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pomt-03620 | In 29 states in this country you can still get fired for not just being gay, but if your employer thinks you are gay. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/may/07/martina-navratilova/martina-navratilova-says-you-can-be-fired-being-ga/ | One of the biggest news stories of last week came from the world of sports, with NBA player Jason Collins becoming the first active male athlete playing for a major U.S. team sport to come out as gay. Several Sunday public-affairs shows tried to put Collins’ declaration into historical context. CBS’ Face the Nation invited retired tennis great Martina Navratilova, among others, to discuss its significance. Navratilova came out as gay more than three decades ago. "I think when President (Barack) Obama came in favor of … gay marriage, that really changed the tide. But we have to remember that this has been a long time coming," she said. "We still don't have equal rights. I have been getting (questions) on Twitter, ‘Why does this matter? I don't care.’ Which is kind of code for, ‘I really don't want to know.’ But it does matter because in 29 states in this country you can still get fired for not just being gay but if your employer thinks you are gay. ... We don't have equal rights." We wondered whether Navratilova was correct that "in 29 states in this country you can still get fired for not just being gay, but if your employer thinks you are gay." According to the Human Rights Campaign, a gay-rights group, 21 states plus the District of Columbia explicitly prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. The remaining 29 do not. (This map shows the legal situation by state.) We should note that the 29 states in question are defined by the absence of a law prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, rather than the presence of a law allowing such discrimination. This means employees in these states who believe they are discriminated against would not have grounds to win a lawsuit alleging discrimination. The group said that it’s possible for an employer to discriminate based on the perception, rather than the fact, that someone is gay. But while Navratilova gets the number right, our discussions with legal experts produced a few exceptions to the rule: • Government employees in those states have protections. Government workers are covered by the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A public employee can establish a violation if they can show they were subjected to adverse treatment when compared with other similarly situated employees, and that the treatment was motivated by an intention to discriminate on the basis of improper considerations, according to Lambda Legal Defense, a legal organization focused on challenging discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. Courts have backed the idea that sexual orientation is one of the categories that would permit such a lawsuit. In addition, nine other states -- beyond the 21 that currently ban discrimination based on sexual orientation -- have an executive order, administrative order or personnel regulation that prohibits such discrimination against public employees, according to the Human Rights Campaign. • Localities may have an anti-discrimination law even if their state does not. To give just one example, Pennsylvania has no statewide law, but many of its cities do, from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh all the way down to Jenkintown and Susquehanna Township, according to the Pennsylvania Diversity Network. According to the group, 12 of the 15 most populous cities in the Keystone State have anti-discrimination laws that cover sexual orientation, meaning a sizable percentage of employees in the state are covered even without a state law. • Individual employers may have policies that bar discrimination based on sexual orientation, even if their state or city does not. "Some employers, through union agreements, company handbooks or other contracts, may have explicitly or implicitly promised to refrain from certain kinds of discrimination, and these provisions, depending on the particulars, might protect some employees against irrational discrimination of this kind," said Vik Amar, a law professor at the University of California at Davis. • Title VII of the Civil Rights Act provides protection for employees who are subjected to gender-based stereotyping. This is relevant because Navratilova said you could get fired "if your employer thinks you are gay" -- not just if you are actually gay. While the Civil Rights Act currently protects only sex discrimination and not discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender-based stereotyping can include elements that overlap significantly with an employer "think(ing) you are gay." Hayley Gorenberg, deputy legal director of Lambda Legal, cited the 1989 Supreme Court case Price Waterhouse vs. Hopkins. In that case, a woman sued the accounting firm where she worked because she was not offered a promotion after a senior manager told her she should "walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely, wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry." The plaintiff convinced the court that sex stereotyping constitutes sex discrimination, Gorenberg said. This precedent could protect a straight person who appeared to an employer to be "gay" and suffered discrimination as a result. Gorenberg said that despite these exceptions, Navratilova has a point. She said that calls to her group’s national legal help line include a "very high percentage" of workplace discrimination complaints. "Without specific national protection, people are fired based on their sexual orientation far more easily," she said. Our ruling Navratilova said, "In 29 states in this country you can still get fired for not just being gay, but if your employer thinks you are gay." If you frame this statement in the context of blanket protections by states, she’s correct. Still, even in those 29 states, many gay and lesbian employees do have protections, either because they work for the government, because they live in a city that bars such discrimination, or because they work for a company that has pledged not to discriminate based on sexual orientation. On balance, we rate Navratilova’s claim Half True. | null | Martina Navratilova | null | null | null | 2013-05-07T10:57:49 | 2013-05-05 | ['None'] |
pomt-15056 | No openly gay man has ever been elected to the Georgia Legislature. | true | /georgia/statements/2015/sep/28/georgia-voice/no-openly-gay-man-elected-legislature-true/ | Just months after a historic U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage, an Atlanta newspaper that focuses on LGBT news says Georgia may be poised to make history of its own. If elected, two announced candidates for seats in the Georgia House of Representatives would become the first gay men elected to the state Legislature, according to the Georgia Voice. "Roughly a dozen have tried and failed in the last decade," Patrick Saunders wrote in the piece examining the campaigns of Rafer Johnson and Josh Noblitt. But gay lawmakers, and allies, led the unsuccessful fight against Georgia’s 2004 ban on same-sex marriage and were part of the effort to kill state religious freedom bills for the past two years. So with lawmakers pledging to bring back, for the third, time, the religious freedom bill, PolitiFact Georgia wondered: Did voters never send an openly gay man ever to the 236-member General Assembly? The relatively short history of gay lawmakers Openly gay state lawmakers are a somewhat new phenomenon, and not just in Georgia. The first such official appears to be now-U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, an open lesbian who was elected to the Wisconsin Assembly in 1992. She was one of just six openly gay political candidates to win a general election that year nationwide. A lesbian was also the first openly gay state lawmaker in Georgia. Democrat Karla Drenner was elected to the state House in 2000 and has since represented the District 85 in the Avondale Estates area. We reached out to Saunders for his source about openly gay men in the Legislature. He cited the paper’s own archives, including a story last year that highlighted three openly gay men running for the state House. All three of those candidates – Republican Christopher Deraney for House District 78 representing parts of Clayton County; Democrat Bob Gibeling for House District 54 in Buckhead; and Democrat Timothy Swiney for Senate District 9 in Gwinnett – lost. In the news The Atlanta Journal-Constitution archives turned up a record year in 2006, when four openly gay candidates ran in the primary election. Drenner won her first opposed election since her first win. The late Allen Thornell, a gay activist running for a district representing Cabbagetown in Atlanta, narrowly lost what was then described as the opportunity to be the first openly gay man elected as a legislator. The other two candidates lost. But what about the other gay lawmakers cited in news articles about the religious liberty bill and other issues since? Two lesbians, both Democrats, have been elected after Drenner. Simone Bell was elected to represent east Atlanta area neighborhoods in House Distict 58, the one that Thornell almost won previously, in 2009. Keisha Waites took office in 2012 representing House District 60, covering southeast Atlanta, Hapeville and parts of Clayton and DeKalb counties. And, one gay man has served. At 27, Rashad Taylor was the youngest member of the General Assembly when he was elected in 2008. But he was not elected as a gay man. He came out as gay in 2011, after an anonymous accuser sent an email to media accusing him of misconduct. Taylor lost re-election in 2012 after being placed in the same district as another Democrat by Republican lawmakers during a legislative redistricting. Saunders cited Taylor in his answer to us – and subsequently updated his story – to note that while Taylor had served, he had not been elected as an openly gay man. Outside groups There is little doubt that an openly gay elected state lawmaker would make the news. But Politifact Georgia also reached out to some advocacy groups that keep varying track of openly gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people elected officials. The Victory Fund, which works to elect those candidates, is likely the best known on the national scene. However, officials from the Washington, D.C. group did not respond to emails and phone calls. A list of openly gay officials on the Victory Fund website was down, making their records unavailable for review. Jeff Graham of Georgia Equality, a nonpartisan LGBT advocacy group, said there wouldn’t have been any openly gay men on those lists anyway. Graham’s group follows elections in Georgia and has long been concerned with what he calls viable openly gay candidates. "They need to be good quality candidates who can run a race and be feasible to win," Graham said. "That takes financial resources, a good ground game to reach the voters and a good grasp of all issues. The last couple election cycles we’ve had openly gay men run but not run what I would consider viable campaigns." That may, in fact, change in 2016. Johnson is a somewhat known community advocate who would represent a Democratic stronghold in House District 62, which includes portions of College Park, Douglasville, East Point and parts of Fulton and Douglas counties. Noblitt is a minister at Saint Mark United Methodist Church and close with state Rep. Margaret Kaiser, who is stepping down to make a run for mayor. The Democratic district includes several Atlanta neighborhoods such as Inman Park, Reynoldstown and Poncey-Highland. "A lot of it has to do with a particular district, and I suspect the Ponce district is more amenable than others would be," said Kerwin Swint, the director of the political science department at Kennesaw State University. "Things like this are going to happen very quickly and it could very quickly have an impact on the discussion at the Capitol," he added. Our ruling A newspaper focused LGBT news recently said that no gay man has ever been elected to the Georgia Legislature. Newspaper archives and a statewide advocacy group that follows the issue back up the claim. Voters have sent three lesbians to serve under the Gold Dome. And one man came out during his stint in office but lost his next election. We rate the claim True. | null | Georgia Voice | null | null | null | 2015-09-28T00:00:00 | 2015-09-17 | ['None'] |
pomt-00171 | An agreement between the city of Chicago and the ACLU caused "virtually all of the rise in homicides" in 2016. | mostly false | /illinois/statements/2018/oct/23/jeff-sessions/sessions-wrong-again-chicago-murder-spike-cause/ | Like President Donald Trump, who has claimed Chicago could solve its violence problem "in a week" by employing tougher tactics, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions frequently criticizes the city for policies he says hamstring its cops. In a speech to a law enforcement audience in Chicago on Friday, Sessions once again blamed the city’s 2016 spike in murders on an agreement between the Emanuel administration and the American Civil Liberties Union that reined in stop-and-frisk policing. "As a result of the agreement ... Chicago saw the biggest single-year increase in murders since we’ve had reliable statistics," Sessions said. "Former federal judge Paul Cassell and Professor Richard Fowles of the University of Utah examined what happened here, considered a number of possible causes, and found that the cause of virtually all of the rise in homicides was the ACLU agreement." We fact-checked Sessions when he made virtually the same claim back in May. It’s still Mostly False. Here’s why. Causation versus correlation Chicago entered an agreement with the ACLU to end its reliance on stop-and-frisk policing after the civil rights group threatened to take legal action. By 2016, the agreement was in full effect. The agreement followed the release of a report by ACLU’s Illinois chapter that found Chicagoans were stopped more than four times as often as New Yorkers were before that city years earlier reined in its stop-and-frisk policing. The Chicago agreement determined that going forward officers here would be trained to stop people for questioning only when there was a "reasonable suspicion of criminal conduct." The city also imposed more thorough documentation requirements for every stop made. Cassell, a former federal judge and current law professor, and Richard Fowles, an economics professor, found that street stops by Chicago police decreased sharply following the agreement — from 40,000 monthly down to less than 10,000 per month. The study attributed the significant uptick in homicides during the same time, from 480 in 2015 to 754 in 2016, to that decline in stops. But experts we spoke with in May pointed to a number of flaws in the study, including its limited time frame and the fact that violent crime has declined or held steady in other cities that have backed away from stop-and-frisk policing. Following the 2016 murder spike in Chicago, murders declined by 15 percent in 2017 — the steepest one-year reduction in nearly 15 years. And that figure is down again for 2018, dropping by a quarter since this time last year, according to data tracked by the Chicago Tribune. Those declines occurred even though the city continues to follow the agreement with the ACLU. Sessions’ argument is also weakened by the results in other cities that have taken similar steps to those in Chicago. During his remarks, Sessions held up New York as a law enforcement success story, pointing to significant progress made in tamping down violent crime there over the last few decades. "Last weekend there were zero murders in New York City for the first time in 25 years," Sessions said. "In fact, there were no shootings at all in New York City last weekend." Sessions is right that today’s New York is much less violent than in years’ past. But the Big Apple makes for a curious pick in defending stop-and-frisk. A federal judge ruled in 2013 that the way NYPD officers were stopping New Yorkers was unconstitutional, requiring them to change tactics. Even prior to the verdict, the department’s reliance on street stops was in decline. By the end of 2013, stops by police had plummeted from a 2011 high of more than 200,000 to 12,500. By Sessions’ logic, curtailing stop-and-frisk should have triggered a murder spike like Chicago’s. Yet murders in New York have declined or held steady in the years since the federal ruling. Newark, Seattle and Philadelphia have also limited police stops in recent years without a corresponding jump in murders. Meanwhile, even when Chicago was still stopping individuals at four times the rate of New York’s peak, gun seizures here dropped, detectives solved fewer murders and a decade-long decline in gun violence came to an end, a 2016 WBEZ investigation found. The Utah research report that underpins Sessions’ conclusions blames the upsurge in murders on the ACLU agreement but dismisses any possibility it could be related to the intense local reaction to the late 2015 release of police dashcam footage that showed officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times. Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder earlier this month. In response to the fallout from the video’s release, Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired police chief Garry McCarthy in late 2015. McCarthy, who came to Chicago by way of the Newark and New York police departments, ran the Chicago department during the years when stops in this city outpaced New York’s. Our ruling Sessions said an agreement between the city of Chicago and the ACLU caused "virtually all of the rise in homicides" in 2016. His claim repeats a finding from a University of Utah study that attributed Chicago’s 2016 murder spike to an agreement between the city and the civil rights group meant to rein in the city’s stop-and-frisk tactics. Chicago’s murder toll did skyrocket that year, though it has declined since. The study has been criticized for its methods and for excluding other factors that could have played a role. There is an element of truth in Sessions’ claim, but it also ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Just like last time, we rate it Mostly False. | null | Jeff Sessions | null | null | null | 2018-10-23T07:00:00 | 2018-10-19 | ['Chicago'] |
snes-01175 | A photograph shows an actress in a revealing dress amidst protests against sexual harassment in Hollywood. | miscaptioned | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/a-woman-in-a-revealing-dress-attended-a-hollywood-event-amidst-protests-against-sexual-harassment/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Did a Woman Wear This Revealing Dress to a Hollywood Event to Protest Sexual Harassment? | 19 January 2018 | null | ['None'] |
chct-00076 | FACT CHECK: Was Elizabeth Warren Once A Card-Carrying Republican? | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/08/19/fact-check-elizabeth-warren-republican/ | null | null | null | David Sivak | Fact Check Editor | null | null | 11:03 PM 08/19/2018 | null | ['None'] |
farg-00143 | Hillary Clinton lied many times to the FBI. | no evidence | https://www.factcheck.org/2017/12/factchecking-trumps-criticism-fbi/ | null | the-factcheck-wire | FactCheck.org | Eugene Kiely | ['Russia investigation'] | FactChecking Trump’s Criticism of the FBI | December 4, 2017 | 2017-12-04 22:32:15 UTC | ['Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation'] |
pomt-14587 | Gene Green is the NRA’s favorite Democrat in Congress. ... It’s no wonder the congressman has a lifetime A rating from the NRA." | mostly false | /texas/statements/2016/feb/05/adrian-garcia/adrian-garcia-mischaracterizes-nras-support-gene-g/ | The Democratic race for Texas’ 29th Congressional district is turning to a hot-button issue: gun control. Gene Green, a Democrat, has represented Texas’ 29th District, which covers the eastern portion of Greater Houston, since 1993. In that time, he has been endorsed by the gun-owner rights group National Rifle Association several times and often received an A rating from the organization -- an issue his challenger, former Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia, is bringing to the fore in advance of the March 2016 Democratic primary. "Gene Green is the NRA’s favorite Democrat in Congress," Garcia was quoted saying in his own Jan. 7, 2016, campaign media release. "He’s part of the reason our president has had to use executive action to protect our people. When House Democrats reclaim a majority, the NRA will still have Gene Green in their pocket to block progressive gun safety measures. He is their insurance policy." Garcia continued: "It’s no wonder the congressman has a lifetime A rating from the NRA. He signed on to a letter with Texas Republicans to prevent the restriction of armor-piercing bullets. He voted against the Brady Bill, he's voted against child safety locks, and later voted for the assault weapons ban repeal. He also voted for keeping the gun show loophole." There are a lot of specifics in Garcia’s claim, and we’ll get to those. We also wanted to check if Green has a "lifetime A rating" from the NRA and, although it’s harder to judge, if he could be the organization’s "favorite Democrat." Lifetime rating? Garcia claimed Green had a "lifetime A rating" from the NRA. The NRA doesn’t award lifetime ratings; it says it only evaluates candidates each election cycle. Still, candidates sometimes use the term "lifetime rating" to promote consistently high -- or low -- NRA marks. According to Jennifer Baker, the association’s director of public affairs, the NRA evaluates candidates by looking at voting records, public statements, plus what he or she is doing "behind the scenes" in committee. Baker said that if a hopeful hasn’t held office, the group primarily considers answers to survey questions. According to NRA’s website, its ratings range from A+ -- for a legislator with "not only an excellent voting record on all critical NRA issues, but who has also made a vigorous effort to promote and defend the Second Amendment"-- to F, a "true enemy of gun owners’ rights." Other ratings include AQ, a pro-gun candidate who has no voting record and whose rating is based on answers to survey questions, and "?," meaning a candidate didn’t answer the NRA’s questionnaire, inaction the organization takes as indicative of "indifference, if not outright hostility," to gun owners’ rights. Notably for this fact check, ratings for past election cycles only are available to NRA members. Baker told us by phone that when the NRA endorses a candidate, the group "actively informs our members of our preference in that race." A candidate who has a high rating is not guaranteed to receive an endorsement, she said, and a candidate with a lower rating can sometimes be endorsed if the NRA thinks the opponent would be especially bad on its issues. We used an NRA member password and checked with the organization on ratings prior to 2002, which are not posted online at all, to verify Green’s record over the 24 years he’s run for election and re-election to Congress. He mostly received A-level ratings, but drew one C too: 1992: rated "A" and endorsed 1994: rated "C," not endorsed 1996: rated "A+" and endorsed From 1998-2010: rated "A" and endorsed 2012: rated "A-," not endorsed 2014: rated "A-," not endorsed The NRA has not released ratings for the 2016 election cycle, and does not yet have an expected date for their release. So, what happened in 1994, and after 2012? In 1994, Green voted for the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the sweeping crime bill signed by President Bill Clinton that included firearms control measures, Green told us by phone. "I voted for the bill as part of a package, and that’s why the NRA for a couple years didn’t appreciate it," he said. Green’s campaign spokesman, Jose Borjon, pointed out that the 1994 legislation included the federal assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004. The bill, we noted, also prohibited juvenile possession of a handgun, prohibited anyone convicted of domestic abuse from buying firearms or ammunition, increased penalties for crimes involving guns and added licensing and registration requirements for firearms dealers. Green suggested that between 2010 and 2012, when his rating slipped to an A- after more than 15 years of A’s, gun legislation became an even more partisan issue, and the NRA allied itself more with the Republican Party. As that happened, Green said, he did not want to be associated with the organization. However, his grade only declined from an A to an A-. A December 2012 Washington Post article that Green mentioned to us referenced his distancing from the NRA, at the time related to the NRA’s effort to get then-Attorney General Eric Holder held in contempt of Congress after the Sandy Hook school shootings in Newtown, Conn. He joined fellow gun-friendly Democrat John Dingell, the longtime Michigan representative who retired in 2014, in criticizing the group. In the same month, Green told reporters at Hearst’s Washington bureau that instead of passing new gun legislation, Congress needed "to find better ways to enforce current law." Voting record In Garcia’s release, the campaign offered background on the specific votes it referred to: -- The "letter with Texas Republicans to prevent the restriction of armor-piercing bullets," Garcia’s campaign said, was Green’s June 3, 2015, "yes" vote for the Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. That act included an amendment prohibiting the use of funds to classify ammunition as armor piercing in imports. The letter itself is a March 4, 2015, letter signed by Green, Texas Republicans and others to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives opposing the agency’s proposed restrictions on armor-piercing bullets. -- Green, Garcia’s campaign said, voted in November 1993 against the Brady Bill, or the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, so named for James Brady, who was shot during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. We checked, and Green did vote against the Brady Bill. -- Green’s vote "against child safety locks," the Garcia campaign said, was his Sept. 24, 1999, "no" vote on a conference substitute for the Consequences for Juvenile Offenders Act. Green’s "no" vote was in response to a motion to instruct conferees, or a House vote to tell its conference committee members how to resolve an issue while negotiating a version of the bill between the House and the Senate. The issue at hand was a Senate amendment that required that child safety locks be sold with every handgun, among other regulations. Green voted no, to instruct committee members to reject that amendment. --Garcia’s reference to Green’s "vote for the assault weapons ban repeal" was Green’s March 22, 1996, "yes" vote for the Gun Crime Enforcement and Second Amendment Restoration Act. Green did vote for the legislation, which would have repealed the assault weapons ban that he earlier voted to put in place. --Green’s vote for "keeping the gun show loophole" was his June 18, 1999, "no" vote against the Mandatory Gun Show Background Check Act. Green, Garcia’s campaign said, voted against an amendment to regulate firearms transfers at gun shows and require criminal background checks to prevent the sale of guns to minors and felons. In response to these claims, Borjon, Green’s campaign spokesman, pointed out a few votes from Green’s tenure that tended toward gun control, including his 1994 vote in support of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. Borjon also emphasized Green’s vote for the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Acts, which included the Child Safety Lock Act. Green himself emphasized to us that he supported the bipartisan gun legislation authored by California Democrat Mike Thompson and New York Republican Peter King, the Public Safety and Second Amendment Rights Protection Act. When we asked about Green’s voting record and his current stance on gun legislation, Green’s campaign said he supported President Obama’s 2016 executive action on gun safety. ‘Favorite Democrat in Congress’ Garcia’s campaign release also referred to Green as the "NRA’s favorite Democrat in Congress." While that’s not a determination we can make, we looked at the current Democrats in Congress to see if like Green, any have garnered mostly high ratings and endorsements. Of the 232 Democrats in Congress as of early 2016, six had fielded A ratings from the NRA before their latest election. Four others, besides Green, had A- ratings. One was rated AQ. The "A" Democrats were: Rep. Sanford Bishop of Georgia, Sen. Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Reps. Collin Peterson and Tim Walz of Minnesota, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Rep. Ron Kind of Wisconsin. Democrats besides Green with an A-: Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, Rep. Kurt Schrader of Oregon and Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota was rated AQ. We reached out to Sean Theriault, a professor at the University of Texas who studies Congress. He said: "It looks like Green is among a group of Democrats who support the Second Amendment." Heading into the 2014 House elections, according to a ProPublica graphic Theriault sent us, 25 Democrats in Congress were rated from A- to A+. So, why did we identify only a dozen with that distinction? Many of the Democrats who drew high NRA marks in 2013 didn’t win re-election the next year. Our ruling Adrian Garcia said that his competitor in the Democratic race for Texas’ 29th district, Rep. Gene Green, has a "lifetime A rating" from the NRA and is the NRA’s "favorite Democrat in Congress." Green has certainly been a strong supporter of gun rights over his 23 years in the House. The gun control measures Green’s campaign pointed out that he supported were part of packages like the 1994 crime bill, in which Green voted with his party. However, the votes Garcia cites seem to have been cherry-picked from Green’s long career in Congress. While Green has voted against child safety locks, as Garcia said, he also later voted for them. In recent years, Green has inched away from NRA interests, supporting bipartisan gun legislation and President Obama’s executive action on gun safety. Garcia’s claim on Green’s "lifetime rating" also misses Green’s 1994 sharp drop in favor with the NRA and his recent slight shift away from the organization. As for the NRA’s "favorite Democrat," Green is not the only Democrat to support gun rights, or to be supported by the NRA. He’s not even the organization’s strongest Democratic supporter, based on its most recent ratings. He is part of a shrinking group of pro-gun Democrats. We rate this claim Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Adrian Garcia | null | null | null | 2016-02-05T16:12:57 | 2016-02-05 | ['United_States_Congress', 'Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'National_Rifle_Association'] |
