to the House floor to counter assertions by Republicans and others that a Democratic bill under consideration in the chamber would lead to the rationing of health care. Pascrell’s larger point was that rationing already exists today, just a different type — thanks to the financial barriers to coverage faced by millions of Americans. Specifically, Pascrell said: “Forty-five percent of Americans went without needed care because of costs in this country in 2007. That’s rationing. Fifty-three percent of Americans cut back on their health care in the last year because of costs. That’s rationing. … As many as 22,000 Americans die each year because they don’t have health insurance. My brothers and sisters, that’s rationing.” We are not going to weigh in on the question of whether it’s fair to equate Pascrell’s examples of “rationing” with what the bill’s critics charge the bill would do if enacted. Rather, we wanted to gauge whether Pascrell’s numbers were sound. So we looked at these three claims individually. The first claim comes from a biennial survey by the Commonwealth Fund, a widely respected nonprofit that studies health care policy. The survey sampled the views of 3,501 U.S. adults age 19 and older, between June 6 and October 24, 2007. The 2007 version of Commonwealth’s survey did indeed find that 45 percent of adults aged 19 to 64 had one of four “access problems” related to cost — not filling a prescription; not seeing a specialist when needed; skipping a recommended medical test, treatment or followup; or not visiting a doctor or a clinic when they had a medical problem. That rate is notably higher than the 29 percent who reported similar actions in the 2001 survey. Surveys, especially where participants need to recall for survey-takers what they did or didn’t do in the past, are always somewhat less reliable than research methodology that checks verifiable facts. “As a survey it’s reasonable, but surveys are inherently imperfect yardsticks for this kind of policy research,” said Ed Haislmaier, a scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. Moreover, the numbers are now two years out of date. (The next Commonwealth survey is scheduled for release later this year.) And it’s obvious, but worth noting, that individually, the rates for each of those four actions was quite a bit lower than 45 percent: 31 percent of respondents didn’t fill a prescription, 31 percent didn’t go to a doctor or clinic for a medical problem, 25 percent skipped a test, treatment or followup, and 20 percent didn’t see a specialist. Still, we do not believe these problems detract in any serious way from the congressman’s claim, but they are worth noting. These are the most recent numbers available from Commonwealth — and it’s hard to imagine that the rates of access problems would have dropped precipitously since the 2007 poll was taken. Back then, the national unemployment rate was averaging 4.7 percent. Today, it’s almost twice that. We rate this claim by Pascrell to be Mostly True. | null | Bill Pascrell | null | null | null | 2009-07-30T17:16:12 | 2009-07-28 | ['United_States'] |
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.