pomt-00974 | A married couple that use the same last name "is rarer and rarer in our country." | mostly false | /wisconsin/statements/2015/feb/13/rush-limbaugh/rush-limbaugh-says-its-rarer-and-rarer-married-cou/ | On Feb. 2, 2015, Rush Limbaugh was giving some love to the presidential prospects of Scott Walker, declaring on his nationally syndicated radio show that Wisconsin's Republican governor had "drawn the blueprints for beating the left." Then, changing topics, the conservative commentator made a remark about -- if not love, at least marriage -- that caught our ear. And here we are bumping up against Valentine's Day. Limbaugh mentioned a pair of Washington, D.C. political consultants: Mercedes Viana Schlapp and her husband, Matthew Schlapp. Both served in President George W. Bush's administration. "A married couple that go by the same name, which is rarer and rarer in our country," Limbaugh said parenthetically. Is it? Research overview Limbaugh didn't refer to any time frame. And his spokeswoman did not provide us any information to back his claim. But we did find some limited data on the topic -- though not much of it national. In a nutshell: Very few married women kept their own surnames during the 1970s. The percentage rose in the '80s and in the '90s, but leveled off by the early 2000s. Research in detail Let's start by noting that, as best we know, the vast majority of American-born married women in the United States take their husband's last name. A 2007 U.S. Census Bureau research paper, based on the bureau's American Community Survey in 2004, found that only 6 percent of married women who were born in the U.S. had surnames that were "non-conventional." That includes hyphenated surnames, two surnames and women who kept their own surname at marriage. In other words, some 94 percent took their husband's last name after saying "I do." So, that's a solid, if dated, national snapshot. Unfortunately, the paper did not state whether the 6 percent was higher or lower than in previous years. And the census researcher who co-authored the paper told us she is not aware of any similar research done more recently. As for looking at changes over time, there are two major research efforts -- although, unlike the census paper, neither was national in scope. A 2004 study by a Harvard economics professor was based on New York Times wedding announcements, Harvard alumni records and Massachusetts birth records; it focused on college graduates. The percentage of women keeping their names after marriage was 2 to 4 percent around 1975 and just below 20 percent in 2001. Similar results were found in a 2009 study led by researchers from City University of New York and Ramapo College of New Jersey. That work was based on a sampling of wedding announcements in the New York Times from 1971 through 2005. The percentages of brides keeping their own name rose from 1 percent in the 1970s to 9 percent in the 1980s and to 23 percent in the 1990s. The rate leveled off at 18 percent in the 2000s. So, both major studies -- though limited geographically and in other ways -- found that in the 1980s and 1990s, an increasing percentage of married women kept their surnames. But by the early 2000s, that percentage leveled off. Time to wrap a bow around this one. Our rating Without stating a timeframe, Limbaugh said a "married couple that" use the same last name "is rarer and rarer in our country." There is some evidence to back his claim. Two academic studies, though limited in scope, found that compared to the 1970s, the percentage of married women who kept their own names rose in the 1980s and the '90s. But it leveled off in the early 2000s. But as best we can tell, married couples who share the same last name is not rare at all. The latest U.S. census figures on the topic show that as of 2004, some 94 percent of married, American-born women in the U.S. were using their husband's last name. For a statement that contains an element of truth but ignores facts that would give a different impression, our rating is Mostly False. To comment on this item, go to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s web page. | null | Rush Limbaugh | null | null | null | 2015-02-13T06:00:00 | 2015-02-02 | ['None'] |
pomt-07952 | The number of inmates since 2000 on death row dying of natural causes has now surpassed the number of inmates executed. | true | /florida/statements/2011/jan/25/dean-cannon/whats-killing-inmates-floridas-death-row/ | House Speaker Dean Cannon thinks the Florida court system overstepped its authority last year when it removed three Constitutional amendment questions from the statewide ballot. So, in 2011, he's talking about "comprehensive court reform." Addressing a group of nearly 50 reporters and editors at the annual pre-session meeting organized by the Associated Press, Cannon again made his case that the court system should not have removed constitutional amendments that, if approved by voters, would have granted tax breaks for first-time home buyers and affected state redistricting. A third amendment was drafted in response to the new federal health care law to prohibit Florida from participating in any health insurance exchange that compels people to buy insurance. All three amendments were stripped from the ballot after judges ruled that the attached ballot language was either flawed or misleading. Cannon said he will propose legislative changes to effectively remove or diminish judicial review of ballot questions. But that's not all. "Florida's judicial system has the authority to take away not only a person's liberty, but also a person's life. Understanding the severity and irreversible nature of that penalty, we have a responsibility to ensure that justice is administered not only fairly, but also efficiently," Cannon said. "Criminal cases are complex in nature and in recent years we've seen cases overturned, and there have been errors. The number of inmates since 2000 on death row dying of natural causes has now surpassed the number of inmates executed. Significant and unreasonable delays plague the current process of conducting state post-conviction review in these cases and it appears that there is little the Supreme Court can do to improve or streamline the process." Cannon said that is where the Legislature can step in. "I believe the Legislature can and should work with the judicial branch to significantly improve the administration of justice in death penalty cases," he said. "I am hopeful that reform could lead to a more equitable judicial system for all Floridians, and as we move forward toward the 2011 legislative session, we will continue to explore this issue to determine when and what the right course of action for Florida may be." Cannon hasn't specified what court reform legislation might look like, though by his comments it sure sounds like he wants the appeals process in death row cases hastened. In that vein, we decided to check his facts about Florida's death row, focusing on this claim: "The number of inmates since 2000 on death row dying of natural causes has now surpassed the number of inmates executed." Of the 392 people now on Florida's death row, House records indicate that 145 inmates have been there for 20 years or longer and 34 have been there for 30 years or more, according to Cannon spokeswoman Katie Betta. Gary Alvord has been on Florida's death row since April 1974, according to the Florida Department of Corrections. Alvord escaped a Michigan mental hospital and wound up in Tampa, where he killed three women. Alvord, who turned 64 on Jan. 10, 2011, has been on death row for more than 13,400 days. This April, he will have been awaiting execution for 37 years. John Vining, who was sentenced to death in 1990, is the oldest person on death row. On March 13, 2011, he will turn 80. Vining was convicted of shooting and killing a woman who was trying to sell him a $60,000 diamond. Since Florida reinstated the death penalty in 1976 (and began carrying out sentences in 1979), 69 people have been executed -- a rate of a little over two per year. One reason, for starters, is a lengthy and costly appeals process. But politics plays a role as well. The governor must sign a death warrant for an execution to proceed. And sometimes other complicating factors are cited. Alvord, for instance, has a long history of mental illness and has been declared mentally incompetent by several courts. The last person to be executed in Florida was Martin Grossman in February 2010. Grossman was convicted of shooting a Pinellas County wildlife officer who happened upon Grossman shooting a stolen handgun in a wooded area. Gov. Charlie Crist signed the death warrant of David Eugene Johnston in 2010 as well, but Johnston died while awaiting his sentence. He was convicted of stabbing an 84-year-old Orlando woman to death in 1983. That transitions naturally to Cannon's claim. The Florida Department of Corrections provided PolitiFact Florida with a list of 55 inmates who died on death row starting Jan. 1, 2000. Thirty of the 55 somehow died while awaiting their sentence (the state does not describe the nature of a person's death), and 25 were executed. For example, Eddie Lee Sexton Sr. died on Dec. 29, 2010, while living on death row. Sexton was convicted of murder after a jury found that he ordered his mentally impaired son to strangle Sexton's son-in-law at a Florida park. Sexton feared that the son-in-law was going to report family abuses to local authorities, prosecutors said. Sexton was sentenced to death in 1998. Robert Power died on Dec. 3, 2010, while awaiting sentence for the rape and murder of a 12-year-old Orange County girl. Power had been on death row for 20 years. The waiting and appeals process certainly comes with additional cost. The Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington policy group that does not advocate for or against the death penalty, published a 2009 report discussing the cost of enforcing the death penalty. The group cited a 2000 Palm Beach Post analysis, which said that the state spends $51 million a year enforcing the death penalty. That's $51 million a year more than it would cost to punish all first-degree murderers with life in prison instead. The figure has been repeated by several other news publications as well as Rex Dimmig, chief assistant public defender of the 10th Judicial Circuit, in testimony before a state Senate committee discussing the death penalty. Make no mistake, the death penalty is a controversial and complex policy issue. But here, we're focusing on Cannon's call for reforms based on death row inmate data. He said: "The number of inmates since 2000 on death row dying of natural causes has now surpassed the number of inmates executed." He's right. Of the 55 death row inmates to die since Jan. 1, 2000, only 25 actually were executed. We rate this statement True. | null | Dean Cannon | null | null | null | 2011-01-25T09:21:14 | 2011-01-19 | ['None'] |
tron-02410 | FEMA Prepares for Ebola Zombie Apocalypse | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/fema-ebola-zombies/ | null | military | null | null | null | FEMA Prepares for Ebola Zombie Apocalypse – Fiction! | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05391 | We will not ask for a tax increase to run city government. | mostly true | /tennessee/statements/2012/may/06/c-wharton/memphis-mayor-c-wharton-says-tax-increase-not-city/ | It’s all about the schools, Memphis Mayor A C Wharton said the day before his administration made its first budget proposal to the City Council since Memphians, in another Wharton landslide, elected him to what is technically his first full four-year term as the city’s CEO. Wharton said that while Memphians would be paying more in property taxes than they did for the 2011-12 fiscal year, it was because of the court-mandated funding of Memphis City Schools. He was asking for the City Council to set a total tax rate of $3.66 per $100 of assessed value, up from the current $3.19. In practical terms, that means taxes on a $150,000 home would jump to $1,372.09 annually, up $176.25 from the current $1,195.84. And yet, while Wharton freely acknowledges he’s asking for a tax increase, he claims core city government services would be funded with the same amount of property tax revenues in FY 2013 as they were in FY 2012. "It's all about the schools," Wharton said. "We will not ask for a tax increase to run city government. The budget I present will be clear. We'll operate city government on the same amount we used last year." Wharton explains the apparent contradiction -- taxpayers paying more taxes but funding the same amount of government -- by pointing to the $65 million the city is required to give to MCS for one final year. The city’s schools are being transferred to Shelby County after the 2012-13 school year, at which point the city’s court-ordered obligation to help MCS with its nearly $900 million budget will end.* Wharton and his finance director, Roland McElrath, agreed to an interview to defend the mayor’s claims. For the 2012 budget year, when the property tax rate was $3.19 per $100 of assessed value, the city allocated only 18 cents for the schools -- the remaining $3.01 was for the general fund that finances government. The city cobbled together the remainder of the approximately $74.2 million needed for its portion of school funding in other ways. For one example, the city generated $20 million through a refinancing of its debt service. But for the 2013 budget year, Wharton wants a straightforward payment to schools to flow directly out of property taxes -- and since each penny of the tax rate generates $1 million in revenue, the city claims it is simply adding 0.47 to the 0.18 that was allocated for schools last year to get to 0.65. Add that 0.65 to the 3.01 and you get the 3.66 property tax rate Wharton proposes. Another way to think of it: Wharton is saying that the first 301 pennies on the tax rate for FY 2013 will go to fund city government with the remainder going to schools, just like the first 301 pennies on the tax rate for 2012 were allocated to fund city government with the remainder going to schools. It’s important to note that the city draws revenues from many areas, including various other taxes and fees, but property taxes are by far the city’s single-largest source of revenues, representing around half the city’s budget. Jim Strickland, the budget chairman for the City Council, is among those asking Wharton to find ways to cut government services to lessen the impact on taxpayers. Strickland believes the mayor should do more to lower taxes, saying "this is the third tax increase he’s asked for" since winning a special election in 2009 to finish out the final 27 months of Willie Herenton’s fifth term. But he said Wharton’s framing of the issue is technically accurate, even if it essentially allows him to shift blame for the spike in taxes: "In that direct quote, I’m pretty sure he’s right." McElrath and Wharton did acknowledge this -- their budget proposal calls for $22 million more in spending on those core non-schools government services. The budget proposal for FY 2013 calls for $628 million in spending on non-schools government services; current projections for FY 2012 show $606 million in spending on non-schools government services. That reflects increases in spending in public safety, especially in the police division where the administration has every incentive to back police director Toney Armstrong in his second full year as chief. But Wharton said the budget also recommends serious cuts -- for instance, closing some libraries and a golf course and scaling back hours at some community centers and city pools. Wharton had the finance department send documents showing how spending trends in city government are all related to more money for public safety but less for everything else. To Strickland, Wharton is masking his decision to increase spending and avoid some difficult cuts by telling taxpayers that 65 cents of the tax rate is going directly to schools. "The point is, it doesn’t matter what you are asking for, it’s hitting the taxpayer in the same way," Strickland said. (EDITOR'S NOTE: UPDATE: The original version of this story included a claim from Strickland that Wharton’s proposed tax rate would be the "highest we’ve ever had." We removed that quote because the administration’s budget shows that the overall tax rate for FY 1980 for Memphis was, in fact, 3.74 -- higher than Wharton's proposed 3.66 this year.) Our ruling Memphis’s mayor says that a property tax increase is not in fact a tax increase to fund core government services. Rather, it’s a one-time assessment to cover the city’s final year of court-ordered funding obligations for the city’s dissolving school system. Wharton’s finance team was able to create a budget allocating the various revenues so that the amount of the property-tax rate going to fund general government services is the same for 2013 as it was in 2012. But because the budget shows overall government spending increasing by $22 million -- about 3.6 percent -- that bit of needed clarification means the Truth-O-Meter dial points to Mostly True. ------------- *In 2011, MCS and the City Council voted to surrender the system’s charter, and voters concurred in a referendum asking to transfer control of Memphis public schools to Shelby County. | null | A C Wharton | null | null | null | 2012-05-06T06:00:00 | 2012-04-16 | ['None'] |
pomt-06201 | Our "kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school." | false | /texas/statements/2011/dec/09/rick-perry/rick-perry-says-kids-cant-openly-celebrate-christm/ | Saying President Barack Obama is waging war on religion, Texas Gov. Rick Perry adds in a TV ad his presidential campaign is airing in Iowa: "I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school." It’s widely known that Obama last year signed into law legislation permitting gay people to openly serve in the military. We wondered if kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. Based on checking the schoolhouse scene in Iowa and Texas and consulting an array of national experts, it’s clear that school officials are not permitted to organize prayers or focus on a single religion in connection with Christmas, but kids may pray and also celebrate the holiday on their own. We started with the Hawkeye State, where voters caucus for president on Jan. 3. Iowa schoolchildren may both pray and openly celebrate Christmas, according to Carol Greta, general counsel of the Iowa Department of Education. In an interview, Greta said Iowa school children have never been prohibited from praying at school. "As one wag said, as long as there’s been algebra, there’s been prayer in schools," Greta said. But, she said, school employees may not coerce students into praying in keeping with the First Amendment, which bars Congress from making any law "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech." In a landmark 1962 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held that school-initiated prayer in the public schools violated the First Amendment. A year later, the court said students could not be made to read a Bible passage before class because the practice constituted government endorsement of a particular religion. As for openly celebrating Christmas, Greta pointed us to a 2009 checklist of do’s and don’t’s for "holiday celebrations" posted by the education department for Iowa schools. The guidance opens: "Public school officials need to be especially conscious at this time of year that the birth of the Christian savior is not recognized or celebrated by all students and families." Prohibited activities, the checklist says, include displays of religious symbols such as a crèche, an angel, a menorah or a banner with a religious message as well as a display of a Christmas tree bearing only Christian religious symbols, though the checklist says a Christmas tree itself is not prohibited. Also barred are school-wide prayer or Scripture readings, the guidance says, and musical concerts with exclusively religious music. Schools are advised against holding a "Christmas party" in the classroom, the department says, though a "holiday" or "end of semester" or end-of-year party is permitted. The checklist says non-religious aspects of Christmas -- such as pictures of reindeer, bells and other non-religious symbols and sleigh rides -- are permitted. Caroling also is fine though songs that "celebrate the birth of the Christ are more problematic," the checklist says: "In an end-of-the-year music program open to the public, religious songs may be included as selections, as long as they are selected for their musicality and are not limited to Christian-themed songs." The checklist closes: "The holidays are a time for exercising goodwill toward all. It is not a time for Scrooges or Grinches. Go forth and be merry with due consideration for all." And what’s the Texas situation? Texas law provides an opportunity for students pray, if they choose, every school day, we learned from DeEtta Culbertson, spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency. The law states that each school board shall provide a minute of silence at each school during which "each student may, as the student chooses, reflect, pray, meditate or engage in any other silent activity that is not likely to interfere with or distract another student." Also, a 1995 Texas law states: "A public school student has an absolute right to individually, voluntarily, and silently pray or meditate in school in a manner that does not disrupt the instructional or other activities of the school. And a 2007 law requires each district to adopt a policy enabling student speakers at school events to voluntarily express a religious viewpoint with the policy stating that the student's speech "does not reflect the endorsement, sponsorship, position, or expression of the district." The latter law came about after the Supreme Court agreed with lower courts that a Texas school district could not permit student prayers delivered before football games because the speeches were at a school-sponsored event, using school facilities, and would be taken by most observers as a school endorsement of the student prayers that were likely to be delivered. Culbertson told us each Texas district is left to resolve how its individual schools handle Christmas. In a Nov. 30, 2011, online post, Tim Carroll, president of the Texas School Public Relations Association, advised school officials to read a publication by the Freedom Forum, a foundation that says it champions the First Amendment. The publication, "Religious Holidays in the Public Schools," notes that the Supreme Court has ruled that public schools may not sponsor religious practices but may teach about religion. "While it has made no definitive ruling on religious holidays in the schools," the publication says, "the Supreme Court has let stand a lower federal court decision stating that recognition of holidays may be constitutional if the purpose is to provide secular instruction about religious traditions rather than to promote the particular religion involved." The publication says it would be unrealistic to ban seasonal celebrations including references to Christmas. It continues: "The resolution would seem to lie in devising holiday programs that serve an educational purpose for all students — programs that do not make students feel excluded or identified with a religion not their own. In an interview, researcher David Masci of the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life told us that children may both pray and celebrate Christmas in school if their actions are self-directed -- not guided by teachers or administrators. Masci said that if Perry said school-directed prayer and Christmas celebrations are restricted, he’d be right. Masci said: "It’s one thing to acknowledge religion. Public institutions can do that. It’s another thing to promote religion." Some say, though, that schools often bow too much to constitutional concerns when it comes to Christmas. By e-mail, Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for the conservative Texas-based Liberty Institute, pointed out a sentence in the Freedom Forum publication that he said demonstrates Perry is on target about Christmas in school. The sentence: "Teachers must be alert to the distinction between teaching about religious holidays, which is permissible, and celebrating religious holidays, which is not." News stories illuminate instances of schools balancing Christmas season events against the constitutional limit on promoting a religion. In a Beaumont-area school this month, student singers replaced lyrics of "The First Noel" with "The first snow fall" and "the Lord has come" in "Joy to the World" with "my shopping's done," the Beaumont Enterprise reported Dec. 7, 2011. The story quotes the students’ teacher saying the kids sang the real carols at a local tree-lighting ceremony. According to a Dec. 1, 2011, news story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Fort Worth school district’s attorney recently sent a memo to staff stating that students should not be allowed to exchange gifts or "distribute personal holiday messages" during class. The story says the memo cites legal concerns associated with the distribution of personal holiday messages. "For example, if students are allowed to exchange cards or small trinkets, the district would be required to allow a student to distribute a religious message with the gift or card," the memo says, according to the newspaper. "In other words, the school district cannot prohibit the distribution of unsolicited religious material directly to students if it allows other personal messages to be distributed during school activities held during the school day." The paper quoted a district spokesman, Clint Bond, saying that students can, however, exchange gifts and cards before and after school and during lunch. Students can say "merry Christmas" to one another during the school day, Bond was quoted saying. The Fort Worth district’s memo also says Santa Claus is not allowed to visit classes, the newspaper reported, though it says the memo also says that "seasonal decorations are appropriate if they are not religious in nature" and classroom parties are allowed if they "serve an appropriate instructional purpose." On Dec. 2,2011, the district responded to news coverage of the memo by saying the district was not banning Santa Claus or Christmas celebrations from the schools--though Santa visits would be barred while teachers were teaching. Also, the district said, children would be permitted to exchange presents and cards before and after class, in the hallway and at lunch. "Fort Worth ISD loves Santa Claus and continues to support his universal message of generosity and kindness," the district said. Sasser also urged us to consider a 2005 book, "The War on Christmas," by John Gibson, a Fox News host. The book explores decisions by officials in a few school districts to curb religious references to Christmas. After one such move, Gibson writes, a district turned to Charles Haynes of the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Institute to help draft a policy enabling students to learn about religious issues and Christmas without violating the First Amendment. We called Haynes about Perry’s double-barreled ad claim. "He’s using the language of the culture wars," Haynes speculated. "What he’s trying to do, I’m afraid, is to mislead people into thinking kids can’t pray... What he’s hoping is that people will hear that God and Christmas have been kicked out of schools. That isn’t the case." Asked to elaborate on Perry’s statement, his campaign spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, said by email that court decisions in the ‘60’s "banned prayer in schools." She said too there are endless legal cases involving students, schools and prayer or religious expression--and noted a dispute years ago involving the Plano, Texas, district and a child prevented from passing out candy canes with a religious message. She also pointed us to the transcript of a June 8, 2004, Senate subcommittee hearing that touched on the Supreme Court’s ruling restricting prayers before football games Our ruling So, can kids pray and openly celebrate Christmas in school? Absolutely, we conclude, though public school officials are barred from advancing a religion or making children pray or celebrate solely the Christian aspects of Christmas. The Supreme Court has not held that students can’t pray; Perry’s home state even has laws protecting that right. The highest court also hasn’t held that kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas at school. His statement shakes out as False. | null | Rick Perry | null | null | null | 2011-12-09T15:19:03 | 2011-12-07 | ['None'] |
pomt-09913 | If the United States moves ahead by itself (on cap-and-trade)... after 30 or 40 years, we're going to reduce CO2 by less than 1 percent. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jul/02/chuck-grassley/claims-us-will-only-reduce-carbon-emissions-one-pe/ | Shortly after the House of Representatives passed a cap-and-trade bill, some Republicans made this claim about the plan: Lowering carbon emissions in the United States will do little to slow climate change unless other countries do the same. The GOP's position is that putting a cap on carbon dioxide emissions will be too costly for businesses and for consumers, and if the United States is going it alone those costs outweigh the environmental benefit. Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, who has been one of the more vocal skeptics, made this argument on June 28, 2009, on This Week with George Stephanopoulos. "If the United States moves ahead by itself (on cap-and-trade) ... after 30 or 40 years, we're going to reduce CO2 by less than 1 percent," he said. He reiterated his opinion during a conference call with reporters on July 1, 2009, saying, "If the United States would go ahead — because we're supposed to so-called set an example for the rest of the world — and if the rest of the world doesn't go along, then we're turning out to be suckers because we're — we're going to just reduce total CO2 by a spit in the ocean by ourselves." We wondered whether our cap-and-trade plan could be as limited as Grassley maintains — or at least whether Grassley's 1 percent prediction is even close. Before digging into his claim, here's a little background on this complicated issue, one we've already explored in terms of how much it might cost consumers. The bill, authored by Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman of California and Edward Markey of Massachusetts, was approved by the House of Representatives on June 26, and would essentially limit the amount of carbon dioxide companies can emit each year. The cap will become tighter and tighter over time, and ultimately, lawmakers say their plan will reduce carbon pollution by 17 percent by 2020, and 83 percent by 2050. Of course, those big reductions apply only to carbon emissions produced in the United States. Cap-and-trade opponents say it's foolhardy for the United States to move forward without some indication that other countries will adopt similar restrictions. But the European Union already has agreed to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020. And in July, members of the Group of Eight are expected to hammer out a deal on global emissions reductions. Of greatest concern remains China, a country that has recently become the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases. According to the Energy Information Administration, a government-run database of energy statistics, the United States contributed about 5,907 million metric tons in 2006 — or about 20 percent of the world's total. In the same year, China surpassed that amount by about 100 million metric tons, becoming the leading contributor to global warming. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman pointed out exactly this problem in a May 14 op-ed about China's economic development. "China cannot continue along its current path because the planet can’t handle the strain," he wrote. "The scientific consensus on prospects for global warming has become much more pessimistic over the last few years. Indeed, the latest projections from reputable climate scientists border on the apocalyptic. Why? Because the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions are rising is matching or exceeding the worst-case scenarios. And the growth of emissions from China — already the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide — is one main reason for this new pessimism." The Pew Center on Global Climate Change, an organization that produces analysis on climate issues, had this to say: "Climate change is a global problem and will require nations of the world to work together to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It is true that the United States has recently been overtaken by China as the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, but the United States still contributes 20 percent of global emissions, so what we do is critically important. It is also true that if the United States acts alone, we cannot solve climate change." And Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein offered some numbers to back up a similar opinion: "Since the U.S. share of global CO2 production is now less than 25 percent (and is projected to decline as China and other developing nations grow), a 15 percent fall in U.S. CO2 output would lower global CO2 output by less than 4 percent," he wrote in a June 1 Washington Post op-ed. "Its impact on global warming would be virtually unnoticeable. The U.S. should wait until there is a global agreement on CO2 that includes China and India before committing to costly reductions in the United States." Less than 4 percent is close to what Grassley said, but we wanted to see some real data. So, we turned to a memo produced by two professors at Duke University's Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions who concluded that, "the success of (Waxman-Markey) depends on whether other nations also pursue equivalent reductions." To illustrate their point, professors Tim Profeta and Prasad Kasibhatla plotted three possible scenarios using this handy modeling system (yes, you can play along , too). In the first, most developed countries — including the United States and some European nations — adopt something similar to Waxman-Markey, but developing countries do not; in the second, developing nations reduce emissions as well; and in the third, developing nations delay a reduction in their emissions, but eventually participate. Their work shows that, under the first scenario, there would actually be a steady increase in carbon emissions, while under the other two scenarios — where developed countries pitch in — carbon emissions would decline over time. So, Grassley's prediction is right — sort of, said Profeta. "It's true that if the U.S. acts solo, we will see little impact," he said, adding that he's not sure where Grassley got his "1 percent" prediction. "But that's a very unlikely assumption." We're more likely to see something along the lines of scenario three, he said, where China will adopt cap-and-trade at a later date, when its per capita carbon emissions equal those from developed countries. We posed a similar question to Mark Radka with the United Nations Environment Program via e-mail. "With no one else doing anything other than growing — a lot — and the U.S. singlehandedly reducing emissions along a not so aggressive path you might come up with a number like 1 percent," he wrote. "This would be one of those absurd baseline scenarios that really doesn’t represent a baseline in any other than a theoretical sense." And Alden Meyer with the Union of Concerned Scientists said it's a myth that China's doing nothing, pointing out that the country has embraced renewable technologies and set fuel economy standards that are arguably more stringent than those announced by the Obama administration earlier this year. "You could say it's a drop in the bucket, but that could be said for any country," Meyer added. "The risk of not adopting Waxman-Markey is that we give China the excuse to say, 'Why should we do it if the wealthiest country isn't doing it?'" So where does that leave us? The experts we spoke with all agree that our impact on climate change will be relatively small without the involvement of other countries, particularly China. On this point, Grassley is correct. But, those same experts say it's highly unlikely that we would be the only nation limiting our carbon emissions in the coming decades. In fact, Grassley's statement is misleading in this regard because Europe already has adopted stricter goals than the targets we're considering, and China is taking other steps to reduce carbon production. As for Grassley's prediction that our cap-and-trade bill alone would only reduce climate change emissions by 1 percent, things are still murky. His office did not return calls or e-mails to back up that claim, our experts had never heard the statistic before, nor could we find any studies or documents to support it. The only number we've got comes from an opinion article written by a Harvard economist, who says 4 percent, which is in the Grassley ballpark. But given his lack of documentation and some clear flaws in his assumptions about international involvement, we give Grassley's claim a Half True. | null | Chuck Grassley | null | null | null | 2009-07-02T16:09:19 | 2009-06-28 | ['United_States'] |
hoer-00415 | Facebook Prayer Request For Baby Found in the Bin | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/baby-bin-prayer-request.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Facebook Prayer Request For Baby Found in the Bin | 12th October 2011 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02122 | The incandescent light bulb "has no effect whatever on the planet." | false | /punditfact/statements/2014/may/11/george-will/george-will-incandescent-light-bulb-has-no-effect-/ | The kidnapping of over 200 Nigerian schoolgirls has led to an outpouring of concern, outrage and frustration. When a Nigerian attorney penned the Twitter hashtag #BringBackOurGirls, over 2 million people followed suit, including First Lady Michelle Obama, who tweeted a picture of herself holding a hand-lettered sign with the slogan. Conservatives dismissed this as a meaningless gesture toward a crime that demanded a more muscular response. Adding his voice to that view, Fox News political commentator George Will made an unlikely comparison. "Power is the ability to achieve intended effects," Will said on Fox News Sunday. "And this is not intended to have any effect on the real world. It’s a little bit like what environmentalism has become. The incandescent light bulb becomes the enemy. It has no effect whatever on the planet, but it makes people feel good about themselves." We wondered about Will’s claim that the incandescent light bulb "has no effect whatever on the plant." We reached out to Will and did not hear back. Neal Elliott, associate director for research at the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, called Will’s claim "demonstrably untrue." The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy includes representatives from utilities, manufacturers and academia. Elliott points to the work of the U.S. Energy Department. Following passage of the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, the department has encouraged the use of more efficient alternatives such as compact fluorescent bulbs. "Switching to energy-saving bulbs will reduce the growth of U.S. energy demand and avoid carbon emissions," the department writes on one of its many Web pages on this topic. When it examined the lifetime energy use of different bulbs, from manufacture to end use, the department found that incandescent bulbs required three times more energy. All things being equal, the need for more electrical power translates into burning more fossil fuels, such as natural gas and coal, which leads to higher greenhouse gas emissions. That is certainly an effect on the planet. The government estimates that if every household got rid of incandescent bulbs, it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions equal to getting rid of 800,000 cars. The closest we could find to an argument that might support Will was a group of scientists in Canada who said the switch to compact fluorescent bulbs might not always have a positive effect in every location. Factors such as the source of power -- hydroelectric, coal, natural gas, nuclear, etc. -- and the balance between the need for heating and air conditioning, could change the outcome from province to province. For example, in British Columbia, greenhouse gas emissions might go up, while in Saskatchewan, they would plummet. Nevertheless, in total, they still found that emissions dropped using alternative light bulbs. Electric utility companies across America are spending millions of dollars to promote the use of compact fluorescents on the theory that they will be able to avoid expensive investments in new power plants. California is a leading state in this approach with over half a billion dollars slated to be spent over seven years. The energy savings have fallen short of expectations but the program has produced savings nevertheless. Our ruling Will said incandescent light bulbs have no effect whatsoever on the planet. There is broad consensus that incandescent bulbs are less efficient than alternatives such as compact fluorescent bulbs. And because they are less efficient, they require more energy -- and generate more greenhouse gas emissions. Hence, they clearly have an effect on the planet. Alternative bulbs may not be a panacea, but Will went way too far in saying incandescent light bulbs play no role in how we consume energy resources. We rate Will’s claim False. | null | George Will | null | null | null | 2014-05-11T16:27:35 | 2014-05-11 | ['None'] |
pomt-04391 | Sherrod Brown supported President Obama's $453 billion tax increase. | mostly false | /ohio/statements/2012/oct/18/crossroads-gps/crossroads-gps-says-sherrod-brown-backed-obamas-45/ | Ohioans need only brief exposure to commercial television to get a sense of the oversized amounts of outside spending on campaign advertising in the state. Outside spending -- money spent by third-party groups not directly tied to a candidate or party -- has been a force in the U.S. Senate race between Sherrod Brown, the incumbent Democrat, and Josh Mandel, Ohio's Republican treasurer. Going into October, more outside money was spent against Brown than on anyone else in Congress, more than $19 million for TV and radio ads. One of the big spenders targeting Brown is the group Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, better known as Crossroads GPS. Co-founded by Karl Rove as a spin-off of the super PAC American Crossroads, it is a political advocacy organization that is not required to disclose its donors. After spending more than $6.7 million against Brown through late September, Crossroads reserved another $4.5 million worth of air time against him, spokesmen for the Brown and Mandel campaigns say. That includes the 30-second TV ad "Vision," which says, "Sherrod Brown supported President Obama's $453 billion tax increase" (and) "higher taxes on manufacturers that could cost Ohio jobs." PolitiFact Ohio looked at the second claim when it was included in an earlier Crossroads ad. The earlier ad said that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, "adds a new tax on Ohio manufacturers." We rated the statement as Half True because it left out important details about the tax, which is an excise tax only on the sale of medical devices, with arguable jobs impact. We asked Crossroads how it backed up the claim about the $453 billion tax increase. It cited the sources shown in the ad. One is Brown's "yes" vote, on Oct. 11, 2011, to open debate in the Senate advancing S. 1660, Obama's American Jobs Act of 2011. The second source is a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on the budgetary effects of the jobs bill. The report says one provision, a 5.6 percent surtax on incomes above $1 million, would increase revenues by $453 billion over the 10 years ending in 2021. That's the "$453 billion tax increase" in the ad. But context and additional information are needed to fully understand the claim. The $447 billion jobs bill aimed to jump-start employment and included spending on highways and other infrastructure, aid for states to prevent layoffs of teachers and emergency workers and an extension of jobless benefits. The bill also provided $272 billion in tax relief for individuals and businesses, the CBO said, with tax cuts for businesses that hire new employees. Bloomberg Business News described a cut in payroll taxes, intended to increase take-home pay for 160 million, as its "centerpiece." Economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Moody’s Analytics Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. predicted it would give the economy a boost of up to 2 percent. It is additionally worth noting that the measure was not enacted. It did not, in fact, ever reach consideration. Yet the Crossroads GPS ad is silent on those points. Brown's "yes" vote came on a procedural measure to open Senate debate, which did not reach the 60-vote, filibuster-proof threshold required. (Brown indicated support for the jobs bill, but at least one senator who voted with him, Democrat Jim Webb of Virginia, said he was voting to take up the bill but opposed the measure itself.) The claim from Crossroads GPS has an element of truth in its statement. The American Jobs Act of 2011, which Brown did indicate support for, did include a surtax that was expected to yield $453 billion over 10 years. But the claim in the ad leaves out critical facts that would give a different impression. The legislation included much more than just the surtax cited in the ad. Describing the bill solely as a "tax increase," is incomplete and misleading. A review of the legislation by the non-partisan CBO identified $272 billion in tax relief for individuals and businesses, with tax cuts for businesses that hire new employees. The vote that the ad cites was not a vote on passage of the legislation, but rather a procedural vote to open debate. The legislation never became law. On the Truth-O-Meter, the claim rates Mostly False. | null | Crossroads GPS | null | null | null | 2012-10-18T06:00:00 | 2012-10-09 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-06857 | [T]his breed (of pit bulls) is most often associated with aggressive behavior. | mostly true | /georgia/statements/2011/aug/03/elaine-boyer/are-pit-bulls-more-aggressive-other-dogs/ | DeKalb County commissioners are considering a reversal of an ordinance that has tongues wagging in Georgia’s third highest-populated county. County leaders are thinking about removing pit bulls from its list of banned household pets. Commissioner Elaine Boyer, whose district includes a politically conservative area in north DeKalb, raised some concerns about changing the ordinance. "[T]his breed (of pit bulls) is most often associated with aggressive behavior," Boyer said in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution published July 20. There is no date immediately scheduled to discuss the idea. You don’t have to look far to find some tragic story of a child being horrifically mauled by a pit bull, which is known for its vise-like jaws. There are the frequent media accounts of pit bull dogfighting, which most famously involved former Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who pleaded guilty and served prison time for and his role in conspiring in a dogfighting ring. But some counter that this breed of dog is not as vicious as its public portrayal. Many pit bull owners say the dogs are loving animals, which are sometimes trained by owners to be violent. Pit bulls are not the problem, they argue, people are. We wanted to see if Boyer is right. The commissioner, who said she has no position on the proposed ordinance change, explained her initial comments to us via e-mail. "I am an animal lover," she wrote. "Our family owns small breed dogs, and we have personally never had an encounter with a pit bull. But friends and constituents have told me they have had bad experiences with pit bulls... I imagine even the sweetest puppy of any breed could snap at you if taunted or not trained properly." In 2008, a team of University of Pennsylvania researchers completed a study of aggressiveness of 30 breeds of dogs. The researchers collected about 15,000 questionnaires for the year-long study. The researchers asked owners a series of questions concerning how their dogs reacted in various situations to other canines and humans they know as well as strangers. The questions included how does the dog react when a stranger arrives. The results found Chihuahuas and Dachshunds were the most aggressive toward both humans and other dogs. Those breeds, however, are smaller and usually inflict less-severe injuries. The findings were a mixed bag for Pit Bull Terriers. The dogs were among the most aggressive toward other dogs, particularly those they didn’t know. Pit bulls, the researchers found, were not significantly more aggressive than other breeds toward strangers and their owners. "(Pit bulls) tended to be on the high side, but there were lots of breeds that were higher," said James Serpell, one of the researchers. Serpell told us they felt confident with their findings. He acknowledged that some owners may have over reported or under reported how aggressive their dog acted in some scenarios. The results were widely reported by many newspapers. One study of aggression done by a specialist in Australia found the pit bull terrier attacked humans at a higher level than any breed. German Shepherds and crosses were a close second. For nearly 35 years, a Missouri-based group has conducted its own research on canine aggressiveness. The American Temperament Test Society conducts a 10-step exam and has checked out nearly 31,000 dogs, according to its website. The test includes seeing how the dog reacts to strangers,reacts to someone the animal doesn’t know but tries to pet it, how it reacts to loud noises and its response to a stranger who approaches in a menacing fashion. The two types of pit bulls (the American Pit Bull Terrier and American Staffordshire Terrier) they’ve studied have aggression scores that are not as bad as boxers, bulldogs, collies, Great Danes, Greyhounds and Shetland sheepdogs. They are in the same range as the German Shepherd and golden retriever. Labrador retrievers scored better than pit bulls. "On an even playing field, a pit bull is no more dangerous than a collie," said Salliann Comstock, the society’s chief tester and director of operations. Comstock contends pit bulls are trained to be aggressive and argues many people, including some animal shelter workers, mistake other animals for pit bulls. "A small boxer is called a pit bull," she said. There is some skepticism about the society’s exam. One blogger said the test is geared toward bold dogs who are better equipped to face danger. Some discount dog aggressiveness studies altogether, saying the breeds are often misidentified even by owners. The Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control & Prevention once conducted a study of 20 years worth of fatal dog bite data. The study found 66 people died through bite-related incidents involving various types of pit bulls, which was more than any other type of dog. Rottweilers were a distant second, with 39. Rottweilers, though, were involved in 30 fatal dog bites for the last six years of the study while pit bulls were involved in 15 fatal dog bites. The study, however, was from 1979 through 1998. The CDC has not updated that study. CDC spokeswoman Gail Hayes stressed via email that their study does not conclude which dogs are most likely to bite or kill. She also noted that the estimated 4.7 million Americans bitten by dog bites annually result in about 16 fatalities, a ratio of well less than 1 percent. The past studies and research we’ve reviewed shows pit bulls are among the most aggressive dogs. Some breeds, however, have been shown to be more aggressive in each report. However, the widely held perception is that they are dangerous, which was Boyer’s over-arching point. An Associated Press poll done in October found of the dog owners who would support breed bans, 85 percent would outlaw pit bulls. Her statement has merit, but could have used additional context about the breed, which would have put it in a slightly different light. We rate her claim Mostly True. | null | Elaine Boyer | null | null | null | 2011-08-03T06:00:00 | 2011-07-20 | ['None'] |
pomt-13299 | These are radical Islamic terrorists, and (Hillary Clinton) won't even mention the word. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/09/donald-trump/trump-clinton-wont-use-term-radical-islamist-terro/ | In response to a question by a Muslim woman about anti-Muslim bias during the town hall presidential debate, Donald Trump said that the United States has a problem with "radical Islamic terrorists," citing mass shootings in Orlando and San Bernardino. Trump then said that Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama won’t correctly define the problem. "These are radical islamic terrorists and she won't even mention the word, and nor will President Obama. He won't use the term ‘radical Islamic terrorism,’" Trump said during the Oct. 9 debate at Washington University in St. Louis. "Now, to solve a problem, you have to be able to state what the problem is or at least say the name. She won't say the name and President Obama won't say the name. But the name is there. It's radical Islamic terror." In her response, Clinton used the phrase "violent jihadist terrorists" and said that the United States is not at war with Islam. "And it is a mistake, and it plays into the hands of the terrorists to act as though we are," she said. We’ve looked at Obama’s use of the term before; he doesn’t like to use it. For this fact-check, we will look at how Clinton describes radical Islamic terrorism. Clinton’s words The day after the mass shooting in Orlando, Clinton did a series of interviews in which she said she had no problem using the term "radical Islamism" or "radical jihadist terrorism." But she also said that the phrases were not "magic words" that would halt terrorism. "From my perspective, it matters what we do more than what we say. And you know, it mattered we got bin Laden, not what name we called him," she said on CNN on June 13. "Whether you call it radical jihadism or radical Islamism, I'm happy to say either. I think they mean the same thing." Clinton emphasizes a distinction between a "distorted version of Islam" and the religion itself. "What I won't do, because I think it is dangerous for our efforts to defeat this threat, is to demonize and demagogue and, you know, declare war on an entire religion. That plays right into ISIS' hands," she said. "We can call it radical jihadism, we can call it radical Islamism. But we also want to reach out to the vast majority of American Muslims and Muslims around this country, this world, to help us defeat this threat, which is so evil and has got to be denounced by everyone, regardless of religion." Clinton made similar comments in an interview on NBC Today. "It matters what we do, not what we say. It mattered that we got bin Laden, not the name we called him," she said. "But if he is somehow suggesting I don't call this for what it is, he hasn't been listening. I have clearly said that we face terrorist enemies who use Islam to justify slaughtering innocent people. And, to me, radical jihadism, radical Islamism, I think they mean the same thing. I'm happy to say either, but that's not the point." On MSNBC's Morning Joe she said: "I have clearly said many, many times we face terrorist enemies who use Islam to justify slaughtering innocent people. We have to stop them and we will. We have to defeat radical jihadist terrorism or radical Islamism, whatever you call it -- it’s the same. But we cannot demonize, demagogue and declare war on an entire religion." We sent a spokesman for Trump a copy of Clinton’s remarks about "radical Islamism" and he replied "has she said the term ‘radical Islamic terrorism?’ " In a speech in Cleveland June 13, she stuck to the phrase "radical jihadists." Obama has said he doesn’t use the term because it would actually bolster into the narrative of ISIS and al-Qaida that the West is at war with Islam. "If we fall into the trap of painting all Muslims as a broad brush and imply that we are at war with the entire religion, then we are doing the terrorists' work for them," he said. This echoes what Obama has previously said about ISIS and isn’t all that different from former President George W. Bush’s language following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and at the onset of the war in Afghanistan. "This great nation of many religions understands, our war is not against Islam, or against faith practiced by the Muslim people. Our war is a war against evil," Bush said in January 2002. Our ruling Trump said of Clinton, "These are radical Islamic terrorists and she won't even mention the word." After the Orlando shooting, Clinton said she had no problem saying "radical Islamism" which is similar but not the same as "radical Islamic terrorism."She has also said that leaders should be careful not to demonize the religion of Islam, and that the United States needs specific strategies to fight ISIS. We rate this claim Mostly False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/fd252d8d-6d97-441a-a4ae-bbb020397886 | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-10-09T23:30:42 | 2016-10-09 | ['Islam'] |
pomt-07428 | Over the last 10 years, Georgia's public health has declined. | half-true | /georgia/statements/2011/apr/25/nathan-deal/governer-says-georgia-health-declining/ | Put down that Krispy Kreme, fellow Georgian. And quit smoking. You’re ruining our state’s reputation. Georgians eat all the wrong things. We don’t exercise enough. Our children are plump. It’s only getting worse, Gov. Nathan Deal said in a recent speech to the Georgia Public Health Association. "Over the last 10 years, Georgia's public health has declined," Deal said. This statement made the PolitiFact Georgia team curious. Yes, we’re chubbier than we once were. But are we sliding in other areas? Deal made the claim after the passage of House Bill 214, which would create a new Georgia Department of Public Health. The legislation elevates public health to a Cabinet-level position, which supporters think will give the health of Georgians the attention it needs. To back up the claim, Deal’s office sent us an essay from Atlanta Hospital News and Healthcare Report, an industry trade newspaper. "Ten years ago . . . Georgia ranked 34th in health determinants in the United Health Foundation’s annual ranking of American states," it read. "Today we’re 47th." We looked at the rankings ourselves. United Health Foundation’s America’s Health Rankings is a yearly initiative that has scored states’ overall health since 1990. The ranking is based on a wide range of measures such as the infant mortality rate, the prevalence of smoking, violent crime, the percent of children in poverty and cancer deaths. We found that the figures in the trade newspaper article were slightly off target and don’t reflect the broader picture presented by the rankings. But first, a little about measuring the health of large populations. Assessing the health of communities is an art as well as a science, experts told us. Thousands of pieces of health data are available. Those who use them to publish rankings make judgment calls on what measures to use, what sources to consider, and how to weigh their importance. Those measures aren’t always directly about health. They also can include high school graduation, poverty and crime rates. People who have lower incomes can have stress problems and poor access to health care and healthy food, said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. These all hurt their well-being. "There is a correlation between health and wealth," Benjamin said. Now, back to America’s Health Rankings. In 2010, Georgia’s overall ranking was 36. This was a major improvement from 2009, when the state ranked 43. The survey included rankings in subcategories that included the "health determinants" that the trade industry publication cited. They are circumstances and environmental factors that have a major impact on your health. Another subcategory was health outcomes, a measure based on mortality and other markers that show whether the population is healthy. Georgia’s health determinants rank sank two notches from 35 to 37 between 2001 and 2010. But outcomes improved by five places from 40 to 35. (America’s Health Rankings for 2010 came out after the Atlanta Hospital News and Healthcare Report essay was published. The 2009 data showed the health determinants rank declined from 36 in 2000 to 47, which is slightly different from the figures in the article. Outcomes ticked downward from 40 to 41.) Georgia’s 2010 ranking was unusually good. The state peaked in 1996 at 32, then sank to the low 40s by 2001. It stayed there until last year. Overall, however, America’s Health Rankings showed health in Georgia improved in some areas and declined in others. The rankings’ authors consider obesity and smoking to be the two most important health factors because they cause a host of other problems. Obesity rose in the past decade, but smoking declined. Other measures showed mixed outcomes. There were declines in some health factors such as the percentage of children in poverty, people without health insurance, and adults with high cholesterol. They all increased in the past decade. But other measures showed improvement. Cancer deaths, violent crime, infant mortality and rates of infectious disease all declined. We looked for other sources of information to see if they showed different results. We consulted the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Kids Count report, a well-regarded state-by-state measure of children’s health, and data from the Georgia Division of Public Health. Between 2002 and 2010, Georgia’s Kids Count ranking mostly hovered in the low to mid-40s out of 50 states. That’s well below average, but not a clear decline. The percentage of low birth weight babies, obese children, and children in poverty increased, but other measures such as teen births, infant mortality and child deaths showed improvements. Georgia Division of Public Health figures paint a mixed picture as well. All sources we consulted found that the health of Georgians improved in some important categories and declined in others. Overall, Georgia’s health hasn’t truly "declined" in the past decade as Deal said. It’s consistently low compared with other states, and during the past 10 years, our record has been mixed. We rate Deal’s claim Half True. | null | Nathan Deal | null | null | null | 2011-04-25T06:00:00 | 2011-04-13 | ['None'] |
pomt-02633 | In Russia "all people are absolutely equal regardless of their religion, sex, ethnicity, or sexual orientation," while "70 countries of the world have criminal liability for homosexuality." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jan/19/vladimir-putin/putin-70-countries-being-gay-crime/ | Russia has become a lightning rod for controversy heading into the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, and it has nothing to do with figure skating judges. The former communist nation faces threats of terrorism and criticism from the United States for harboring fugitive National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden. And then there is Russia’s crackdown on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals, which has become decidedly more aggressive in the last 12 months. But on Jan. 19, 2014, just weeks before the games begin, Russian President Vladimir Putin sought to quell fears that gay athletes, delegates or fans will be discriminated against. "In Russia, as opposed to one third of the world's countries, there is no criminal liability for homosexuality," Putin said during a lengthy interview with several media outlets, parts of which aired on ABC’s This Week. "Seventy countries of the world have criminal liability for homosexuality, and seven countries out of these 70 enforce death penalty for homosexuality." Putin went on to note that the former Soviet Union "had criminal liability for homosexuality, today's Russia doesn't have such criminal liability. In our country, all people are absolutely equal regardless of their religion, sex, ethnicity, or sexual orientation." We decided to check both Putin’s international figures as well as his assessment of Russia’s position toward the LGBT community. How the LGBT community is treated worldwide Putin’s claim that 70 countries have "criminal liability for homosexuality," is backed up by at least one international report. In May 2013, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (known as the ILGA) released the eighth edition of its study titled, "State-Sponsored Homophobia: A world survey of laws." The report found 76 nation states where homosexuality is criminalized, representing about 40 percent of United Nations members. Nearly half of those countries, 36, are in Africa, where homosexuality is taboo and prosecuted with executions or prison sentences that can last up to 14 years in many countries. Conversely, 114 countries do not criminalize homosexual relationships. In 14 countries and some parts of Mexico and the United States, same-sex couples can marry. The updated figures would probably bump countries where same-sex relationships are illegal to 77. In December, India’s Supreme Court reversed a previous court decision to end an 153-old ban on homosexual intercourse first instituted by British colonial rule. There are also seven countries where homosexual acts can receive a death sentence: Mauritania, Sudan, Asia Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and 12 northern states in Nigeria and the southern parts of Somalia. In 11 countries, mostly former British and French colonies, the report notes homosexuality receives lengthy prison sentences longer than 14 years. How does Russia compare? Russia is not listed as one of the 76 countries where homosexuality is banned. In fact, according to the ILGA’s profile of Russia on its website, male-to-male and female-to-female relations are not legally discriminated against there. Gays and lesbians can also serve in the military in Russia. In 1993, Russia repealed a Soviet-era law persecuting gay couples. However, while homosexuality is not outright criminal in Russia, there are many elements of de facto criminalization. In June 2013, Putin signed a law banning promotion of "non-traditional sexual relations" toward minors, a prohibition on so-called "homosexual propaganda." The Russian law places stiff fines on individuals and companies that promote homosexualtiy in front of children, whether in public or through media or the Internet. Critics say the law essentially bans homosexuals from speaking out in public. The scope of the law is broad, and it's not clear how it will be enforced. With the Sochi Olympics just around the corner, many Western countries took exception to the law, including President Barack Obama, who said he had "no patience for countries that try to treat gays and lesbians and transgendered persons in ways that intimidate them or are harmful to them." In what was seen as an act of defiance, Obama chose two openly gay athletes to represent the United States at the Olympics: tennis legend Billie Jean King and hockey player Caitlin Cahow. Former Olympic gold medal figure skater Brian Boitano, also tapped by Obama to head to Sochi, has since said he is gay. And just because the ILGA does not include Russia with the 76 countries that legally bar homosexuality, it doesn’t mean the organization is complimentary of the country’s recent direction. "While criminalization is the most blatant form of state-sponsored homophobia," the 2013 report says, "countries which decriminalized homosexuality in the recent past, such as Russia … are sadly seeking to re-legitimize discrimination based on sexual orientation both at the national level, by way of laws against LGBTI activism – preposterously defined as ‘homosexual propaganda’ – and at the international level, in the name of ‘tradition.’" Same-sex relationships are not recognized by Russian law. Same-sex couples also cannot adopt and lesbians cannot undergo artificial insemination to have children. Employers are not banned from discriminating based on sexual orientation. Foreigners with HIV can be barred from entering the country and also can be expelled. Gay pride parades are also banned in the country and have been going back to 2005. However, some pride events did take place without collaboration with authorities, and often sparked violence and attacks on those participating. Our ruling Putin said 70 countries criminalize homosexuality and Russia isn’t one of them. His estimate is pretty close to the 76 highlighted by the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association and its true the organization did not include Russia in that number. But Putin also was far too rosy in his depiction of how the country treats gays and lesbians when he said "all people are absolutely equal regardless of their religion, sex, ethnicity, or sexual orientation." Recent actions by Putin and the ruling United Russia party have further restricted the rights of gays and lesbians to peacefully demonstrate. We rate his claim Half True. | null | Vladimir Putin | null | null | null | 2014-01-19T14:30:38 | 2014-01-19 | ['Russia'] |
afck-00098 | “Yorubas have the world’s highest twin birth rate.” | unproven | https://africacheck.org/reports/does-nigerias-yoruba-tribe-have-the-worlds-highest-twin-birth-rate-and-are-yams-to-blame/ | null | null | null | null | null | Do Nigeria’s Yoruba people have the world’s highest twin birth rate? (And are yams to blame?) | 2017-10-05 08:24 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05042 | Says recent studies indicate that nationally, only 8 percent of white voting-age citizens but 25 percent of African-American voting-age citizens lack government-issued photo IDs. | mostly true | /texas/statements/2012/jul/11/eric-holder/eric-holder-says-recent-studies-show-25-percent-af/ | Addressing the NAACP at its annual convention in Houston, Attorney General Eric Holder stressed his commitment to battling states such as Texas seeking to put in place laws requiring citizens to show a government-approved photo ID before voting at the polls. According to the prepared text of his July 10, 2012, speech, Holder recapped the Justice Department’s decision not to approve the Texas law’s implementation after deciding it would be harmful to minority voters. Separately, the State of Texas, led by its attorney general, Greg Abbott, has sued the government toward winning judicial approval of the law, which the Republican-led Legislature approved in 2011. Holder credited the NAACP with "working to raise awareness about the potential impact of this and other similar laws, and the fact that – according to some recent studies – nationally, only 8 percent of white voting-age citizens, while 25 percent of African-American voting-age citizens, lack a government-issued photo ID. In our efforts to protect voting rights and to prevent voting fraud, we will be vigilant and strong. But let me be clear: We will not allow political pretexts to disenfranchise American citizens of their most precious right." We asked the Justice Department how Holder reached his percentages and didn’t immediately hear back. But the references to 8 percent and 25 percent, respectively, were familiar to us. In a January 2012 fact check, we rated Mostly True a claim by Democratic U.S. Reps. Steny Hoyer of Maryland and John Lewis of Georgia that up to "one in four African Americans do not carry the necessary forms of identification to vote" under the conditions of state photo ID laws. At the time, we noted that the figure originated in a 2006 survey by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law. The center combines research and legal advocacy on public policy issues such as campaign finance reform and racial balance in criminal law, and it has said that state efforts to require photo IDs from voters at the polls could discourage millions from voting, especially minority and low-income Americans. In an October 2011 report, the center said that in five states where photo ID laws were scheduled to take effect in 2012, some 3.2 million Americans, accounting for about 10 percent of the states’ voting-age residents, lacked government-issued photo IDs. Two of those states -- Texas and South Carolina -- must have their laws cleared by the U.S. Department of Justice because of past failures to protect minority voting rights. The department rejected South Carolina’s law in December 2011 (saying that minority registered voters were more likely than whites to lack state IDs) and declined to bless the Texas law in March 2012. The Texas law would require voters to show a valid government-issued photo ID, such as a Texas driver's license, Department of Public Safety identification card, state concealed handgun license, U.S. military ID or U.S. passport. Back to the nationwide data: The center’s 2006 survey reached by telephone 987 U.S. citizens of voting age, asking them questions including, "Do you have a current, unexpired government-issued ID with your picture on it, like a driver’s license or a military ID?" As voter ID debates heated up in 2011, the conservative Heritage Foundation issued a critique of the survey, noting it was still frequently cited and questioning its decision not to focus on registered or actual voters. The Brennan Center’s response said in part, "While it is true that citizens in those groups are more likely to vote in any given election, they are not the only citizens who have the right to vote." Overall, according to the survey, 11 percent of voting-age Americans did not have current government-issued photo ID. Among African Americans, 25 percent did not have such ID, compared to 8 percent of whites. Not enough Hispanics were surveyed to reach reliable conclusions about that subgroup, the center said. In a December 2011 report, the NAACP mentioned the 25-percent figure from the 2006 survey, going on to say that factors in individuals not having IDs may include the cost of getting a photo ID (because minorities are over-represented in the poor population) or a lack of the documents needed to apply for the photo ID, such as birth certificates (not issued to many African Americans born before the Civil Rights Act passed), which also can cost money to obtain. When we looked into the Democrats’ claim, we found no other national surveys by race of which U.S. citizens eligible to vote have government-issued photo IDs. Two national surveys taken in 2008, however, checked on registered voters. Before the 2008 presidential election, researchers from the University of Washington and other schools carried out a national telephone survey of 4,563 registered voters. In the survey, 10 percent of blacks, 11 percent of Hispanics and 5 percent of whites said they did not have a valid driver's license or an ID issued by their home state. Another survey, reaching 10,000 registered voters via phone and Internet after the 2008 election, included questions about driver’s license ownership by race. In an Aug. 30, 2011, blog post, Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Charles Stewart III said responses showed that 19 percent of black respondents and 3 percent of whites did not have a driver’s license. In his blog post, Stewart did not break out results for Hispanic respondents. Among half a dozen other studies, ranging in scope from three counties to three states, several struck us as having limited applicability: The NAACP report said a 2008 Pew Center study in Georgia showed 30 percent of African Americans said they voted absentee because they lacked a photo ID. However, this statistic reflects the responses of only 30 voters in three counties, and the Pew report warns against using it to draw conclusions. A 2005 Department of Justice summary of state data said that among registered voters who applied for Georgia driver’s licenses or state ID cards, African Americans had state ID at a "slightly higher" percentage than whites. A 2011 Associated Press analysis of South Carolina data showed the state’s photo ID law would fall harder on black populations in some areas and on whites in other areas. Two other surveys asked questions closest to matching the statement by Holder. A 2007 survey of Indiana’s voting-age citizens found 26.6 percent of blacks and 13.6 percent of whites did not have a "current" government-issued or state university-issued photo ID. A 2008 survey of registered voters in Indiana, Mississippi and Maryland found 3.8 percent of blacks and 0.9 percent of whites did not have government-issued photo IDs. Our ruling Holder’s figures appear to trace to a single national survey taken about six years ago though, far as we can tell, mostly unchallenged since. Other collections of data do not touch on exactly the same points, but most indicate that African Americans are less likely than whites to hold varied kinds of government-issued IDs, with percentages of blacks without such IDs ranging from nearly 4 percent to more than 26 percent and percentages of whites having such an ID ranging from 1 percent to nearly 14 percent. We rate Holder’s claim as Mostly True. | null | Eric Holder | null | null | null | 2012-07-11T10:22:54 | 2012-07-10 | ['None'] |
pomt-04723 | When Tim Kaine was governor, spending soared, blowing holes in the budget every year. | mostly false | /virginia/statements/2012/aug/31/crossroads-gps/crossroads-says-state-spending-increased-under-tim/ | Crossroads GPS, a conservative advocacy group, has been airing a TV ad accusing Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Tim Kaine of being a big spender. "When Tim Kaine was governor, spending soared, blowing holes in the budget every year," the commercial begins. There’s a grainy picture of of the former governor on the screen with the words, "Tim Kaine’s Record: Spending Up $5 Billion." The ad cuts against the image Kaine claims as a taskmaster who slashed spending when he was governor from 2006 to 2010 to balance the state budget during the Great Recession. Kaine has often compared his fiscal record to that of his opponent, Republican George Allen, whom he criticizes for casting votes in the U.S. Senate that expanded the nation’s debt. Fact-checking Crossroads’ statement requires us to make two determinations: 1) Did spending soar under Kaine and, if so; 2) Did increased spending create holes, or revenue shortfalls, in the budget each year of Kaine’s administration? Did spending soar under Kaine? Nate Hudson, a spokesman for Crossroads, said the super PAC got its $5 billion figure from the 2009 Comprehensive Annual Report conducted by the Virginia Department of Accounts. Hudson pointed to a table that shows "general government expenditures" were $25.3 billion when Kaine took office midway through the fiscal year that started July 1, 2005. The chart shows spending rose to $30.4 billion during the budget year that began July 1, 2008. The total increase in spending during those three years comes to $5.1 billion. But the DOA report is not a good source for computing state spending, according to Secretary of Finance Ric Brown. It is an audit of most -- but not all -- government revenues and expenditures. So we turned to the actual budgets under Kaine. When Kaine became governor, the total state budget was $32 billion. It rose to $37.1 billion in during fiscal 2008-09, the last year Crossroads counted. Under this measure, total spending increased by $5.1 billion -- the same figure in the auditing report. This, however, is a conservative tally. Crossroads does not count the final $37.9 billion budget that was approved while Kaine was in office and went into effect on July 1, 2009. When we include it, the total increase in spending comes to $5.9 billion. That’s an 18.4 percent rise in raw- dollar outlays over four years; 9 percent when adjusted for inflation. Total spending during the terms of the six governors before Kaine rose by an average of 32.1 percent in raw dollars; 16.1 percent when adjusted for inflation. As we’ve noted before, judging governors by overall spending may be unfair. That’s because more than half of the state’s outlays over the last three decades have come from the non-general fund, over which governors have little or no control. Roughly two-thirds of the fund consists of earmarked federal grants, tuition payments set and received by state colleges and medical fees set and received by state hospitals. The rest comes from a variety of taxes earmarked for transportation, the sale and rent of state properties, interest on accounts, unemployment compensation taxes paid by employers and payments from a 1998 legal settlement with tobacco companies. A cleaner measure of a governor’s fiscal record comes from examining the general fund, which supports public education, health and public safety. It’s mostly supported by state income and sales taxes over which a governor has strong influence. Kaine, in promoting his record as a budget slicer, refers to cuts he made to the general fund. We recently rated as True his claim that the general fund shrank during his governorship; it stood at $15.1 billion at the start of his administration and dropped to $14.8 billion at the end. That’s a 2 percent decrease. Under the six governors before Kaine, the general fund grew by an average 33.8 percent. Kaine’s success in cutting the general fund, however, relied in part on the growth of the non-general revenues. Towards the end of his administration, the non-general fund was boosted by $2.4 billion in federal stimulus money to help Virginia get through the recession. About $1.5 billion of it was used to support general fund programs. In addition, state general fund support for higher education was $80 million a year less at the end of Kaine’s term than it was at the beginning. State colleges and universities more than made up the difference with tuition and fee hikes totaling $474 million, which accrued to the non-general fund. There are two key points to keep in mind in considering Crossroads’ statement that spending soared under Kaine: 1) All of the increase took place in the non-general fund over which governors have little or no control, and; 2) The increase in total state spending during Kaine’s term was roughly half the average of the six governors who preceded him. Did the spending increase cause budget shortfalls? Kaine, as we’ve noted, became governor in January 2006, midway through a fiscal year. The budget he inherited closed out with a $1.6 billion surplus on June 30, 2006. Trouble began the next year, as Virginia and the nation began to slide into a deep recession that ran from December 2007 to June 2009. Revenues from income and sales taxes began to dip, creating general fund shortfalls in each of the four final budgets during Kaine’s term. Again, all of the shortfalls occurred in the general fund budget -- which the governor and the General Assembly fully control. In fiscal 2007, state revenues began falling off. That year, revenues fell short by $300 million. In fiscal 2008, there was as $641 million shortfall. The next year, Kaine and the General Assembly faced a $1.8 billion revenue gap, followed by a $4.5 billion shortage at the end of Kaine’s term in early 2010. The cumulative total of the shortfalls over the final four budgets was about $7.2 billion. Kaine and the General Assembly -- constitutionally required to keep the state budget balanced -- took many steps to close the gap. They cut funding to education, health and public safety programs. They withdrew about $900 million from the state’s emergency reserve fund, transferred funds through complicated bookkeeping maneuvers and -- as we said before -- used $1.5 billion of federal stimulus money to help support general fund services. Virginia was hardly the only state in distress during the recession and its aftermath. Data from the National Association of State Budget Officers shows 13 states faced shortfalls in 2008, 43 in 2009 and 39 in 2010. But here’s where Crossroads’ ad claim unravels: There’s no connection between the overall rise in the state budget under Kaine and the revenue shortfalls he faced. All of the increase in spending occurred in the non-general fund, over which governors have little or no control. As we mentioned, money in this fund mostly comes from federal grants, college tuition payments, state hospital fees and several Virginia taxes dedicated to transportation. On the flip side, all of the shortfalls occurred in a different portion of the budget supported by a separate set on revenues. The problems were in the general fund, which is largely supported by by state income and sales taxes which pay for schools, public safety and health programs. Our ruling Crossroads said, "When Tim Kaine was governor, spending soared, blowing holes in the budget every year." Let’s sum up our two-part test for fact-checking this claim: 1. Did spending soar under Kaine? The total state budget went up by $5.9 billion during Kaine’s term, representing an 18.4 percent increase increase in raw dollars and 9 percent rise adjusted for inflation. Kaine had little control over the growth, which was largely the result of increases in federal grants, college tuition and fees charged by state hospitals. Overall spending did increase under Kaine; whether it "soared" is a matter of opinion. The total budget under Kaine increased at half the average rate of the six governors who preceded him. 2. Did spending growth cause the shortfalls? The answer is no. All of the budget growth occurred in the non-general fund and were largely the result of actions by the federal government and state universities. All of the shortfalls occurred in the general fund that depends on a separate set of revenues to pay for public education, public safety and health programs. Lower-than-expected receipts from Virginia’s sales and income taxes blew holes in the general fund -- a blight that afflicted all but a few states at the end of the recession. Virginia’s general fund decreased during Kaine’s term. So there is an element of truth in the first part of the statement. But Crossroads fails to establish a critical link between the spending increase and the revenue deficits. As a result, the claim is misleading and we rate it Mostly False. | null | Crossroads GPS | null | null | null | 2012-08-31T12:00:00 | 2012-08-08 | ['None'] |
hoer-00295 | Death Age Facebook 'Virus' Warning | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/death-age-virus-warning.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Death Age Facebook 'Virus' Warning | October 14, 2013 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-04642 | The president promised that if he spent money on a stimulus program that unemployment would go to 5.7 percent or 6 percent. Those were his words. | mostly false | /new-jersey/statements/2012/sep/13/jon-bramnick/jon-bramnick-claims-barack-obama-promised-stimulus/ | While critiquing the president on his leadership of the economy, a state assemblyman reprised a popular -- and misleading -- Republican talking point. Assembly Minority Leader Jon Bramnick said President Barack Obama has failed to deliver on a vow to push down the nation’s jobless rate, fueling discontent among the unemployed. "I think the American public, those who are unemployed, are somewhat angry. The president promised that if he spent money on a stimulus program that unemployment would go to 5.7 percent or 6 percent. Those were his words," Bramnick said in a Sept. 7 interview on NJToday. "We've been stuck at 8 percent unemployment." PolitiFact and its partner sites have checked various iterations of this claim, each time rating it Mostly False. Most recently, PolitiFact Ohio gave Republican U.S. Rep. Bob Latta a Mostly False for saying that Obama promised that with the stimulus plan, "unemployment would never go above 8 percent. He even said it would be 6 percent by now." While such claims have an element of truth -- top economic advisers in the incoming Obama administration released a report projecting that if the stimulus plan passed the unemployment rate would peak around 8 percent before dropping to less than 6 percent by now -- we found no evidence the president or his administration ever made a promise. Bramnick owned up to that part, saying, "I'm guilty of using a word that may not have been his word." But, he said, "I’m very comfortable with my statement. Though you’re right it wasn’t a promise, it was material he used for Congress and others to rely on passing the stimulus program." Bramnick, like other Republicans, cited as support for his statement a Jan. 9, 2009 report from Christina Romer, the incoming chairwoman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, who would serve as the vice president's top economic adviser. The report -- released more than a month before the stimulus bill, officially called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, was signed into law -- estimated the impact of Obama’s plan on job creation. Without the stimulus plan, the unemployment rate was estimated to top off around 9 percent in 2010 before dropping off to roughly 6 percent by now. But with the stimulus plan, the report projected the nation’s jobless rate would peak near 8 percent in 2009 before falling to about 5.5 percent by now. What we know now is that even with the stimulus plan the unemployment rate topped off at 10 percent in October 2009. It has since dropped, hitting 8.1 percent last month. So the estimates in the report were wrong. But they were projections, not a guarantee as Republicans suggest. And the projections were made with plenty of disclaimers. In the beginning of the report, the authors write, "It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error," noting that there is "fundamental uncertainty" with estimating the effects of any program and "the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity." Our ruling Bramnick said "the president promised that if he spent money on a stimulus program that unemployment would go to 5.7 percent or 6 percent. Those were his words." We found no evidence the president or his advisers ever made a public pledge that the stimulus would drive the unemployment rate down to the figures Bramnick cites. Two economic advisers estimated in a 2009 report that with the stimulus plan, the unemployment rate would peak near 8 percent before dropping to less than 6 percent by now. But those projections came with heavy disclaimers, with the authors emphasizing the considerable uncertainty of their estimates. Those are critical details Bramnick’s statement ignores. We rate this statement Mostly False. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. | null | Jon Bramnick | null | null | null | 2012-09-13T07:30:00 | 2012-09-07 | ['None'] |
tron-01418 | Lack of Food Taster Prevented President From Eating With Republicans | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/president-food-taster/ | null | food | null | null | null | Lack of Food Taster Prevented President From Eating With Republicans | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-12131 | When Rick Baker heard (racist remarks from another mayoral candidate), he went after Congemi. Rick Kriseman he just looked away. Tolerating bigotry in silence is no virtue; taking it on is. | half-true | /florida/statements/2017/aug/15/seamless-florida/seamless-florida-ad-dramatizes-mayor-rick-kriseman/ | A TV ad in St. Petersburg’s contested mayoral election claims Rick Kriseman "looked away" when a fringe mayoral candidate made a racist statement, but the ad misleads about the specifics of the incident and ignores what transpired later. The ad paid for by a political action committee aligned with former Mayor Rick Baker, Seamless Florida, aims to contrast the "virtue" of Baker with that of Kriseman, comparing each man’s response to a racial tirade from longshot candidate Paul Congemi. Congemi told black activists at a July 18 candidate forum to "go back to Africa," spurring widespread condemnation and negative national headlines. "When Rick Baker heard that, he went after Congemi," the narrator in the ad says. "Rick Kriseman, he just looked away. Tolerating bigotry in silence is no virtue; taking it on is." The ad discusses an event that actually happened but distorts reality. We’ll explain why. Here’s what happened at the forum On July 18, six mayoral candidates gathered in the City Council chambers to participate in a mayoral forum moderated by St. Petersburg’s League of Women Voters. The forum had a unique format that didn’t allow for debate. Some questions were addressed to all six candidates, and other questions were only addressed to half of the panel. If a question was only addressed to half of the panel, then a candidate who was not asked could wave a "wildcard" to signal that he or she wanted to answer the question. Candidates were given three wildcards and were told that there would be no opportunities for rebuttals. For the first 30 minutes, the forum went on without a hitch. That changed when Congemi used his wildcard to respond to a question about how to provide recreational activities for youth in the city. The question was only addressed to Theresa "Momma Tee" Lassiter, Kriseman, and Jesse Nevel, national chairman of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, which helps organizes white support for black-led community social justice. "Mr. Nevel, you and your people, you talk about reparations," Congemi said. "The reparations that you talk about, Mr. Nevel, your people already got your reparations. Your reparations came in the form of a man named Barack Obama." Amid boos from the crowd, Congemi added: "My advice to you, my advice to you, if you don’t like it here in America, planes leave every hour. Go back to Africa, go back to Africa." Kriseman was seated next to Congemi. As Congemi talked about reparations, Kriseman can be seen with sealed lips, looking around. Another angle shows Kriseman glancing at the crowd and then looking at Congemi during parts of his outburst. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com After Congemi’s remarks the crowd continued to bellow in opposition and Nevel called Congemi a "nonfactor", but it settled after candidate Anthony Cates III, who is African-American, used his wildcard. He did not address what Congemi said, talking instead about a charity he worked with that helped students. After Cates spoke, the moderator asked all six candidates how they would approach the homeless population. Kriseman was the first to answer, and he didn’t mention Congemi. Kriseman said his administration had invested money to help family homelessness in the community. The question then went to Lassiter and Nevel, who also didn’t mention what Congemi said (though Nevel did dismiss him as a "nonfactor" in the midst of Congemi’s rant). However, when it was Baker’s turn to talk, he called out Congemi. See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com "I know we’re not supposed to respond to other things, but I first have to specifically reject the comments Mr. Congemi just made," Baker said. "I just think in 2017 in St. Petersburg, Florida, I never would have dreamed we would've heard comments like that at a mayoral debate." That night, Twitter erupted with video of Congemi’s remarks, and the Washington Post wrote about the situation early the next day. A little past noon on July 19, Kriseman rejected the racist remarks on Twitter, Facebook, and in a television interview. "It is simply unacceptable to spew this kind of bigoted rhetoric," he said. "Free speech should not compromise the dignity and respect of any person or community" He said he didn’t want to bring more attention to the remarks at the time, adding that he regretted not speaking out then and there. "I was reluctant to engage this candidate last night and draw even more attention to his disturbing message," Kriseman wrote on Facebook. "I regret not doing so, though." See Figure 3 on PolitiFact.com Congemi’s last runs for mayor only garnered a few hundred votes. In 2009, Congemi referred to homosexuality as an "abomination" and spoke out against the St. Pete Pride festival. Kriseman’s campaign said he has a long record of standing up against discrimination and pointed to his record of denouncing President Donald Trump's decision to ban transgender people from serving in the military as well as his proposal during the campaign to ban Muslims. Our ruling A television ad paid for by Rick Baker’s PAC said he condemned racist comments from another candidate while Kriseman "just looked away." Baker did speak up during the mayoral forum. In doing so, he acknowledged that he was going against the organizers’ rules by not sticking to the question at hand and revisiting earlier comments. Kriseman did not comment on what Congemi said that night. Neither did four other candidates at the forum. Kriseman waited until the next day, and was criticized for it. He said he did not want to bring more attention to the message in the moment but regretted not doing so. The admaker misleads viewers by neglecting to include Kriseman's later condemnation of what Congemi said. This ad is partially accurate but omits substantial information about what happened. We rate it Half True. See Figure 4 on PolitiFact.com | null | Seamless Florida | null | null | null | 2017-08-15T08:00:00 | 2017-08-07 | ['None'] |
tron-02749 | President Obama Removes American Flag from White House Logo | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/president-obama-removes-american-flag-white-house-logo/ | null | obama | null | null | null | President Obama Removes American Flag from White House Logo | Jun 29, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10651 | If you got rid of the income tax today you'd have about as much revenue as we had 10 years ago. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jan/03/ron-paul/it-would-be-close-to-the-same-revenue/ | Ron Paul said in December 2007 that if the government stopped collecting income tax, we would have about the same level of funding that we did 10 years ago. "And the size of government wasn't all that bad 10 years ago," concluded Paul, who advocates limited government. It made us wonder: Do today's tax collections, minus the income tax, really equal the tax collections of 10 years ago? We asked Paul's campaign what numbers he used to arrive at that conclusion, but we didn't hear back. So we dug into IRS statistics ourselves. The most recent detailed data available on income tax collected in the United States is for 2005. Besides income tax, the IRS collects corporate taxes, employment taxes, estate and gift taxes, and excise taxes. After issuing refunds, the IRS collected $880-billion in individual income tax in 2005. Subtract that from total tax collections for 2005 – which equaled close to $2-trillion – and you get $1.12-trillion. By comparison, total tax collections in 1995 were about $1.27-trillion. Those are two big numbers that sound close. But take out the calculator: The difference between the two numbers comes to about 12 percent, and when you're talking about the federal government, that's a chunk of change – about $150-billion. To put that in perspective, it would pay for almost a year and half of the war in Iraq. Adjust for inflation, and the gap widens to a roughly 30 percent shortfall. We'll concede that it's possible Paul could reduce the budget by that much, based on some of the positions he advocates. Paul has said he'd like to slash the defense budget by pulling back all U.S. troops on foreign soil, zeroing out foreign aid and reducing the size of the active military. He also advocates abolishing other federal functions, like the Department of Education. Whether he makes up that 12 percent difference or not will have to wait for a Paul presidency. Meanwhile, we find his statement that ending the income tax would roll back revenues 10 years to be Mostly True. | null | Ron Paul | null | null | null | 2008-01-03T00:00:00 | 2007-12-23 | ['None'] |
pomt-04450 | Says Travis County Sheriff Greg Hamilton has accepted $42,000 from strip-club interests and $10,000 from local alcohol distributors. | mostly true | /texas/statements/2012/oct/11/raymond-frank/raymond-frank-says-greg-hamilton-has-accepted-thou/ | Travis County’s sheriff took money from tainted interests, his Republican challenger says. In an advertisement in the Oct. 7, 2012, Austin American-Statesman, Raymond Frank, a former Travis County sheriff himself, says Democratic incumbent Greg Hamilton accepted $42,000 from strip-joint interests from 2005 to 2012 and $10,000 from local alcohol distributors from 2007 to 2012. "It gives me no pleasure to report these events but to right the detriment it causes," Frank says in the ad. In a press release on his campaign website, Frank says that Louis Warren and Glenn Williams are corporate officers of WFKR Inc., which he describes as doing business locally as Perfect 10 Men’s Club and Sugar’s Uptown Cabaret. In an interview, Frank noted that the Sugar’s website promotes both clubs, which he called a confirmation of joint ownership. Frank also pointed out a February 1999 State Office of Administrative Hearings document stating that Warren opened Sugar’s in June 1982 and was WFKR’s president and chairman of the board as of January 1997. From May 6, 2005, to May 21, 2012, Frank says, Warren donated $37,000 to Hamilton’s campaign. Williams, Frank says, contributed $1,250 on May 6, 2005. Frank’s press release says that Ali Davari of Houston, described as owning a Las Vegas strip club with his brother, Hassan Davari, gave $5,000 to Hamilton on April 25, 2012. The release says: "Ali Davari is also the president of several corporations in connection with his sexually oriented ventures in Houston." According to a May 11, 2011, news post by Houston’s KHOU-TV, the Davari brothers own seven strip clubs in the Houston and Las Vegas areas. We did not reach Warren and did not hear back from Williams. In a telephone interview, Casey Wallace, a Houston lawyer for a corporation owned by the Davari brothers, said Davari also has interests in three sports bars in Houston, but has no Travis County clubs or plans to open one there. Wallace said Davari donated to Hamilton’s campaign out of interest in a program for children overseen by the sheriff. "The donations didn’t have anything to do with his businesses," Wallace said. Frank says in another press release that Hamilton has accepted $10,000 toward his re-election from beer and alcohol distributors: Licensed Beverage Distributors Political Action Committee, $2,500; Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas Political Action Committee, $3,500; and Dan Brown of Austin’s Brown Distributing, $4,000. When we visited him, Frank said: "Alcohol ruins a lot of lives. We’re in the business of fighting crime. You don’t accept money from people like that." Next, we checked Frank’s tally of contributions against Hamilton’s campaign finance filings with the county, finding that Frank’s figures mostly hold up, though the challenger did not note $1,000 donated to Hamilton’s effort by the Wholesale Beer Distributors on Dec. 3, 2009. So, by Frank’s reasoning, beer, wine and liquor interests have ponied up $11,000 to support Hamilton. Alan Gray, executive director of the Licensed Beverage Distributors, the Texas trade association for wine and distilled spirits wholesalers, told us by phone that the group is mindful of Hamilton’s past work enforcing laws as an employee of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. "We know him to be a good man and good sheriff," Gray said. Finally, we looked over Warren’s nine contributions to Hamilton’s campaign from May 2005 through April 2012. His donations tally to $35,750 which added to the $1,250 contribution by Williams equals $37,000. On the other hand, it doesn’t look like Warren retained a leadership role in the entity that owns Sugar’s through all the years covered by Frank’s claim. The public portion of franchise-tax reports filed by WFKR, which we obtained from the Texas secretary of state’s office, lists Warren as its chairman through 2006. The 2007 filing was not available and the 2008 filing lists Warren as WFKR’s agent only. WFKR’s May 15, 2009 filing and its subsequent filings do not list Warren in any capacity. In contrast, according to the filings, Williams was a director when he made his 2005 donation and was listed as one in all but one year of the available filings through 2012. The absence of Warren from the latter filings suggests that $17,500 to $22,500 of his contributions to the sheriff’s campaign took place after Warren left the ownership of Sugar’s, arguably halving the questionable share of his donations. By the same logic, the total contributions questioned by Frank would total as much as $29,000, or less than 10 percent of all of Hamilton’s contributions of about $350,000 over the cited years. We left a message with WFKR and did not hear back. We also did not hear back from Hamilton. Our ruling Frank says Hamilton has accepted $42,000 from strip-club interests plus $10,000 from local alcohol distributors. His math mostly holds, though it looks like up to $22,500 of the so-called strip-club total occurred after a donor no longer was shown as having an ownership stake in Sugar’s. Removing these possibly post-ownership donations whittles down the amount Hamilton’s campaign has gotten from such interests. Missing from the claim, too, is the fact that candidates are not restricted from accepting donations from such interests. We rate the claim as Mostly True. | null | Raymond Frank | null | null | null | 2012-10-11T10:00:00 | 2012-10-07 | ['None'] |
pomt-03069 | A strong bipartisan majority in the House of Representatives "voted to defund Obamacare." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/sep/30/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-says-strong-bipartisan-majority-house-rep/ | Where the showdown over a government shutdown is concerned, the blame game runs both ways. Congress and the White House are at loggerheads over what to do with President Barack Obama’s health care law. Major aspects of the law are set to go live on Oct. 1, the same day as funding for the federal government runs out. But efforts to keep the funding flowing have floundered on the demand of some Republicans to defund or delay the law, while the president has refused to eliminate or pare back his signature legislative achievement. We noticed two similar, but opposite, claims about how the parties broke on key votes in the conflict. Here, we will look at a claim by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. In a separate fact-check, we will look at a claim by Obama. After passage of a measure on Sept. 20, 2013, to fund the government without funding Obamacare, Cruz -- a leader of the pro-defunding side -- released a statement that said in part, "Today, the House of Representatives did what Washington pundits only a few weeks ago said was impossible: a strong bipartisan majority voted to defund Obamacare. This is a victory for House conservatives, and it is a victory for Speaker (John) Boehner and Republican leadership." Was it accurate for Cruz to say that "a strong bipartisan majority" in the House of Representatives "voted to defund Obamacare"? We didn’t hear back from Cruz’s office, but we looked at the vote tallies ourselves. On the final vote, the measure -- which paired continued funding for the government with a defunding of Obamacare -- passed by a 230-189 margin. But those 230 votes in favor broke down to 228 Republicans and just two Democrats, Reps. Mike McIntyre of North Carolina and Jim Matheson of Utah. (One Republican, Rep. Scott Rigell of Virginia, broke ranks and joined the Democrats.) We have addressed claims of "bipartisanship" in the past and have generally been skeptical of a claim where a tiny fraction of a caucus serves as justification for the "bipartisan" label. Norm Ornstein, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told us in 2011 that his definition would be "healthy numbers, not necessarily majorities, and not necessarily equally drawn, from both parties" -- a threshold hardly met in this case. Several other experts we checked with for this fact-check agreed. "I think a reasonable person would expect the threshold to be higher, particularly if the modifier ‘strong’ is applied," as Cruz included in his statement, said Roy T. Meyers, a political scientist at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Donald Wolfensberger, director of the Congress Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former Republican staff director of the House Rules Committee, felt similarly. "Two Democrats, like two swallows, do not a bipartisan summer make," Wolfensberger said. "It's more like a false spring. Beauty and political truth are in the eye of the beholder. We all tend to see what we want to see." Our ruling Cruz said that "a strong bipartisan majority" in the House of Representatives "voted to defund Obamacare." Even if you consider the overall 230-189 margin to be a "strong" victory for backers of the measure, it doesn’t qualify as "bipartisan" except in the most hyper-technical sense. Two Democrats out of the 190 who voted -- barely more than 1 percent of the party’s caucus -- joined Republicans in voting for the bill. In our book, that doesn’t qualify as much of a bipartisan action. We rate the claim False. | null | Ted Cruz | null | null | null | 2013-09-30T17:22:41 | 2013-09-20 | ['None'] |
tron-03253 | Bill and Hillary Clinton’s $11 million Mansion | truth! & fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/clinton-mansion/ | null | politics | null | null | null | Bill and Hillary Clinton’s $11 million Mansion | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13188 | California’s proposed tobacco tax "diverts 82 percent of the new taxes to line the pockets of wealthy special interests like insurance companies who don't have to help even one more patient." | mostly false | /california/statements/2016/oct/25/no-56-campaign/tobacco-industry-misleads-prop-56-doctor-advertise/ | Opponents of Proposition 56, California’s proposed tobacco tax increase, have raised more than $66 million to defeat the November ballot measure. Nearly all of that money has come from the tobacco industry and much of it has been spent on television ads criticizing the initiative. Supporters have raised nearly $30 million for it. Prop 56 would impose a $2 per pack tax increase on cigarettes statewide and fund health programs. A recent No on 56 TV ad features a retired doctor who makes a provocative claim about how the measure’s revenue would be spent: "Prop 56 diverts 82 percent of the new taxes to line the pockets of wealthy special interests like insurance companies who don't have to help even one more patient," says Amador County Dr. Arnold Zeiderman, who appears in the ad wearing a white coat and stethoscope. Would the measure really distribute the bulk of the revenue to "wealthy special interests" with no mandate to serve more patients? We decided to check the facts. Our research The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office expects Prop 56 could generate up to $1.4 billion in tax revenue in its first year. A chunk of that would go to replacing losses to state tobacco funds that would likely see a dip if cigarette sales decline due to the tax increase. Five percent would be spent to administer the tax. And about $120 million would go to various state programs, from law enforcement to physician training to dental disease prevention. The LAO report says 82 percent of the remaining revenue -- anywhere from $700 million to $1 billion -- would be spent to "increase the level of payment for healthcare, services and treatment provided to Medi-Cal beneficiaries." Medi-Cal provides health care for the state’s poorest residents. Health advocates have long argued the program’s reimbursement rates are too low to retain and attract doctors. Charles Rex Arbogast /AP file photo Expanding patient access? Supporters of Prop 56 say boosting reimbursement rates will lead to more doctors serving more Medi-Cal patients -- which runs against the implication in the ad that the measure won’t help "even one more patient." Scott Graves of the California Budget and Policy Center examined Prop 56 and concluded on the center’s website: "Increasing Medi-Cal reimbursement rates would help to boost providers’ participation in the program and help ensure timely access to care — and possibly improved health outcomes — for the more than 13 million low-income Californians who rely on Medi-Cal to meet their health care needs." The policy center is a nonprofit that advocates for programs aimed at low-income families. A spokeswoman for the No on 56 campaign acknowledged that 82 percent of the measure’s revenue would be set aside for increasing reimbursement rates. But the No campaign also said the measure does nothing to require more Medi-Cal patients are served. Supporters say that point is technically correct but distorts the point of the measure. "We made a determination that it would be better to dedicate money to Medi-Cal broadly rather than setting an arbitrary formula," said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, the consumer advocacy group that helped draft Prop 56. "The idea that this would help not even one new patient is sort of absurd. ... They're playing a little bit of a word game there." ‘Misleading’ ad Manoj Viswanathan, a UC Hastings law professor who focuses on tax policy and has studied Proposition 56, described the No campaign’s advertisement as "misleading." The professor, who is not affiliated with either side, said the No campaign appears to rest the second portion of the claim by the retired doctor -- the idea that Medi-Cal providers "don't have to help even one more patient" -- on an "unlikely" scenario. "Is there a universe where doctors see the exact same patients that they would have seen anyway, but are just getting paid more? Sure. I think that is a mathematical possibility. It just seems unlikely," Viswanathan said. According to the LAO, the California State Auditor would conduct audits of agencies receiving funds from the new taxes at least every other year. The Sacramento Bee examined claims by No on 56, and found questionable its description of Medi-Cal providers as "wealthy special interests." It notes those providers are "doctors, clinics, hospitals, managed care plans and any other health-related group that get Medi-Cal payments because they provide services to eligible patients." Our ruling A recent No on 56 campaign ad claims: "Prop 56 diverts 82 percent of the new taxes to line the pockets of wealthy special interests like insurance companies who don't have to help even one more patient." The Legislative Analyst’s Office reported that 82 percent of revenue generated by the measure, after some is directed to other funds, would be spent to "increase the level of payment for healthcare, services and treatment provided to Medi-Cal beneficiaries." Experts who have examined Prop 56 say there’s a strong chance that higher reimbursement rates will attract more doctors and expand health care access for patients. There’s the smallest sliver of truth to the No on 56 campaign’s claim that providers "don’t have to help even one more patient" because the measure does not dictate how many new patients will be served. But the claim also asks one to suspend reality by believing no new doctors would be attracted by the higher rates and that current doctors would not add more patients. Even the addition of handful of new doctors would expand healthcare access, shooting down the campaign’s misleading statement. We rated its claim Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains some element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/5fa724f2-27fc-42b4-ae1d-fa849712cb0f | null | No on 56 campaign | null | null | null | 2016-10-25T06:00:00 | 2016-10-07 | ['None'] |
pomt-05266 | A government analysis shows under a proposed transportation tax, "metro Atlanta will create or support an additional 200,000 new jobs, including jobs that are maintained year over year." | mostly false | /georgia/statements/2012/may/29/citizens-transportation-mobility/pro-transportation-tax-group-says-projects-will-be/ | Backers of a tax to overhaul metro Atlanta’s roadways and transit are telling voters it’s a pro-jobs proposal. A study from the Atlanta Regional Commission, the region’s planning body, said so, according to a Georgia Trend magazine advertising supplement sponsored by Citizens for Transportation Mobility: "The Atlanta Regional Commission’s analysis and forecast of the economic impacts of the 2012 Atlanta Regional Transportation Referendum’s passage show that . . . metro Atlanta will create or support an additional 200,000 new jobs, including jobs that are maintained year over year." Atlanta can sure use a couple of hundred thousand jobs. Is this true? We asked a Citizens for Transportation Mobility spokeswoman, who sent us a link to "Economic Impacts of the Transportation Referendum, 2013-2040." The report details the ARC study. Citizens for Transportation Mobility is a pro-transportation tax advocacy group. However, the ARC is an intergovernmental organization, so it has not taken a stand on the referendum. The ARC study used a widely accepted economic model to predict what would happen if projects funded by the proposed 1 percent sales tax were built. It compares this scenario to one where the region continues with Plan 2040, its existing transportation blueprint. Plan 2040 builds projects slated for construction under the transportation tax proposal, but over a much longer period of time. The ARC’s carefully worded analysis does show that the new 1 percent sales tax and the transportation overhaul it funds would boost jobs, especially once construction is complete. This is how it works, according to the report and an interview with Mike Alexander, the ARC’s research chief: Most of the expected jobs growth would take place years in the future when the new infrastructure is built, Alexander said. Fewer delays would make it easier for members of the workforce, employers, customers and producers to gain access to one another. The ARC’s analysis predicts that the effects of the reduced delays will ripple through metro Atlanta’s economy and "support" 200,000 "job years" over and above those that would exist if voters nixed the plan. But when a project "supports" one "job year," that doesn’t mean that it creates a new job for one worker. A "job year" is a term economists use to describe one job lasting one year. For example, if a construction worker gets hired to pour concrete for six months, this would count as half of a job year. If that same construction worker gets hired to pour concrete for three years, his work would count as three job years. If a project "supports" a job year, it doesn’t mean that it creates one. That three-year job pouring concrete is new only in the year that the worker gets hired. The project "supports" the job in the following two years. These may seem like arcane distinctions, but they’re important. If Citizens for Transportation Mobility said that the transportation tax "would create 200,000 new jobs," that would be misleading. The bulk of those jobs would not be new. Instead, the ad said that the transportation tax would "create or support an additional 200,000 new jobs," and specified that some of these jobs are "maintained year over year." Alexander and others argued that this wording makes clear that the jobs figure includes positions that last for more than one year. PolitiFact Georgia sees their point, but the sentence is a bit opaque. We also found another hitch. These hundreds of thousands of job years would emerge over the course of a generation, according to the analysis. The study measures growth over a 28-year time period from the beginning of 2013 to the end of 2040. The one-year average would be 7,120. Through 2019, it would generate or support less than 2,000 a year, according to the analysis. By 2040, that number approaches 14,000. This long time horizon made us wonder whether the Citizens for Transportation Mobility’s claim gives the impression that jobs would appear sooner than the ARC analysis says. Bert Brantley, a public relations expert involved in the writing of the advertorial, said this is not the case. He noted that the ad’s next three paragraphs specify that economic gains such as savings from reduced travel time and an increase in personal income would develop by 2040. But when it came to jobs, this decades-long time horizon wasn’t clear. In fact, the supplement suggests that the transportation tax would help Georgia’s economic recovery -- a process that’s going on right now: "The region would gain 34,000 new jobs in construction alone, allowing us to recoup more than half of the 57,000 construction jobs lost to the Great Recession," the ad states. Even though Citizens for Transportation Mobility attempts to tread carefully over the subject of jobs, its jobs claim isn’t clear enough. The average reader would walk away from the advertising supplement thinking that the transportation overhaul would create 200,000 jobs in the next few years. But those are job years. In fact, we don’t know how many of what your typical person would consider actual jobs this effort would create. Citizens for Transportation Mobility would have been much better off if it said the overhaul would create or sustain an average of 7,120 jobs each year. The statement contains a kernel of truth, but it is so unclear on important specifics that it is misleading. It meets PolitiFact’s definition of Mostly False. | null | Citizens for Transportation Mobility | null | null | null | 2012-05-29T06:00:00 | 2012-04-16 | ['Atlanta'] |
goop-02711 | Brad Pitt Dating Elle Macpherson, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/brad-pitt-elle-macpherson-dating-new-couple/ | null | null | null | Michael Lewittes | null | Brad Pitt NOT Dating Elle Macpherson, Despite Report | 5:25 pm, June 26, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01525 | Meghan Markle, Matt Lauer “Hook-Up” Report Is Tru | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/meghan-markle-matt-lauer-hook-up-not-true/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Meghan Markle, Matt Lauer “Hook-Up” Report Is NOT True | 12:15 pm, February 21, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
wast-00060 | One of the worst cases was the reporting on the U.S. ability to listen to Osama bin Laden\'s satellite phone in the late \'90s. Because of that reporting, he stopped using that phone and the country lost valuable intelligence. | 4 pinnochios | ERROR: type should be string, got " https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/08/02/the-zombie-claim-that-wont-die-the-media-exposed-bin-ladens-phone/" | null | null | Sarah Huckabee Sanders | Glenn Kessler | null | The zombie claim that won't die: The media exposed bin Laden's phone. | August 2 | null | ['United_States', 'Osama_bin_Laden'] |
pomt-04374 | Says Tammy Baldwin "voted to gut Medicare for seniors." | false | /wisconsin/statements/2012/oct/21/tommy-thompson/thompson-says-baldwin-voted-gut-medicare/ | As mid-October neared, Republican Tommy Thompson countered charges that he would harm Medicare, and began airing a TV ad alleging that Tammy Baldwin had "voted to cut Medicare" for seniors. Then Thompson’s campaign began trumpeting an amped-up version of that ad, again taking aim at his Democratic rival in the neck-and-neck race for Wisconsin’s open U.S. Senate seat. "Tammy Baldwin is lying about Tommy Thompson," a female narrator says in the tougher ad. "The truth is, Baldwin voted to gut Medicare for seniors." That’s "gut" -- as in removing the essential parts -- not "cut." The ad continues with an older woman on screen, saying, "Tammy Baldwin has no business taking $716 billion out of Medicare." The narrator adds: "Baldwin even voted against providing prescription drug benefits to seniors. That plan's architect? Tommy Thompson." It’s true Baldwin voted against the Medicare Part D drug program in 2003. And, while we haven’t fact-checked the "architect" claim, it’s well-established that Thompson played a key role in winning passage of the drug legislation as Health and Human Services chief for President George W. Bush. But what about Thompson’s new claim that Baldwin voted to "gut" the Medicare program? The vote cited in the ad is Obama’s signature health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Baldwin, a congresswoman since 1999, did join with a strong majority of House Democrats in approving the measure, 219-212, with Republicans unanimously in opposition. Under the Affordable Care Act, Medicare spending would be slowed, and money saved would help pay for coverage of the uninsured and other initiatives. Originally, it was estimated that the savings would be more than $500 billion; more recently, that has been revised to $716 billion. PolitiFact has examined multiple claims across the country that Democrats, through their vote for the "Obamacare" law, cut money from Medicare. The "cut Medicare" Thompson ad closely mirrors a statement by Mitt Romney, who said on Aug. 15: "Under the president's plan, he cuts Medicare by $716 billion, takes that money out of the Medicare trust fund and uses it to pay for ‘Obamacare.’ " PolitiFact Florida rated that Half True, because Romney gave the impression "Obamacare" takes money already allocated to Medicare. The savings come from spending reductions over the next 10 years that would slow the rate of growth in Medicare’s budget. But here we are rating Thompson’s other Baldwin ad, which uses a word -- "gut" -- that ramps up the claim considerably. As a frame of reference, in the 2010 Senate race in Wisconsin we reviewed Republican candidate (and now Senator) Ron Johnson’s claim that then-Sen. Russ Feingold, a Democrat, "cut Medicare by $523 billion." (Again, that was the earlier estimate of Obamacare’s spending-reduction plan.) We rated that Mostly False, noting that Medicare spending would still increase, and that Johnson’s additional claim that Feingold was the deciding vote could be made against every incumbent senator who voted for the health care law. Thompson’s claim, by contrast, is "gut." We approached the Thompson campaign to back up the ad’s claim. They pointed us to Congressional Budget Office memos, and a report by Medicare’s actuary, to refute claims by the Obama campaign that his health care law strengthened the delicate financial position of Medicare. The documentation does confirm that if Obamacare was repealed, more money would be available to spend on Medicare. But we also asked two federal budget experts from nonpartisan groups to assess the ad’s use of "gut." Both said it was solidly off the mark. "Medicare will continue to grow in nominal dollars and faster than the overall economy," said Jason Peuquet, research director at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The cost savings in the health law, in Peuquet’s view, actually don’t go far enough to tackle Medicare’s long-term fiscal stability. One way to look at it, he said, is that over 10 years, Medicare under Obamacare is projected to grow about 10 percent less than it would have. Even with the slower growth, net Medicare spending is still projected to rise from $504 billion to $877 billion over that period, CBO estimates show. Total projected Medicare spending goes from $598 billion to $1.04 trillion. Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, told us that "regardless of whether you think these are good or bad reforms, ‘gutting’ a program would require far deeper cuts than Obamacare/ACA included." We’ve tackled a claim of "gutting" a government program before. Democratic U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin accused Gov. Scott Walker of "gutting" two tax credits for the poor or elderly. In rating that False in May 2012, we said that while the percentage cut was deep in one of the credits, Walker and the GOP-controlled Legislature left them largely intact. Even advocates for the credits said "gutting" went too far. Impact on Medicare To be sure, serious health-care experts have raised concerns that health-care access for seniors could be reduced if Obamacare’s cut in the growth of Medicare payments to providers discourages them from accepting Medicare patients. Prediction is difficult, as the Office of the Actuary for Medicare and Medicaid Services said while raising the concern in April 2010. In addition, the law tries to save costs on Medicare Advantage, an optional Medicare program run by private insurers. As federal subsidies to Advantage are reduced, recipients could see higher premiums, or lose of some extras like free eyeglasses and gym memberships, we have noted in the past. So it’s likely that some reduction in services will result from the health care law. On the other hand, the Thompson campaign did not mention that the health care law actually adds new services: It gradually closes the gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage known as the "doughnut hole," funds illness prevention benefits, and seeks to boost access to primary care doctors and other providers. Finally, we should also note an important bit of context left out of the ad. Vice presidential nominee Ryan’s budget plan -- backed by Thompson -- included the same amount of reductions in future Medicare spending that were part of "Obamacare, "PolitiFact National has noted. Ryan said he would keep the savings for future Medicare expenses, not to support the new federal health-care law. Our ruling Thompson’s new ad says the truth is that "Baldwin voted to gut Medicare for seniors" when she backed the health reform law’s cost-containment measures in the Medicare program. This is off base or misleading on several fronts. The health care law slows Medicare’s growth but spending would still rise significantly, and some new services are added. The changes do not promise to hold seniors harmless, but Medicare is not being gutted. We rate the claim False. | null | Tommy Thompson | null | null | null | 2012-10-21T06:00:00 | 2012-10-16 | ['Tammy_Baldwin', 'Medicare_(United_States)'] |
tron-02323 | Starbucks doesn’t support the war in Iraq | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/starbucks-iraq/ | null | military | null | null | null | Starbucks doesn’t support the war in Iraq | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01326 | Says Jeanne Shaheen "voted to pave the way for a new national energy tax." | mostly false | /new-hampshire/statements/2014/oct/24/scott-brown/debate-scott-brown-says-jeanne-shaheen-voted-pave-/ | In an Oct. 21, 2014, debate in Concord, N.H., Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and her Republican challenger, former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, tangled over energy policy. At one point, Brown said Shaheen "voted to pave the way for a new national energy tax." We thought we’d take a closer look. This claim echoed, but did not precisely match, one made in a June press release by Brown’s campaign manager, Colin Reed -- that "one year ago, Sen. Shaheen voted for a measure that would have amounted to a new national energy tax." This referred to the debate surrounding a "carbon tax" -- another term for taxes on oil, gas and coal usage. The logic behind the tax is that by making natural resources costlier for individuals and businesses to use, a carbon tax would encourage the use of alternative energy sources that have a smaller environmental impact. Most economists agree that a carbon tax would be effective, but the issue hasn’t gained much political traction. Brown campaign staffer Elizabeth Guyton pointed us to Shaheen’s vote on an amendment to a 2013 budget resolution put forth by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who has expressed support for implementing a carbon tax. The amendment stipulated that revenue generated by any future carbon tax must be given back to the public in some form. Shaheen voted in favor of the amendment. However, nothing in that amendment would have actually enacted a carbon tax. Rather, the amendment offered a rough framework for how money generated from such a tax, if one were ever enacted, would be put to use. "I think that ultimately a fee on carbon pollution is inevitable, and the purpose of that amendment was to begin a discussion on that and begin the discussion about when that happens, what the best way to use the proceeds of the fee are," Whitehouse told reporters in 2013. "So from that point of view, I didn’t view it as binding anybody on a carbon fee, but I did view it as an assessment of the best way of using carbon fee proceeds." Although Shaheen was one of 41 "yea" votes (all of them coming from Democrats or Democratic-caucusing Independents), the vote wasn’t directly in support of a carbon tax. It would have been accurate to say Shaheen voted to "pave the way" for a carbon tax if she had cast a vote to -- for instance -- begin Senate debate on an actual carbon tax. But no carbon tax was waiting for a vote. The amendment she voted for wouldn’t have brought a carbon tax any closer to fruition. (And don’t forget that the measure didn’t even pass, so it’s not as if it paved the way for a tax that’s now in place.) A second piece of evidence offered by Brown’s campaign concerns an amendment proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. Blunt has emerged as a persistent carbon tax opponent in the Senate. In 2013, Blunt proposed an amendment that would have increased the threshold for passing a carbon tax framework within a budget resolution to 60 votes. Shaheen voted against this amendment, even as some of her Democratic colleagues from energy producing states voted for it. Still, it’s an exaggeration to say that Shaheen "paved the way" for a carbon tax when no proposal was going anywhere in the Senate. Shripal Shah, a spokesman from Shaheen’s Senate office, told us in June that Shaheen has never supported a carbon tax. Shah said Shaheen supports "market-driven solutions" to address pollution, such as the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. This statement seems to fall in line with the position Shaheen took when she first campaigned for the Senate in 2008. During a roundtable discussion at Seacoast Energy Alternatives in Somersworth, New Hampshire, Shaheen said she would prefer a cap-and-trade program over a carbon tax because it’s "easier to sell to the population" and "puts the onus" on the polluters. When it comes to the legislative record, Shaheen’s efforts to influence energy policy since taking office have been focused largely on boosting energy efficiency. Shaheen partnered with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, to craft an energy efficiency bill that would launch a federal training program for energy-efficient building design and operation and establish a loan program for energy improvements to homes and small businesses, among other initiatives. The bill has twice died in the Senate. The most recent effort failed on May 12, 2014, when supporters failed to reach the 60 votes necessary to close debate on the bill and proceed to a final vote. Our ruling Brown said Shaheen "voted to pave the way for a new national energy tax." That’s misleading. The two votes she took did mirror those of some lawmakers who favor a carbon tax, but that’s not the same thing as saying she voted to "pave the way for a new national energy tax." These weren’t procedural votes to commence a debate on, or tee up a final vote on, an actual carbon-tax bill. We don't see how either vote would have brought a carbon tax any closer to fruition. We rate the claim Mostly False. | null | Scott Brown | null | null | null | 2014-10-24T15:57:34 | 2014-10-21 | ['None'] |
tron-03624 | Fragrance Product Line Named FCUK | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/fcuk/ | null | warnings | null | null | null | Fragrance Product Line Named FCUK | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01701 | Oliver North wrote an article that says according to the U.S. Government he is a right wing extremist | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/oliver-north-extremist/ | null | government | null | null | null | Oliver North wrote an article that says according to the U.S. Government he is a right wing extremist | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Oliver_North', 'United_States'] |
pomt-00329 | Says she voted to stop a new "age tax" under which "Arizonans age 50 & over could be charged 5 times more for their health care." | half-true | /arizona/statements/2018/sep/19/kyrsten-sinema/fact-checking-kyrsten-sinemas-claim-about-age-tax-/ | Democratic U.S. Rep. Kyrsten Sinema says she’s looking out for older Arizonans, and her voting record backs her up. In her bid for U.S. Senate, Sinema pointed to her vote against a "new age tax." "We need to make it easier for Arizonans to afford their health care. That’s why I voted to stop a new ‘age tax’ on coverage for people age 50 and over," Sinema tweeted Sept. 8. Her tweet included an image with text that said: "Arizonans age 50 & over could be charged 5 times more for their health care under the ‘age tax’." See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com Sinema is campaigning against Republican U.S. Rep. Martha McSally for the seat held by retiring Republican Sen. Jeff Flake. The election is Nov. 6. Did Sinema vote to stop a new "age tax" that could have charged Arizonans 50 years and older five times more for their health care? Sinema in 2017 voted against a Republican bill that allowed insurance companies to charge certain people 50 and older up to five times more what they would charge younger adults. It wasn't a "tax" levied by the government. The bill would have increased the cap by which people could charge some people over 50. Her claim mimics attacks we’ve seen against Republicans, omitting the same caveats: This provision applied to people buying insurance on the individual and small-group markets. It didn’t apply to seniors on Medicare, or to people 50 and older with coverage sponsored by large employers. Current law allows insurers to charge older adults three times what they charge younger adults. American Health Care Act’s 5-to-1 provision The American Health Care Act was part of an effort to repeal the 2010 health care law signed by President Barack Obama. The bill retained some parts of the Obama-era law, including the prohibition on insurance companies from denying coverage for a pre-existing health problem. The Republican bill passed the House in May 2017 by a vote of 217-213, with Sinema voting against it and McSally for it. The Senate failed to pass its own measure. Before Obamacare, as the Republicans called it, older adults paid about four or five times more for premiums than what younger adults paid, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. Obamacare changed the rules so that insurance companies could still charge older adults more than younger adults, but only by up to three times. Here’s a sample of the 2018 age rating curve: • A 50-year-old pays 1.786 times the amount that a younger person pays; • A 55-year-old pays 2.230 times the amount that a younger person pays; and • Someone 64 and older pays 3 times the amount that a younger person pays. The 2017 House bill that Sinema voted against sought to increase the ratio to 5-to-1 for certain adults over 50. It allowed states to set a different ratio. However, the proposal didn’t apply to seniors on Medicare, or people older than 50 who had coverage through large employers. Katie Keith, a researcher for the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, said the policy change would have made overall premiums "significantly more unaffordable." The Trump administration would have to figure out how to set an age rating curve, Keith said, "but all of these numbers would shift up significantly, even if not five times as much, at all ages over 50." The age rating works on a curve that increases with each year of age (for adults), so "it's probably most accurate to say that seniors 50 and over could be charged up to 5 times more," Keith said. It's an open question as to whether Arizona would have set a different ratio under the Republican repeal, Keith said. Under current law, states can request ratios less than the federal standard, but Arizona — like most states — hasn’t done that, Keith said. The 2017 health care bill also could have increased health care costs for older adults, because the legislation would have replaced income-based tax credits with a credit based on age. Under the proposal, adults under 30 would get a $2,000 credit; adults over 60, a $4,000 credit; and individuals who made more than $75,000 annually (or a couple who filed jointly earning $150,000) would have tax credits phased out. According to AARP calculations, under AHCA, 50- to 64-year-olds making $25,000 annually would be eligible for tax credits that are on average 50 to 80 percent less than what they would receive under current law. "Generally, people who are older, lower-income, or live in high-premium areas (like Alaska and Arizona) receive less financial assistance under the AHCA," said a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. "Additionally, older people would have higher starting premiums under the AHCA and would therefore pay higher premiums." Our ruling Sinema said she voted to stop a new "age tax," under which "Arizonans age 50 & over could be charged 5 times more for their health care." Sinema voted against the Republican effort to repeal Obamacare, which would have allowed companies to charge individuals 50 and over up to five times more than what they charged younger adults. Sinema’s ad glosses over a few important points. The bill’s provision only applied to people who bought insurance through the individual and small-group markets. It wouldn’t have applied to people on Medicare (and are 65 and older) or with coverage through larger employers. The current health care law allows insurers to charge this age group three times as much for insurance as younger adults. Although Sinema's tweet references a "new" age tax, it may be unclear to some that the charges wouldn’t be fives time more than the current situation. Sinema’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details. We rate it Half True. See Figure 3 on PolitiFact.com | null | Kyrsten Sinema | null | null | null | 2018-09-19T15:10:33 | 2018-09-08 | ['None'] |
pomt-12249 | 3,000-Pound Great White Shark Captured in Great Lakes. | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2017/jul/12/blog-posting/its-fake-news-3000-pound-shark-was-caught-lake-mic/ | A story that fishermen caught a 3,000-pound white shark in Lake Michigan is fake news. NotAllowedTo.com ran a post on June 22 that said a Canadian tourist and his friend from Chicago had caught a shark responsible for the deaths of 100 people who went missing over the past decade. The catch and deaths are fabricated. The story is a shorter version of a June 20, 2016, post published on World News Daily Report, a satirical news site. "We’ve heard a few times about this story, and there's no fact to it," said Christopher Yaw, a spokesperson for the District Nine Coast Guard. Great white sharks can’t swim in freshwater, as it dilutes their internal salt levels. That dehydrates them and decreases their buoyancy, so that they sink. The story quotes a biology professor at the University of Illinois on the rarity of the find, but a search of his name on the university’s database yielded no results. The post claims there was a 1916 shark attack in Lake Eerie that led to a 14 year swimming ban, but we found no traces of this attack or a ban. The most famous actual 1916 attack occurred on the Jersey Shore, in salt water. We also found no credible reports of disappearances on the lake. A disclaimer at the bottom of the story calls NotAllowedTo.com a satire entertainment website. "We make no representation as to the completeness, accuracy or currency of any information on this Web Site," a disclaimer reads. This claim is bogus. We rate it Pants on Fire! See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2017-07-12T10:50:16 | 2017-06-22 | ['None'] |
snes-01789 | Trump Saved Two Cats After Hurricane Harvey? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-saved-two-cats-after-hurricane-harvey/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Did President Trump Save Two Cats After Hurricane Harvey? | 5 September 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14056 | When adjusted for inflation, (Texas) per-student spending has remained relatively flat over the past 16 years. Despite that trend, Texas schools in 2017 will receive $381 less per student than they did in 2003. | half-true | /texas/statements/2016/may/23/celia-israel/celia-israel-says-student-education-spending-flat-/ | An Austin Democrat critical of the all-Republican Texas Supreme Court for upholding the legality of the Texas school finance system asserted that unless lawmakers act, per-student spending will lag what it totaled more than a dozen years ago. In a press release circulated May 13, 2016, the date of the court’s decision, state Rep. Celia Israel urged Gov. Greg Abbott to call a special legislative session to "fully fund public education." Israel went on: "When adjusted for inflation, per-student spending has remained relatively flat over the past 16 years. Despite that trend, Texas schools in 2017 will receive $381 less per student than they did in 2003." Is all of that so? Israel cites Center for Public Policy Priorities To our inquiry, Israel’s chief of staff, Jennie Kennedy, said by email that Israel relied on an April 2016 report by the Austin-based Center for Public Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank that advocates lawmakers on issues affecting low-income Texans. We turned to the report, "The Texas School Finance Challenge and What to Do About It," which has a nearly identical spending claim, stating: "When adjusted for inflation, per-student spending has remained relatively flat over the past 16 years. Despite that relatively flat spending trend per student, Texas schools in 2017 will receive $381 less per student than they did in 2003." Over the years, a chart in the report indicates, total per-student spending was relatively flat, ranging from a 2013 inflation-adjusted low of $9,813 per student to a 2009 high of $11,621. From 2002 through 2017, the chart suggests annual average per-student spending of nearly $10,479 -- meaning $273 less than what was spent in 2003 and $108 more than expected spending in 2017. And, as Israel said, the $10,371 in expected spending in 2017 would run $381 less than the shown $10,752 in per-student spending in 2003. Indeed, per the chart, that 2017 spending will run behind per-student spending in 10 of the 14 years from 2003 through 2016--though it’s poised to outpace spending in four of the presented years. We realized too you can reach a smaller long-term spending difference--or even an increase--by focusing on a different timeframe. For instance, according to the chart, the expected 2017 spending will lag per-student spending in 2004 by (just) $97--and the expected spending will outrun school spending in 2005 by $111 per student, also exceeding per-student spending in 2012 through 2014--by margins of $262 per student (2014) to $558 (2013). Finally, the shown 2017 spending will run just $4 per student behind $10,375 in spending in 2015 though it’s pegged to be down $69 per student from spending in 2016. SOURCE: Report, "The Texas School Finance Challenge and What to Do About It," Center for Public Policy Priorities, April 20, 2016 We asked the center to show its work; spokesman Oliver Bernstein emailed us the related spreadsheet, which initially prompted us to notice that the presented figures represent 2015 dollars. State spending up? Also, the spreadsheet shows, the center broke out annual changes in local, state and federal spending, also adjusted for inflation. Seemingly dramatic: Some $4,236 per student in school expenditures by state government in 2017 stands to outpace comparable spending in 2003--by $254. In contrast, local spending will be down nearly $600 a student and federal aid will be about $60 per student less than what it was, according to the sheet. What gives? By email, a center analyst, Eva DeLuna Castro, reminded us the uptick in state spending reflects a legislative decision in 2006 to pay down local school property taxes with state aid; that move fuels a continuing cost to the state of $14 billion every two years. In the report, a note below the chart says the center reached its figures by analyzing data from the Legislative Budget Board, which advises lawmakers on budget issues, and Texas Education Agency. So we asked those agencies about the center’s conclusions. Legislative Budget Board analysis By email, TEA spokeswoman DeEtta Culbertson said the agency doesn’t make such spending comparisons. But a board staff spokesman, R.J. DeSilva, told us by email that its own inflation-adjusted analysis indicates that in 2017 dollars, Texas schools will have $10,111 in total per-student aid in 2017--up $33 from $10,078 in per-student spending in 2003. DeSilva emailed a chart showing the figures as well as that 3.9 million students attended Texas schools in 2003 with a little more than 5 million expected in 2017. DeSilva wrote: "The source of the statement you're checking may be using different data points such as measures of inflation or constant dollar year." We knew that was right about the dollar year. And when we asked, DeLuna Castro confirmed by email that the center had employed a federal inflation index, the Implicit Price Deflator for state/local government from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the center’s view, DeLuna Castro said, that index better reflects costs to school districts than the general Consumer Price Index applied in the board-provided analysis. "Why it’s different: Governments are more likely to face the rising costs of health care (teacher health insurance premiums, for example) and of road construction that the CPI doesn’t capture," DeLuna Castro wrote. How about it, budget board; wrong inflation index? To the contrary, DeSilva said by email there's no consensus about using the IPD rather than CPI when analyzing education spending. "The CPI is well-known," DeSilva wrote, and the board uniformly employs it to analyze state spending in all areas. Finally, DeLuna Castro emailed us her run at adjusting per-student spending figures by using the CPI to account for inflation. By this approach, public school spending in 2017 stands to outpace per-student spending in 2003 by $148 per student, per the spreadsheet DeLuna Castro shared, though the 2017 spending looks to trail per-student expenditures in 2006-08, 2012, 2015 and 2016. Our ruling Israel said: "When adjusted for inflation, per student spending has remained relatively flat over the past 16 years. Despite that trend, Texas schools in 2017 will receive $381 less per student than they did in 2003." Per-student funding has held relatively flat, data shows. But the "$381 less" conclusion rests on cherry-picking a timeframe and relying on an inflation index not favored by the main agency that advises lawmakers on budget issues. Try a different timeframe and/or the CPI and you can get contrary results--even, in some instances, greater spending in 2017. We rate this statement 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.https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/3de4cb27-2619-4391-b0cd-1cb014124752 | null | Celia Israel | null | null | null | 2016-05-23T15:41:39 | 2016-05-13 | ['Texas'] |
goop-00029 | Katie Holmes, Jamie Foxx Planning Wedding And Having Twins, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/katie-holmes-jamie-foxx-wedding-twins-not-true/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Katie Holmes, Jamie Foxx NOT Planning Wedding And Having Twins, Despite Report | 11:07 am, November 7, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13087 | Nearly one in four people in their prime working years are not working. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/nov/07/donald-trump/donald-trump-correct-1-4-working-age-americans-not/ | During the 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump has gotten some things about the labor market very wrong, notably suggesting that the unemployment rate may be 42 percent. (It’s not; that got a Pants on Fire.) But at a Nov. 4 rally in Atkinson, N.H., Trump offered a statistic that was much closer to the mark. "At the core of my contract is my plan to bring back our jobs, about time," he said, later adding that "nearly one in four people in their prime working years are not working. They want to work. They're not working." When we checked with several economists, they said the most commonly used age span for defining the "prime working years" is 25 to 54. So we looked at the "employment-to-population ratio" for ages 25 to 54 -- that is, the percentage of people in that age range who are working, divided by the total number of people in that age range. (We also spot-checked the data for 18 to 64 and for 25 to 64 and did not find significant differences from 25 to 54.) According to the most recent data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics -- covering October 2016 -- 78.2 percent of the population between 25 and 54 was working. Flip that percentage and 21.8 percent of the population between 25 and 54 was not working. So Trump is on solid ground saying "nearly one in four." That said, we’ll try to put this number in some historical context. Here’s a chart for this statistic that goes back to 1948. The chart shows the percentage of people working. First, simply citing this figure ignores that the percentage of people in this age range who are working has risen steadily during President Barack Obama’s presidency. The chart below shows that this ratio has risen by 3.4 percentage points since its most recent low point during the Obama presidency -- 74.8 percent in November 2010. So just citing the number ignores that the figure has been going in the right direction for the past six years. Second, it’s worth noting that the current ratio is not all that far from its all-time high -- 81.9 percent in April 2000. Prime working age happens to be the prime childbearing and child-rearing age, and it makes sense that some people will choose not to work during at least some of those years. So it’s not as if this number has always been pushing 100 percent and now is suddenly down dramatically. On the other hand, economists say that Trump has put his finger on a legitimate concern about the current labor market -- that the employment rate among prime-working-age Americans has not recovered to its level prior to the Great Recession. Despite more than six years of steady job growth, the employment-to-population ratio for those 25 to 54 has not yet returned to its immediate pre-Great Recession peak of 80.3 in January 2007. Today, it’s still 2.1 percentage points below that peak. And every single month but two of President George W. Bush’s two terms in office had a higher percentage than today’s, even though Bush took office during an economic downturn, albeit a milder one. The trend line for men has been particularly problematic. As the following chart shows, the employment ratio for men in this age range was almost always above 90 percent prior to 1980, and in the immediate pre-Great Recession period, it was in the 87 percent range. Under Obama, it has rebounded from a low of 80.6 percent, but it was still only at 85 percent in October 2016 -- lower than its pre-recession level. In other words, we may be looking at a new, lower normal for prime-working-age employment, particularly for men -- and unlike some other employment statistics, this is one that is not shaped by an ongoing surge of baby boomer retirements. Our ruling Trump said that "nearly one in four people in their prime working years are not working." The actual percentage is 21.8 percent, so Trump’s phrasing is reasonable. Putting it this way does ignore that this number has declined steadily under Obama for the past six years, and it also ignores that it’s not that far from the all-time low. Still, economists agree that Trump is raising a legitimate concern, since even after six years of improvement, the percentage today remains worse than it was prior to the Great Recession, suggesting that it might represent a new, more worrisome "normal." We rate his claim Mostly True. | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2016-11-07T15:00:00 | 2016-11-04 | ['None'] |
tron-01540 | Marine’s Open Letter to Sarah Palin | authorship confirmed! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/marines-open-letter-to-sarah-palin/ | null | government | null | null | null | Marine’s Open Letter to Sarah Palin | Jan 26, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-06045 | Says Newt Gingrich "co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy." | pants on fire! | /florida/statements/2012/jan/12/restore-our-future/newt-gingrich-nancy-pelosi-china-one-child-policy/ | The best offense is a good defense: That seems to be the playbook for the Restore Our Future super PAC. The game started when Newt Gingrich attacked Mitt Romney for laying off workers while Romney worked at Bain Capital. Then Restore our Future, which is run by Romney supporters, attacked Gingrich for some his previous positions. (Super PACs operate outside of official campaigns and don’t have to follow the same rules.) "Newt Gingrich’s attacks are called 'foolish,' 'out of bounds,' and 'disgusting.' Newt attacks because he has more baggage than the airlines," says the ad, which is running in Florida and South Carolina. "Newt was fined $300,000 for ethics violations, took $1.6 million from Freddie Mac, and co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy." "Don’t be fooled by Newt’s desperate attacks," the ad concludes. The ad is right that Gingrich was fined $300,000 for ethics violations. Gingrich also concedes that he advised Freddie Mac. (Bloomberg reported he was paid $1.6 million, but that specific amount rests on unnamed sources.) Here, we wanted to fact-check whether Gingrich "co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy." For its evidence, the ad points to H.R. 1078, from Feb. 22, 1989. We went to the archives to check on the bill’s details. The bill in question was called the Global Warming Prevention Act of 1989. It set national goals to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and encouraged international agreements to address global warming. It required the U.S. Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to monitor global warming and create plans for future action. It supported stricter fuel standards for cars and alternative energy. It also sent money to developing countries to encourage practices that reduce carbon emissions. (See our fact-check of how Gingrich's statements on global warming and cap-and-trade policies have changed over the years.) The bill had several hearings, but received unfavorable reviews from the George H.W. Bush administration and never became law. Getting back to the ad’s specific claims, it says that Gingrich co-sponsored the bill with Nancy Pelosi. The bill’s primary sponsor was Rep. Claudine Schneider, R-R.I. It’s true that both Gingrich and Pelosi were co-sponsors. But the bill had 144 co-sponsors, roughly a third of the U.S. House of Representatives. (Gingrich was not speaker at this time; Democrats still held the majority.) Congressional records indicate Pelosi signed onto the bill the day it was introduced, while close to four months passed before Gingrich signed on as a co-sponsor. Next, the ad says the bill "would have given $60 million a year to a UN program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy." China’s one-child policy generally refers to the government’s efforts to limit population growth to one child per couple. Human rights advocates say the policy has resulted in forced sterilizations and abortions. The Restore our Future website says the $60 million went to the United Nations Population Fund and that President Ronald Reagan withheld funds from the program after he determined the program, which supports family planning and contraception, was supporting Chinese actions. We won’t attempt to relitigate here whether the United Nations Population Fund supported Chinese policy, because we soon found evidence that the bill’s authors did not support those policies. In the same section that authorizes funding, there’s this stipulation: "None of the funds authorized by this section may be used to pay for the performance of involuntary sterilization or abortion or to coerce any person to accept family planning." Our ruling The ad says that Gingrich "co-sponsored a bill with Nancy Pelosi that would have given $60 million a year to a U.N. program supporting China’s brutal one-child policy." Actually, the bill attempted to address climate change, and a third of House members were co-sponsors. The bill did propose money for the United Nations Population Fund, but it stated specifically that its funding could not be used for "involuntary sterilization or abortion or to coerce any person to accept family planning." The ad’s claim rests on repeated distortions, so we rate the statement Pants on Fire! | null | Restore Our Future | null | null | null | 2012-01-12T18:31:28 | 2012-01-12 | ['Nancy_Pelosi', 'United_Nations', 'China'] |
pomt-00674 | We doubled the size of the company (Hewlett-Packard). | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/may/10/carly-fiorina/carly-fiorina-fights-back-against-hp-layoff-claims/ | Carly Fiorina is fighting back against critics, including a cyber-squatter, who accuse the Republican presidential candidate of slash-and-burn tactics in her time as CEO of computer company Hewlett-Packard. The cyber-squatter purchased the website carlyfiorina.org to highlight nearly 30,000 layoffs that occured while Fiorina led the computer giant from 1999-2005. Fiorina later was fired by HP’s board. On Meet the Press Sunday, host Chuck Todd asked Fiorina why she was fired. Fiorina used the question to list her accomplishments at HP. "What people fail to comment on is the fact we doubled the size of the company, took the growth rate from 2 percent to 9 percent," she said. "We tripled the rate of innovation to 11 patents a day and went from lagging behind to leading in every product category. We grew jobs here in the U.S. and all over the world. You can't just leave those facts out -- they are as vital to the record as the fact that yes, indeed, I had to make tough calls during tough times. Tough times that many technology companies didn't survive at all." Given Fiorina’s dismissal and other issues at HP, we were interested in that first claim -- that under her leadership, the company doubled in size. Fiorina's claim is not referring to the number of employees (you can read a good primer on that from our archives here). In this case, staff at Carly for America (Fiorina’s political action committee) said she was referring to the revenues created by the company. By this specific measure, HP did double. In 1999, when Fiorina became CEO, HP’s annual revenue was $42.4 billion, according to annual Securities and Exchange Commission filings. With the exception of a slight dip in 2001 (at the end of the dot-com bubble), revenue increased each year -- to $86.7 billion in 2005, the year she left. That’s a little bit more than double. But that doesn’t tell the entire tale. There are a few critical caveats. Where the growth came from Why such growth? Well, Fiorina spearheaded a major $25 billion acquisition of HP’s rival, Compaq, to increase the company’s share of the personal computer market. The merger was publicly controversial, in part because it tipped HP’s focus toward computers (a tough market) and away from its most successful product, printers. The merger went through, and the company grew. In 2001, the year before the merger, revenue was $45.7 billion, and the Compaq revenue was about $40 billion. In 2003, after the two companies merged, revenue was $73 billion. Stephen Morrissette, a business professor at the University of Chicago, noted that the fact that so much of the revenue growth was a result of the merger casts some shade on Fiorina’s claim. "Most executives would likely not use the phrasing ‘doubled the size of the company’ to describe their performance if the increase was all or mostly due to an acquisition," Morrissette said. Doubled revenues, but not necessarily stronger Despite the increased revenue, the HP-Compaq merger led to sluggish stock prices and missed profitability targets. The merger also led to the thousands of firings often cited by Fiorina’s critics. The merger was widely seen as a bust at the time, and it contributed to the HP board’s decision to fire Fiorina. (HP stock value plunged by nearly half during her tenure and rose again after she was fired.) HP had $42.4 billion in revenues and $3.1 billion in net earnings in 1999. When Fiorina was ousted in 2005, yes, the company reported $86.7 billion in sales. But that year HP had only $2.4 billion in earnings. Lastly, the employee head count gets a bit complicated. According to SEC filings, HP had 84,400 employees worldwide in 2001, the year before the merger. In 2001, Compaq had 63,700 full-time employees. That comes to a total of 148,100 workers. In 2005, just after her departure, HP's worldwide workforce reached 150,000. That includes acquiring some other companies, the Los Angeles Times reported. Some analysts have seen the merger more favorably in recent years, noting that it accomplished Fiorina’s goal of increasing HP’s share of the personal computer market even though Fiorina’s execution failed. Fiorina "is taking credit for something she launched and got started," Charles House, co-author of The HP Phenomenon, told the San Jose Mercury News in 2011. "But I think you obviously have to give a hell of a lot of credit to (her successor) for making it successful. I'd be loath to say it would be the same with her there." Our ruling Fiorina said that while she was CEO of HP, the size of the company "doubled." That's correct when discussing one specific aspect, revenues, but you could argue that's a bit of a red herring. The revenue growth was largely thanks to a controversial merger with Compaq and not organic. Moreover, the new revenue did not come with proportional increases to either profits or the number of HP jobs. Fiorina’s figures are accurate, but standing alone, they don’t tell the whole picture. We rate her claim Mostly True. | null | Carly Fiorina | null | null | null | 2015-05-10T17:15:56 | 2015-05-10 | ['None'] |
peck-00044 | Do One In Five Ugandan Households Have Access To Electricity? | true | https://pesacheck.org/do-one-in-five-ugandan-households-have-access-to-electricity-6b95fe15d1d9 | null | null | null | Emma Laura N Kisa | null | Do One In Five Ugandan Households Have Access To Electricity? | Feb 2 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00996 | A viral Facebook video shows Prince George of Cambridge reciting the alphabet through Biblical verses. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/prince-george-bible-verses/ | null | Viral Phenomena | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Does a Viral Video Show Prince George Reciting the Alphabet in Bible Verses? | 19 February 2018 | null | ['Bible'] |
abbc-00074 | The claim: Tony Abbott says only 2 per cent of incomes over $100,000 are earned by women under 50. | in-the-red | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-09/abbott-two-percent-women-paid-over-241002c000/5424468 | The claim: Tony Abbott says only 2 per cent of incomes over $100,000 are earned by women under 50. | ['social-policy', 'women', 'federal-government', 'budget', 'liberals', 'abbott-tony', 'australia'] | null | null | ['social-policy', 'women', 'federal-government', 'budget', 'liberals', 'abbott-tony', 'australia'] | Are only 2pc of incomes over $100,000 earned by women under 50? | Fri 9 May 2014, 1:25am | null | ['Tony_Abbott'] |
pomt-00631 | There was "a 57-percent decrease in fireworks-related injuries in 2000 [after Connecticut legalized sparklers] compared to the 14 years prior." | pants on fire! | /rhode-island/statements/2015/may/24/eric-turner/fireworks-lobbyist-says-sparkler-legalization-cut-/ | One proposal before the General Assembly would restore the state's ban on all fireworks, a prohibition that was in place until the legislature and Gov. Donald Carcieri lifted it in June 2010. The ban was eased to allow sparklers, spinners and smokers to be purchased in stores. Fireworks that explode or fly through the air remained illegal, although you wouldn't know it during the weeks surrounding that Fourth of July, when the number of neighborhood fireworks displays seems to have, well, skyrocketed since sparklers became legal. During a hearing on the bill, S-431, a comment by Eric Turner sparked our attention. He's director of governmental affairs for American Promotional Events, which sells fireworks under the name TNT Fireworks. Turner argued against the Rhode Island bill, saying the experience in Connecticut, which began allowing sparklers and other "consumer" devices, shows the public is actually safer when such products are legal. "When the public is permitted to use sparkling devices as allowed in Rhode Island, they're less apt to go after illegal products," Turner told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. "Injuries actually go down because more people use a regulated product." "I'll give you an example," he said. "In 2000, Connecticut, your neighbor, passed a very similar law -- handheld and ground-based sparklers. The Connecticut Department of Public Safety showed a 57-percent decrease in fireworks-related injuries in 2000 compared to the 14 years prior." We made repeated attempts to contact Turner to find the source of his information. He never returned our phone messages or emails. So we tried to get the data ourselves. Turner cited the state's department of public safety. So we went there. After one month, the only data it could provide was well outside the period Turner mentioned in his testimony. And the numbers it did have -- one or two injuries per year reported to the department's Fire and Explosion Investigation Unit -- were ridiculously small. It turns out that there are a lot more, as we discovered when we contacted Connecticut's Department of Public Health and received its data on emergency room visits and hospital discharges classified as stemming from an accident caused by fireworks. Instead of just one injury per year in 2010 to 2014 as logged by the public safety department, the hospital data show an average of 35 people admitted to emergency rooms each year during that period. Their emergency room numbers, available going back to only 1996, show an average of 40.5 fireworks injuries per year through 1999. The number in 2000: 40. Basically there was no change in 2000 versus the average of the previous four years. That's a far cry from a 57-percent drop the year that sparklers were legalized, as Turner insisted, referring to a longer period for which we can’t find -- and he hasn’t provided -- any reliable data. The average since 2000: 43 emergency room injuries per year, which is actually a slight increase from the year when Connecticut legalized sparklers. We tried to add in the much smaller numbers for people whose injuries were serious enough to require hospitalization, using inpatient discharge data going back to 1991, the oldest available. But the state would not give us firm numbers for the years when inpatient discharges were 5 or fewer. But even when we assumed numbers most favorable to Turner, the reduction in 2000 wasn't even close. And if you look at subsequent years, the number of injuries have, on average, increased. Our ruling Fireworks lobbyist Eric Turner, contending that fireworks injuries decreased when sparklers are legalized, said that when Connecticut legalized sparklers and similar pyrotechnics in 2000, there was "a 57-percent decrease . . . . compared to the 14 years prior." While Turner stood up and shot off his mouth on Smith Hill, he wouldn’t respond to our repeated requests for information. And when we contacted the agency he cited in his testimony, we found the current database misses virtually all fireworks injuries. Finally, the most reliable source of information -- hospital records collected by the state health department -- shows no significant change in emergency room visits before and after sparklers and similar devices became legal. This incendiary claim is so wrong it rates a Pants on Fire. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, email us at politifact@providencejournal.com. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | null | Eric Turner | null | null | null | 2015-05-24T00:01:00 | 2015-04-07 | ['None'] |
snes-05268 | A Colorado school's female students were forced to adhere to "Sharia rules" when visiting a mosque on a field trip. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/colorado-students-sharia-law/ | null | Politics | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Colorado School District Forces Students to Follow Sharia Dress Code? | 3 February 2016 | null | ['Colorado'] |
snes-02813 | Left-handed people die younger than right-handed people. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/left-hand-right-hand-death/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Do Left Handed People Die Younger Than Right Handed People? | 8 March 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-13566 | ...Secret documents reveal that Iran could obtain a nuclear weapon far sooner than we were told. And Tammy Duckworth voted ‘yes’ (on the Iran nuclear deal). | mostly false | /illinois/statements/2016/aug/23/independent-voice-illinois-pac/anti-duckworth-super-pac-ad-goes-nuclear-iran-deal/ | In a new television ad supporting U.S. Sen. Mark Kirk, the Independent Voice for Illinois PAC went after his opponent, U.S. Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Hoffman Estates. In the 30-second spot, a female narrator attacks Duckworth’s national security track record, slamming her for supporting the Iran nuclear deal. The ad portrays the Iran nuclear deal as a bad one and says recently unearthed information makes the deal even worse. The narrator says, "...Secret documents reveal that Iran could obtain a nuclear weapon far sooner than we were told. And Tammy Duckworth voted ‘yes’ (on the Iran nuclear deal)." The Politico Illinois Playbook said the spot is running in "Rockford and number of downstate markets, namely Peoria, Champaign and Springfield." Tammy Duckworth did vote yes for the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That’s an established fact. But did secret documents reveal Iranians could have access to nuclear weapons earlier than the 15-year window outlined in the JCPOA? We took a look into the PAC’s claim to find out. Independent Voice for Illinois PAC First off, what is the Independent Voice for Illinois (IVFI) PAC? It’s what’s known as an independent expenditure PAC or a Super PAC. Independent expenditure PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money in support of or in opposition to political candidates, but are prohibited from coordinating their activities with or donating directly to candidate campaigns. This means that Kirk would not have known about the IVFI ad before it appeared. There’s not much information out there on the group. But we did find the PAC’s treasurer Jo Merlau submitted its statement of organization in February 2015, according to the Federal Election Commission. The political research website Open Secrets shows IVFI has raised more than $1.6 million in 2016 with hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations coming from people like Chicago businessman Ken Griffin and New York hedge fund manager Paul Singer. Open Secrets also showed IVFI spent money on vendors supporting failed Republican presidential candidates John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Bobby Jindal. Notably, IVFI filed three independent expenditures in late July and early August with the FEC for media production. The payments went to the Washington, D.C., media firm Strategic Media Services, Inc., and the documents showed a media placement/media production order opposing Duckworth. Strategic Media Services did not return calls to confirm whether they were responsible for the ad. The Iran deal, the IVFI advertisement and the Associated Press Next, let’s look at the Iran nuclear deal. In the original document outlining the deal, the JCPOA never says it would allow Iran to build or obtain a nuclear weapon before the 15-year deal expires. In fact, the JCPOA says, "Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons," and reiterates that point throughout the deal. The IVFI PAC video ad says secret documents that were leaked contain information about the Iran deal. An illustration in the video indicates they are referencing information reported in a July 18 article by the Associated Press. The Associated Press reported an unnamed source leaked unpublished information about an add-on agreement to the JCPOA. The source told the Associated Press members of Congress knew about the add-on agreement, but its contents never were made public. However, the Associated Press only references one confidential document in its story. The Associated Press, in fact, says this "confidential document is the only text linked to last year’s deal between Iran and six foreign powers that hasn’t been made public." IVFI’s ad incorrectly says there are multiple secret documents. That implied the federal government was hiding more information than was actually reported in the Associated Press story. Investigating the specific language of the IVFI ad reveals another discrepancy with the Associated Press story. The IVFI ad says "Iran could obtain a nuclear weapon far sooner than we were told," according to "secret documents." However, the Associated Press story never says that. The story says the leaked document revealed that Iran’s nuclear limitations will ease up earlier than what is outlined in the 15-year deal approved in January. It also says the internally negotiated deal would advance "Tehran's ability to build a bomb even before the end of the pact." Even though Iran will have the ability, it would not be allowed to create a fully completed weapon until the deal ends. The Associated Press goes further, saying the contents of the secret document give Iran fewer limits on installing more advanced centrifuges to churn uranium for the core of a nuclear weapon. However, the Associated Press explicitly says Iran’s ability to install these newer centrifuges doesn’t mean it would be allowed to build bombs before the 15-year pact ends. From the Associated Press story: (The centrifuge machines) will give Iran a huge potential boost in enrichment capacity, including bomb making should it choose to do so. But it can be put to use only after the deal expires. The story never reports Iran can obtain a nuclear weapon sooner than outlined in the JCPOA, as claimed in the IVFI advertisement. The secret document and the JCPOA The Associated Press story reveals the contents of a secret document showing an add-on agreement imposing fewer restrictions to the JCPOA. But Daniel Joyner, the director of international programs at the University of Alabama School of Law, says not so fast. "The (Associated Press) story isn’t wrong. It’s just a little misleading," he said. Joyner points out the contents of the leaked secret document aren’t much different from pages 6 and 7 of the JCPOA, which deals with centrifuge and uranium enrichment regulation. "You’ll see there that the commitments with regard to centrifuges last for 10 years, not for 15. So the confidential document, which discusses years 11-13, does not contradict the terms of the JCPOA. So why would anyone interpret this new information as something that conflicts with the JCPOA? "There are people out there who are out to kill (the JCPOA)," Joyner said. "The fact that it was from a confidential source throws up some red flags. There’s nothing contradictory in the leaked documents." Our ruling In their anti-Duckworth campaign ad, the Independent Voice for Illinois PAC says "...Secret documents reveal that Iran could obtain a nuclear weapon far sooner than we were told. And Tammy Duckworth voted ‘yes.’ " Duckworth did vote in favor of the JCPOA, but the Independent Voice for Illinois PAC’s ad is still incorrect on several fronts. The advertisement indicates there are multiple documents. But according to the Associated Press story the ad references, there is only one secret document. The ad also says these "secret documents" would allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon sooner than we were told. This, too, is incorrect. The document explains the secret agreement would boost uranium enrichment capacity, but never says Iran would be able to obtain a weapon sooner. Finally, an expert told PolitiFact Illinois that there is actually no contradiction between the main agreement and the secret document, just a bit more detail. Together, these points show a manipulation of the facts. IVFI misinterpreted information from the Associated Press in their advertisement, potentially leading people to believe Iran will have access to a completed and usable weapon before the deal expires. For that, we rate this claim Mostly False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/fdad8edd-06e8-499d-9045-fb4ee31094e1 | null | Independent Voice for Illinois PAC | null | null | null | 2016-08-23T18:56:13 | 2016-08-09 | ['Iran', 'Tammy_Duckworth'] |
pomt-13802 | There are at least twice as many licensed firearm dealers in California as there are McDonald’s. | true | /california/statements/2016/jul/19/safety-all-initiative/its-no-whopper-licensed-gun-dealers-outnumber-mcdo/ | Gun control advocates make a lot of claims about how easy it is to get a firearm in America. "We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book," President Barack Obama said last week at a memorial service for five officers slain by a sniper in Dallas, Texas. PolitiFact rated the president’s claim Mostly False, noting it was a flawed comparison that relied on anecdotal rather than hard evidence. In California, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom is among the state’s biggest gun control backers. He led the campaign to place Proposition 63, known as the Safety For All Initiative, on the state’s November ballot. It would require instant background checks for ammunition purchases; strengthen checks for gun purchases and ban the possession of large, detachable military-style magazines; and require the immediate surrender of firearms for people convicted of serious and violent crimes. The Safety For All campaign made a recent statement about the prevalence of gun dealers in California. It’s a colorful claim like Obama’s, but has a bit more hard data to back it up. "There are at least twice as many licensed firearm dealers in California as there are McDonald’s," the campaign’s spokesman said in recent email. PolitiFact Georgia rated a similar claim in 2013 as Mostly True. A civil rights activist said: "There are twice as many gun shops as McDonald’s in the United States." Our California claim deals with licenses in this state only, and not necessarily brick-and-mortar gun shops. With our appetite piqued, we decided to dig into this fast-food-meets-firearms platter. Golden Arches Not surprisingly, there are many places in California to get a Big Mac -- more than a thousand, according to several sources. The American Enterprise Institute and the Foundation for Economic Education reported in April that, at that time, there were 1,165 McDonald’s in California. A Cal State Northridge study cited the same figure. A McDonald’s spokeswoman could not immediately confirm that figure. The company’s website, however, puts its nationwide restaurant total at more than 14,000. Assuming 1,165 is correct for California, there would need to be at least 2,330 licensed gun dealers in the state to make the campaign’s statement correct. Photo by Mike Mozart / Flickr Gun dealers To be licensed in California, gun dealers must obtain both state and federal permits; be 21 or older; pay a $200 application fee; have a valid address; and undergo criminal and credit background checks. They don’t necessarily need a commercial storefront. Pinpointing the number of licensed gun dealers in the state is not simple. The Safety For All campaign referred us to data collected by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The ATF keeps a monthly log on its website of how many dealers and pawnbrokers are licensed to sell guns in each state. This month’s tally shows 2,315 dealers and pawnbrokers licensed to sell guns in California. That’s a shade less, 15 in fact, than twice as many McDonald’s. But the Safety For All campaign spokesman asserted there are hundreds more people authorized to sell guns in California, under different federal license categories. Other categories Those extra federal categories include 521 licensed firearms manufacturers and 74 licensed firearms importers in California. Roger Root, who oversees firearm license investigations for the ATF in Northern California, said those nearly 600 licensed manufacturers and importers are, in fact, federally authorized to deal guns, even if they’re not technically called ‘dealers.’ "We don’t require that they get an additional (federal) license," Root said. "You are also allowed, in essence, to deal firearms." That would bump the number of people licensed to sell guns in California closer to 2,900, more than twice as many McDonald’s. There's one wrinkle. About 5 percent or less of federal license holders, in all firearms categories, never go on to obtain an equivalent state firearms license required by the California Department of Justice, Root said. But taking 5 percent away from the 2,900, would still leave far more than twice as many McDonald’s. Our rating Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Safety For All Initiative campaign recently claimed: "There are at least twice as many licensed firearm dealers in California as there are McDonald’s." Firearms license data tracked by the ATF show there are currently 2,315 authorized firearms dealers and pawnbrokers in the state. Two other categories authorized to deal firearms bring the total closer to 2,900, which is far more than double the 1,165 Golden Arches in California. A small fraction of the federal licensees never obtain their equivalent California permit. So, the total could be somewhat less than 2,900, but still enough to validate the statement. We rated the claim True. TRUE – The statement is accurate and there's nothing significant missing. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/021386a3-8596-462e-b6b4-00ac302b2bff | null | Safety For All Initiative | null | null | null | 2016-07-19T03:00:00 | 2016-07-06 | ['California'] |
pomt-05134 | Now, in the House of Representatives, we have 40 different jobs bills that have passed and almost all of them have been bipartisan. | mostly false | /new-hampshire/statements/2012/jun/22/frank-guinta/us-rep-frank-guinta-claims-bipartisan-support-jobs/ | There is plenty of blame to go around for the government’s failure to create jobs, according to U.S. Rep. Frank Guinta. But little of it falls on Congress, the New Hampshire Republican said last week as he filed for re-election. "It is frustrating. Now, in the House of Representatives, we have 40 different jobs bills that have passed and almost all of them have been bipartisan," Guinta said June 13, 2012 after he filed his re-election papers with the N.H. Secretary of State. "That’s significant." It’s not hard to believe that Congress passed 40 jobs bills during the 2011-12 session. But, with all the partisan gridlock coming out of Washington, are a majority of them really bipartisan? We decided to check the Congressional voter rolls. First, we went first to Guinta’s office, which identified a list of jobs-related bills that have passed the House as part of the House Republicans’ Plan for American Job Creators. The list, published on House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s website, includes 42 pieces of legislation proposing to rework the country’s tax code, to repeal business regulations and to increase access to energy, among other actions. We are well aware that the two parties define "jobs bills" differently, due to philosophical differences about what sorts of policies are useful for expanding jobs. (We address this question here.) However, for this item, we will use Cantor’s list while acknowledging that it’s not the final word on what constitutes a jobs bill. Of the total 42 bills, 11 of which were signed into law by President Barack Obama, at least 38 received some level of support from both parties, according to searches of THOMAS, the Library of Congress’ searchable database. Vote totals for two of the bills were unavailable. Some bills, including H.R. 2433, the Veterans Opportunity to Work Act, drew strong support from both sides of the aisle; 235 Republican votes and 183 from Democrats. And, H.R. 3606, the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act, earned support from 232 Republicans and 183 Democrats. Both bills have become law. But other proposals drew only a handful of votes from the minority party. H.R. 10, the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act, for instance, passed the House with 237 Republican votes and four Democratic votes. And, H.R. 658, the FAA Transportation Modernization & Safety Improvement Act, passed with 221 Republican votes and only two from Democrats. The transportation act was signed into law, while the regulations act has stalled in the Senate. Further, the Fiscal Year 2012 and 2013 budget proposals, known as the Ryan budget plans, both passed the House without any Democratic support. So, this begs the question, what makes a bill bipartisan? In Guinta’s view, bipartisan legislation means any bill that reflects the interests of members of both parties. "Bipartisanship is being able to stay true to your principles, while finding common ground to work together on issues you can find agreement on," Derek Dufrense, Guinta’s legislative assistant, wrote in an email statement. This definition has been used for decades by politicians looking to tout their bipartisan credentials. But, political scientists, analysts and journalists take a different view. Though there is no formal definition for a bipartisan bill, many political scientists defer to the terms defined by Congressional Quarterly Roll Call, the Washington publication group which has long tracked partisan bills as those that receive support from less than 50 percent of both parties, which would be at least 121 votes from Republicans and 85 votes from Democrats. "If you take the inverse, that gives you a good sense of how partisan things are," said David Hawkings, editor of CQ’s Daily Briefing. "When I first came to town 25 years ago, you wouldn’t refer to something as having a bipartisan tone to it unless it had a few dozen members of both party. Today, you hear ‘bipartisan’ when there’s only five, six members of the minority party," Hawkings said. "That’s the new reality." Under the CQ terms, six of the 42 jobs bills meet the publication’s 50 percent standard, earning votes from half the members of each party. They are: -- H.R. 2433 and H.R. 3606, referenced above. -- H. Res. 72, Review of Federal Regulations: 238 Republican votes, 153 Democrats -- H.R. 674, 3% Withholding Rule Repeal: 295 Republicans, 170 Democrats; passed the Senate, signed into law. -- H.R. 1249, the America Invents Act: 168 Republicans, 136 Democrats; passed the Senate, signed into law. -- H.R. 4105, Applying Countervailing Duty to Nonmarket Economy Countries: 294 Republicans, 176 Democrats; passed the Senate, signed into law. A 50 percent threshold is pretty high in today's polarized environment, but even if you reduce it to at least 25 percent support from both parties, only 10 bills qualified. "There are a number of ways you could talk about it, but having only a handful of members of the opposite party, that seems like a big, big stretch," said James Pigg, director of the Waggonner Center for Bipartisan Politics and Public Policy at Louisiana Tech University. "I’d have a hard time calling that bipartisan." Our ruling: Guinta claims that "in the House of Representatives, we have 40 different jobs bills that have passed and almost all of them have been bipartisan." The House of Representatives has indeed passed more than 40 bills that Republicans consider jobs legislation. But whether they are truly "bipartisan" depends on your definition. Thirty-eight of them had support from at least one Democrat. But, according to political analysts, one vote does not a bipartisan bill make. Political analysts and academics alike commonly refer to Congressional Quarterly’s definition of a bipartisan bill as one that receives majority support from both parties. Only a fraction of the 42 bills referenced by Guinta meet that standard -- six to be exact. And even if you lower the threshold to 25 percent, it's only 10 bills. Guinta makes a sweeping claim that suggests broad support for nearly every bill. But in fact, the levels for bipartisanship are pretty skimpy. We rate this claim Mostly False. | null | Frank Guinta | null | null | null | 2012-06-22T16:56:21 | 2012-06-13 | ['None'] |
pomt-10350 | John McCain has given erratic and inconsistent answers on when troops should return from Iraq. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jul/11/democratic-national-committee/ad-takes-most-of-mccain-quotes-out-of-context/ | A new Web ad from the Democratic National Committee portrays John McCain as giving wildly different opinions on when U.S. troops can leave Iraq. The ad begins, "When Will John McCain Bring Our Troops Home? Depends on When You Ask." It then shows seven edited clips of McCain speaking, saying things like, "Four or five years … five or six years … another year to a year and a half … maybe 100 … that's not too important." ( View the ad here .) A fever line tracks the years on a chart while ominous music plays in the background. We decided to examine the transcripts of McCain's comments and see if he did give the many varied withdrawal dates that the ad claims. We found several problems with the way the ad portrays McCain's statements. In one case, he's not talking about troop withdrawal at all. In the "100 years" remark, he was talking about a permanent peacetime force similar to what the United States now has in Japan and South Korea. And the "not too important" comment is also taken significantly out of context. Let's take the ad's points one by one and examine the context of the McCain interviews to see where the ad gets it right and where it gets it wrong. • From the ABC News show "Nightline," Oct. 1, 2003: Question: "Over a course of how many years?" McCain: "Four or five years." This quote comes from an interview between Ted Koppel and John McCain, but the "four or five years" quote has nothing to do with U.S. troops. Instead, the show, which aired seven months after the initial invasion, focused on the costs of rebuilding Iraq. Koppel's report was skeptical of a claim from a Bush administration official that U.S. taxpayers would only be on the hook for $1.7 billion in reconstruction costs. (He was right to be suspicious; a 2007 GAO estimate put the reconstruction price tag at $40 billion and counting). Koppel interviewed McCain for his views on rebuilding costs, and even then McCain disputed the Bush administration claim. Here's a fuller excerpt from the interview: McCain: "I think there (were) many of us, in fact, most of us that believed that the military part would be the easy part. And reconstruction and rebuilding Iraq would be the hard part. But I have to also tell you, we did not realize the state of total deterioration of the Iraqi infrastructure. We didn't appreciate how much Saddam Hussein had let everything go to hell. I knew it was going to be very tough. I didn't know until I went over there how much it was going to be. And may I say, it's going to be a lot more than $20 billion before we're through." Koppel: "Do you have a sense of how much more?" McCain: "Estimates I hear as much as $50 to $55 billion more." Koppel: "Over a course of how many years?" McCain: "Four or five years." Koppel never addresses the question of troops, deployments or withdrawal in this interview. We looked for other McCain statements at this time, and found that in most cases he was actually urging the Bush administration to send more troops to Iraq to maintain order and security there. A few weeks before his interview with Koppel, a reporter on CNN asked him how long troops would have to be in Iraq to secure a true victory. McCain replied: "I don't know, because I don't know how quickly we're going to act in the form of sending troops. I don't know how quickly we're going to be able to provide them with the security. So, it's sort of up to us." • From MSNBC's "Hardball," Feb. 25, 2004: McCain: "Listen, my friend, we're going to be there for five or six years." This exchange more fairly represents McCain's views, though his remarks aren't strictly about deployments. He seems to be more talking about how long troops will have to actively maintain order to help a newly formed government establish itself. After discussing that prospect, host Chris Matthews asked, "What's the role of the U.S. military once we get a government out there?" McCain: "We'll still be there for security purposes. Listen, my friend, we're going to be there for five or six years. A little straight talk: We're going to have to be there for quite a while." Matthews: "And we have to defend the government?" McCain: "We will try to maintain security. There's just too many bad elements both from outside and from within." • From CBS News' "The Early Show," Feb. 3, 2005: McCain: "If I had to guess, I would think that it's going to be at least another year to a year and a half..." In this interview, Hannah Storm asks John McCain specifically about a withdrawal timetable. This snippet appears to be a fair presentation of McCain's views. Here's the fuller exchange: Storm: "What is a realistic timetable here? When would you like to see our troops leave?" McCain: "Tomorrow. But I think that if I had to guess, I would think that it's going to be at least another year to a year and a half. But hopefully before then we could have our troops out of a lot of the areas where they're vulnerable to casualties. And the Iraqi American-trained law enforcement--their armed forces with U.S. troops embedded in them -- could take over much more of the responsibilities. That will reduce the casualty levels. Let me just remind you, Hannah, we're got troops in Bosnia; we've got them in Kosovo; we've been in South Korea for 50 years. Americans are not upset about that. They're upset when young Americans are wounded and killed." Storm: "So you're saying our troops could potentially be there for decades then, Senator?" McCain: "I don't think decades because I don't think that the Iraqis want American troops staying, but I think we'll be there for a while and the Iraqi government appreciates that as well." • From NBC News' "Meet the Press," June 19, 2005. McCain: "I'd rather say two or three years, and be surprised a year from now." The questioning in this interview was about the training of Iraqi forces, not troop withdrawal. The time frame McCain mentions is when Iraqi troops will be fully trained, thought it's fair to say that the readiness of Iraqi troops is a pre-condition for U.S. withdrawal. Here's the full exchange between McCain and moderator Tim Russert. Russert: "Our only exit strategy is to have enough Iraqis who are willing to defend their country, spill their own blood, so that we can withdraw. How many security forces do you believe the Iraqis have right now that are fully capable of fighting and defending their nation?" McCain: "I don't know the answer. I know the number is increasing. … But I believe that there has been some improvement, and that improvement gives us, at least, some hope. Because, as you say, and everybody knows, the exit strategy from Iraq is not a time or a date. The exit strategy from Iraq is clearly the Iraqis being able to take over the responsibilities and the casualties, for policing and ensuring security in their own country. Look, nobody cares--in fact, I'm kind of glad that American troops are in South Korea. Why? Because there's no Americans in combat. So it's not a matter of time and date of withdrawal. It's a matter of Iraqis being able to assume the responsibilities for the security of their own nation. And, again, I think we should tell people it's not going to be a short--I'd rather say two or three years, and be surprised a year from now, than say, 'Everything's fine,' and then be disappointed a year or two from now." • From a town hall meeting in Concord, N.H., Jan. 3, 2008: Question: President Bush is talking about our staying in Iraq for 50 year..." McCain: "Maybe a hundred." We've looked at this claim previously; McCain's opponents have hammered him before for this statement, but its clear from the context that McCain is not urging a 100-year war. Rather, once combat ends and there are no more U.S. casualties, he expects the United States could have troops in Iraq similar to the presence in South Korea and Japan. That presence could continue for many years, according to McCain. Here's the full exchange McCain had with a voter at a town hall meeting: Question: "President Bush has talked about our staying in Iraq for 50 years — " McCain: "Maybe a hundred." Question: "Is that — " McCain: "We've been in South Korea . . . we've been in Japan for 60 years. We've been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, that's fine with me. I hope that would be fine with you, if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training and equipping and recruiting and motivating people every single day." • From a McCain speech on May 15, 2008: McCain: "By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly." This appears to be a fair representation of McCain's views; it comes from a major policy speech he gave on what he hopes to accomplish during a first term. Here's a longer excerpt on the portion of his speech about Iraq: "By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role." • From NBC News' "Today Show," June 11, 2008: Question: "Do you now have a better estimate of when American forces can come home from Iraq?" McCain: "No, but that's not too important." This is edited to seem like McCain doesn't care about when troops come home. But judging from what McCain said next, he meant it wasn't too important if troops were in Iraq as long as the fighting was over and there were few casualties. Here's McCain's complete answer: "No. But that's not too important. What's important is the casualties in Iraq. Americans are in South Korea, Americans are in Japan, American troops are in Germany. That's all fine. American casualties and the ability to withdraw. We will be able to withdraw. General Petraeus is going to tell us in July when he thinks we are. But the key to it is we don't want any more Americans in harm's way. And that way they will be safe and serve our country, and come home with honor and victory, not in defeat, which is what Senator Obama's proposal would have done. And I'm proud of them and they're doing a great job, and we are succeeding. And it's fascinating that Senator Obama still doesn't realize that." So while the DNC ad gets some of its points accurate, it purposefully edits McCain's remarks to distort them in at least three instances (the Nightline interview, the "100 years" remark and the "not too important remark"). Two of the instances (the "Hardball" interview and the "Meet the Press" interview) are borderline; his comments address issues that affect withdrawal but aren't precisely on point. Two instances ("The Early Show" interview and McCain's speech) are fair and accurate representations of his views. While the ad is right on two items, and partially right on two items, three of the quotes are out of context and distort McCain's original meaning. This weakens the DNC's case against McCain significantly. We rate the DNC's argument that McCain has given inconsistent and erratic answers on when troops should return from Iraq Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. | null | Democratic National Committee | null | null | null | 2008-07-11T00:00:00 | 2008-07-09 | ['Iraq', 'John_McCain'] |
fani-00016 | CLAIM: “The DUP at no point has ever agreed to establish an Irish Language Act with the UK government, with the Irish government, with Sinn Féin or anybody else.” | conclusion: accurate | https://factcheckni.org/facts/thejournal-ie-did-the-dup-really-never-commit-to-an-irish-language-act/ | null | education | null | null | null | TheJournal.ie: Did the DUP really never commit to an Irish Language Act? | null | null | ['Republic_of_Ireland', 'Sinn_Féin', 'Democratic_Unionist_Party'] |
hoer-00725 | Converted Grain Silo Apartment Photographs | true messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/grain-silo-house.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Converted Grain Silo Apartment Photographs | 21st June 2010 | null | ['None'] |
abbc-00061 | The claim: Jacqui Lambie says Australia's defence spending as a ratio of GDP is the lowest it's been since pre-World War II. | in-the-red | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-25/jacqui-lambie-defence-spending-fact-check/5681688 | The claim: Jacqui Lambie says Australia's defence spending as a ratio of GDP is the lowest it's been since pre-World War II. | ['government-and-politics', 'defence-and-national-security', 'minor-parties', 'political-parties', 'australia', 'hobart-7000', 'tas'] | null | null | ['government-and-politics', 'defence-and-national-security', 'minor-parties', 'political-parties', 'australia', 'hobart-7000', 'tas'] | Fact check: Palmer United Party Senator Jacqui Lambie incorrect on defence spending | Tue 9 Sep 2014, 3:35am | null | ['Australia', 'World_War_II'] |
pomt-01603 | Says Rick Scott has "teamed up with a felon convicted of running a Ponzi scheme to smear Charlie Crist." | false | /florida/statements/2014/sep/02/charlie-crist/crist-says-rick-scott-teamed-ponzi-schemer-scott-r/ | The Republican Party of Florida attacked former Gov. Charlie Crist in a TV ad alleging that he let Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein pick judicial appointments in exchange for campaign donations. Crist’s campaign fired back with its own ad Aug. 18 that included a slew of attacks on Scott, including this one: "Now he’s teamed up with a felon convicted of running a Ponzi scheme to smear Charlie Crist with false attacks." The text on the screen states "Rothstein gets 50 years in $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme." Crist’s ad shows a photo of a grinning Rothstein wearing luxury watches and attributes that to an ABC News story from June 2010 when Rothstein was convicted. The Republicans’ ad about Rothstein used the same image. While the photo of Rothstein remains on the screen, the text of the ad says: "Scott Rothstein bought expensive things" and then the text on the screen says "FALSE ATTACKS." (The small print refers to a Sun-Sentinel article about an auction of Rothstein's possessions.) That’s a whole lot of Rothstein mash-up going on for viewers. For nearly five years, media reports have outlined how Rothstein donated generously to a long list of politicians including Crist. But this was the first we had heard of an allegation about Scott teaming up with Rothstein, so we decided to check it out. In fact, there is no evidence that Scott and Rothstein have literally "teamed up" -- what Crist is referring to is the Republican Party using the Rothstein scandal to attack Crist. The evidence that Crist cited in his ad backup was simply a news report about Rothstein’s conviction. "Ponzi schemer's words + Rick Scott's money = teaming up," Brendan Gilfillan told PolitiFact Florida in an email. Here’s the backstory on Rothstein’s connection to Crist: Rothstein was a big campaign donor to Crist and the Republican Party back when Crist was still a Republican. And Crist did put Rothstein on a panel that recommended some appeals court judges. Rothstein testified that he gave money and in exchange directed Crist’s judicial picks to the appeals bench in West Palm Beach and the Broward bench. However, we found no hard evidence that proved Rothstein dictated Crist’s picks, so we rated that claim Half True. Rothstein exited Florida politics, and then Scott entered As soon as the news surfaced about the investigation into Rothstein, the long line of politicians and political entities opening their arms to receive his donations screeched to a halt. In fact, many of them gave the money back. Scott had the good fortune to avoid Rothstein due to his timing: He entered his first race for governor in April 2010. By that date, Rothstein was behind bars and no longer a mega-campaign donor. Federal authorities revealed they were investigating Rothstein’s scheme in November 2009 and arrested him Dec. 1, 2009. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison in June 2010. Rothstein and his firm had given generously to candidates and politicians in both parties: as much as $3 million to local, state, federal candidates and political entities between 2005 and 2009. That included donations to Crist, the Republican Party of Florida and the Florida Democratic Party. So where was Scott during Rothstein’s scheme? Scott was a Republican millionaire businessman in Naples who built his career around the health care industry. Scott was forced out of the company he formed, Columbia/HCA, in 1997 amid lawsuits over Medicare billing practices that ultimately led to a $1.7 billion federal fine. In 2001, Scott cofounded Solantic Corp., a chain of walk-in urgent care centers he would later sell after he became governor. In 2009, Scott used $5 million of his own money to form Conservatives for Patients Rights to fight Obama’s health care reform. In 2010, he ran for governor. We asked Scott's campaign if Scott had ever crossed paths with Rothstein and did not get a response, but we could find no evidence that they had ever met. Our ruling Crist’s TV ad says Rick Scott has "teamed up with a felon convicted of running a Ponzi scheme to smear Charlie Crist with false attacks." This ad is vague and confusing. Scott hasn’t teamed up with Ponzi schemer Rothstein -- he was arrested in December 2009 and Scott entered his first race for governor in April 2010. The only kind of teaming up that happened is that the Republican Party of Florida made a TV ad attacking Crist for his connections to Rothstein in an ad that PolitiFact Florida rated Half True. Teaming up implies that Scott and Rothstein are in cahoots, and we’re not aware of any evidence that they crossed paths. When Scott announced his first campaign in April 2010, Rothstein had already been arrested and was awaiting sentencing. We rate this claim False. | null | Charlie Crist | null | null | null | 2014-09-02T10:59:04 | 2014-08-17 | ['Charlie_Crist'] |
vogo-00156 | Rancho Bernardo’s First Responders: Fact Check TV | none | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/fact/rancho-bernardos-first-responders-fact-check-tv/ | null | null | null | null | null | Rancho Bernardo’s First Responders: Fact Check TV | December 10, 2012 | null | ['None'] |
farg-00128 | “83 percent of the benefits go to the top 1 percent” under the GOP tax law. | misleading | https://www.factcheck.org/2018/01/democrats-misleading-tax-line/ | null | the-factcheck-wire | Democratic lawmakers | Lori Robertson | ['tax cuts'] | Democrats’ Misleading Tax Line | January 26, 2018 | [' Tuesday, January 23, 2018 '] | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
abbc-00418 | The claim: Julia Gillard says her decision not to argue against a fixed carbon price being labelled a "carbon tax" hurt her terribly politically. | in-between | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-18/julia-gillard-carbon-price-tax/4961132 | The claim: Julia Gillard says her decision not to argue against a fixed carbon price being labelled a "carbon tax" hurt her terribly politically. | ['climate-change', 'environment', 'alp', 'federal-government', 'emissions-trading', 'gillard-julia', 'australia'] | null | null | ['climate-change', 'environment', 'alp', 'federal-government', 'emissions-trading', 'gillard-julia', 'australia'] | Julia Gillard's 'carbon tax' regrets debatable | Mon 3 Feb 2014, 7:55am | null | ['Julia_Gillard'] |
goop-02252 | Kim Kardashian Went On “Insane Shopping Spree” After Signing New “KUWTK” Deal? | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/kim-kardashian-shopping-spending-spree-kuwtk-deal/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Kim Kardashian Went On “Insane Shopping Spree” After Signing New “KUWTK” Deal? | 10:36 am, November 4, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07641 | Federal spending is "all discretionary, other than interest on the national debt. Social Security is discretionary. We have the discretion to change the law. Same is true with Medicare and Medicaid." | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/mar/15/george-will/george-will-says-all-federal-spending-ultimately-d/ | Members of Congress are actively working to cut the federal budget and bring down spending. But they’re steering clear of the politically difficult, big-ticket items such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt and national defense. "It's not being debated because they say we're only going to debate discretionary spending. We should ban that word," said conservative commentator George F. Will on This Week with Christiane Amanpour. "It's all discretionary, other than interest on the national debt. Social Security is discretionary. We have the discretion to change the law. Same is true with Medicare and Medicaid," Will said. We thought Will’s statement was a provocative and interesting way to frame the debate. But was it true? We decided to check it out. We’ll begin with a brief lesson on the terms Congress uses to describe the federal budget. Discretionary spending means government spending that Congress sets every year through a process known as appropriations. It includes spending for most federal agencies, such as transportation and health. It includes foreign aid and defense spending. And it includes most grant programs administered by the federal government. Non-discretionary spending, on the other hand, is spending that is controlled by legislation that sets eligibility criteria or spending formulas. It includes entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security in which you are legally entitled to benefits as long as you meet certain criteria. It also typically includes programs for which individuals automatically qualify, such as farm subsidies or military benefits. Sometimes non-discretionary spending is called mandatory spending or direct spending. We ran Will’s comments by four experts on the federal budget. They all said that Will was essentially correct, that non-discretionary spending can be changed at any time by passing new legislation that changes the particular program. A recent example of this is the health care law supported by President Obama and Democrats in Congress. The law made many changes to Medicare, to reduce its spending, in order to offer subsidies for health care insurance to the uninsured. "There is no constitutional roadblock to Congress changing any spending at any time. In that sense, all spending is discretionary," said Marc Goldwein, policy director for the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The reasons members of Congress are now so focused on discretionary spending is because it’s more politically difficult to change programs that affect benefits for so many voters. "But you can’t stabilize the debt by focusing on only 12 percent of the budget," Goldwein added. "Trying to do so is going to make the cuts far more painful than what would be necessary if we were to look more broadly." Both Medicare and Social Security were on the table in previous years when the budget needed adjustment, said the experts we consulted on both sides of the political aisle. Jim Horney of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted that "every major deficit reduction plan in the last 20 years has made significant changes to Medicare." Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation pointed out that Social Security was changed significantly in 1983 in a deal between Democrats in Congress and President Ronald Reagan. Interest on the federal debt is a required payment unless the government is willing to default, a highly unlikely scenario. There are a few other contractually obligated payments the government has to make, typically for insurance programs such as mortgage insurance, flood insurance, and federal deposit insurance. But those payments are relatively small. "I would add that even interest on the debt is in some way discretionary, because levels of debt can be changed by decisions to tax and spend and not run budget deficits," said Josh Gordon, policy director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group that wants to eliminate deficits. Will said that federal spending is "all discretionary, other than interest on the national debt. Social Security is discretionary. We have the discretion to change the law. Same is true with Medicare and Medicaid." Will is making a broad statement here and leaves out a few details. But he’s largely correct, and we rate his statement True. | null | George Will | null | null | null | 2011-03-15T17:22:31 | 2011-03-13 | ['Medicare_(United_States)', 'Social_Security_(United_States)'] |
pomt-09052 | He "stood up to Barack Obama by passing legislation that prevents you from being forced to join government health plans or buy health insurance against your will." | half-true | /georgia/statements/2010/jul/01/judson-hill/state-senator-said-hes-fighting-obama-health-care/ | State Sen. Judson Hill told voters he entered the ring against President Barack Obama and won. The Marietta Republican is running for re-election in a contest that is already knee-deep in mud. Hill fired back with a mailer that reminded his constituents about early voting and announced that "Senator Judson Hill Is Standing Up To Barack Obama's Socialist Healthcare." "Judson Hill is leading the charge," the mailer said. "This year Judson stood up to Barack Obama by passing legislation that prevents you from being forced to join government health plans or buy health insurance against your will." Hill's mailer referred to his work on Senate Bill 411, which was signed into law June 2. The bill bans any law that requires individuals to purchase health insurance. Such a mandate was a crucial element of federal health care legislation passed this spring. But did Hill really score an Obama K.O.? Does the state law really prevent you from "being forced to join government health plans"? Republicans spent months in Congress unsuccessfully arguing that Democrats' health efforts would infringe upon individual liberties and hurt the quality of care. Now the battleground has moved to the states. Governors and legislators across the nation are working to pass measures that prevent the health care overhaul from taking effect inside their borders. Some filed a suit against the federal government in March that Georgia joined in May. Hill labored for much of this year's legislative session on the Georgia effort. First, he sponsored Senate Resolution 794, which would have amended the state constitution to let Georgians opt out of federally mandated health care. When that effort failed, Hill tried to amend state law by sponsoring SB 317, which stated that "no law or rule or regulation shall compel any person, employer, or health care provider to participate in any health care system." This bill passed in the Senate but withered in the House. Hill's effort succeeded after language from SB 317 was added to SB 411, the Healthy Georgians Act of 2010, which was originally proposed to change the regulation of wellness plans. It was signed into law June 2. SB 411 would -- in theory -- block a provision of the federal health care overhaul that requires most U.S. citizens and legal residents to have health care coverage by 2014 or be subject to a tax. This is often called an "individual mandate" for health insurance. But it's not clear whether the new law has any teeth. Its fate rests on constitutional issues that go well beyond this state. The Hill campaign acknowledged as much. The mandate doesn't go into effect for about four years, and a lot of things can change before then. "A lot of it is sort of a waiting game," said Jeremy Brand, a spokesman for the campaign. Other proponents agree. The American Legislative Exchange Council, which advocates for free markets and limited government, is coordinating the nationwide effort for states to enact legislation and constitutional amendments blocking the mandate. It assisted with drafting and researching the Georgia bill, said Christie Herrera, director of ALEC's Health and Human Services Task Force. Hill is a task force member. The bill is designed to position Georgia to fight the individual mandate by giving it standing in an ongoing lawsuit filed in March by multiple states' attorneys general against the federal health care legislation, Herrera said. If that challenge is unsuccessful, the bill would open the door for Georgia to file its own suit arguing the law violates the 10th Amendment, which defines states' rights. And if all else fails, the bill makes it possible for the state attorney general to sue after the mandate goes into effect in 2014 on behalf of Georgians he or she thinks were harmed by the individual mandate. "I would say that there is never a guarantee of success when a state challenges the federal government. However, to the extent that the state Legislature can stop the federal individual mandate, then SB 411 is the best possible defense," Herrera said in an e-mail to PolitiFact Georgia. Backers of Georgia's efforts think a constitutional challenge may succeed, but this opinion is far from unanimous. A February article in The New England Journal of Medicine written by a legal scholar calls the success of a constitutional challenge "very unlikely" because the court would have to reject "decades of precedents." Larry Palmer, a specialist in health law and policy with the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Va., said in a March article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that state action will likely have little impact because the federal government has "extremely broad" power to provide incentives and disincentives through the tax code. State Attorney General Thurbert Baker declined to join the multistate suit because he thought the lawsuit would fail and waste taxpayers' money. Georgia only joined the suit after Gov. Sonny Perdue found a team of attorneys willing to fight the federal legislation at no cost to the state. While it's true that SB 411 did stand up to the Obama-backed health care overhaul, it's far from clear that the law can actually be enforced. There is a chance that the bill, in the future, will allow Georgians to opt out of federal health care requirements. But for now, that pronouncement is premature. We rate Hill's claim Half True. | null | Judson Hill | null | null | null | 2010-07-01T06:00:00 | 2010-06-21 | ['None'] |
pomt-15000 | When we had a conservative Republican president we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/11/debbie-wasserman-schultz/wasserman-schultz-under-conservative-republican-pr/ | It’s been nearly eight years since George W. Bush was president, but Democrats still plan to run against him. Certainly, that’s what Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz promised on the eve of the first Democratic presidential debate. "There are so many people who are focused on making sure we can look at the fact that, when we had a conservative Republican president, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month," Wasserman Schultz said on CNN’s State of the Union Oct. 11, 2015. "We’ve come through that -- 67 straight months of job growth in the private sector. People are no longer losing their homes. That’s the contrast we’ll talk about." The DNC press office told us that Wasserman Schultz was thinking of President George W. Bush, and that the time period she had in mind were the last few months of his presidency, November through January. President Barack Obama took office on Jan. 20, 2009, so it’s reasonable to count that month as part of the Bush legacy. We pulled up the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers and Wasserman Schultz is on solid ground. Month Jobs (000’s) Loss Nov 135,469 -765 Dec 134,773 -696 Jan 133,977 -796 Average -752 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Benchmark comparison The number is particularly high because Wasserman Schultz chose the three worst months of the Bush presidency. If she had chosen a longer period, say the last full year, the losses would have averaged about 365,000 per month. The losses would shrink even more if you look at longer period of time. Wasserman Schultz didn’t mention that the economy continued to shed jobs at or above the 700,000 mark for the first two months of Obama’s presidency before the trend began to ease. This chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics gives a more complete jobs picture. The Great Recession saw employment declines of historic proportions. Government analysts compared the relative losses from 2007 to 2009 to past downturns. The bottom purple line on their chart tracks jobs in the Great Recession which officially began December 2007. Of course, Wasserman Schultz’s statement implies that conservative Republican policies alone brought about a massive loss of jobs and the reality is more complicated. Some analysts believe that a portion of the blame goes back to policies that enjoyed Democratic support, including changes in financial regulation passed during the Clinton administration. But Wasserman Schultz did not make that claim specifically. Our ruling Wasserman Schultz said that under a conservative Republican president the country was losing 750,000 jobs a month. Wasserman Schultz was speaking of President George W. Bush and at the end of his term, the monthly job losses averaged about 750,000 jobs. The average would of course be less if she had included Bush’s final 12 months -- or a period longer than that. There is an element of cherry-picking here, but the overall point holds up. We rate the claim Mostly True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/6d5af593-9ef2-49e7-8598-c0a566e08873 | null | Debbie Wasserman Schultz | null | null | null | 2015-10-11T17:08:17 | 2015-10-11 | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
bove-00096 | “Pure, Utter Rubbish,” Says Raghuram Rajan About Fake Quote On PNB Scam | none | https://www.boomlive.in/pure-utter-rubbish-says-raghuram-rajan-about-fake-quote-on-pnb-scam/ | null | null | null | null | null | “Pure, Utter Rubbish,” Says Raghuram Rajan About Fake Quote On PNB Scam | Mar 10 2018 10:39 pm, Last Updated: Mar 15 2018 12:37 pm | null | ['None'] |
vees-00060 | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Stephen Curry called Filipinos 'stupid' for voting for Duterte | fake | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-check-stephen-curry-did-not-call-filipinos-s | null | null | null | null | Duterte,fake news,stephen curry,stupid | VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Stephen Curry DID NOT call Filipinos 'stupid' for voting for Duterte | September 14, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-03478 | Donald Trump's Christmas ornaments were all made in China. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/donald-trump-themed-ornaments-made-in-china/ | null | Politicians | null | Dan Evon | null | Donald Trump-Themed Ornaments Made in China | 26 November 2016 | null | ['China'] |
snes-00845 | Far Right Blogs, Conspiracy Theorists Attack Parkland Mass Shooting Survivor | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/david-hogg-attend-california-high-school/ | null | Junk News | null | Bethania Palma | null | Did David Hogg Attend a California High School? | 26 March 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-08225 | The (federal) debt is growing by more than $4 billion a day. | true | /texas/statements/2010/nov/17/rick-perry/gov-rick-perry-says-national-debt-increasing-more-/ | In his book Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America from Washington, Gov. Rick Perry calls the federal debt "too overwhelming to comprehend." "The national debt is already more than $13.4 trillion," he writes. "For perspective, that is over $43,000 per man, woman and child in America. Worse yet, the debt is growing by more than $4 billion a day." Or more than $2.7 million a minute and more than $46,000 per second. Yikes. Is Perry's call right? A footnote in Perry's book cites a Bloomberg news article that says "the budget deficit will be $1.5 trillion next year... higher than previous Obama administration forecasts because of a recession that was deeper and longer than expected, White House budget chief Peter Orszag said." (The book incorrectly says the article was written Aug. 25, 2010; it was last updated online Aug. 25, 2009.) The public debt is the sum of each year's spending deficits. Most years we spend more than we take in, and we have to make up that gap by borrowing. Clinton announced a surplus in September 1998 — the first U.S. budget surplus in 29 years. Federal budgets were balanced in both fiscal 1999 and fiscal 2000, and 2001 was the last year we had a surplus. That wasn't the expectation of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which issued this cheerful report in 2002: "The outlook for the federal budget over the next decade continues to be bright. Assuming that current tax and spending policies are maintained, the Congressional Budget Office projects that mounting federal revenues will continue to outstrip spending and produce growing budget surpluses for the next 10 years." At the time, the CBO estimated $5.6 trillion in surpluses by 2011. But we digress — back to the grimmer future. Perry spokeswoman Catherine Frazier also pointed us to the CBO's March 2010 analysis of President Barack Obama's budget proposals for fiscal year 2011. "The CBO projected the same (debt) figure around the time the book was being compiled," she said. The CBO found that if Obama's proposals — including the health care overhaul — were enacted, the federal government's deficits would total $1.5 trillion in fiscal year 2010 (which ended Sept. 30) and $1.3 trillion in 2011. Divide the CBO's projected addition of $1.5 trillion in debt in 2010 by the 365 days in a year, and you have about $4.1 billion in debt each day. And the $1.3 trillion in 2011? About $3.6 billion each day. What does that tell us? Josh Gordon, policy director at the Concord Coalition, a group that advocates fiscal responsibility, agreed that people have a hard time wrapping their heads around trillions of dollars of public debt. Also, Gordon cautioned against interpreting the per-day spending rate as as a reflection on Washington policy makers as opposed to the health of the economy. "We always like to measure debt as a percent of the economy, because as the economy grows, the key question is whether the debt is growing more slowly or more quickly," he said. That is, surging debt is worse if the economy is sagging. According to the CBO analysis noted by Perry's spokeswoman, the projected 2010 and 2011 deficits were expected to amount to 10.3 and 8.9 percent of the gross domestic product, respectively. "By comparison," the report says, "the deficit in 2009 totaled 9.9 percent of the GDP." The U.S. Treasury tracks a daily history of total public debt — to the penny. On Nov. 9, total public debt outstanding was $13,727,147,399,038.59 — about $13.7 trillion, according to the Treasury. That's up from $13,725,166,759,183.46 on Nov. 8, a difference of about $2 billion. And that's up $1.8 billion from Nov. 5. Finally, we chased more recent data since the CBO estimates that Perry cites were from March. In August, the CBO projected the 2011 deficit would be about $1.1 trillion — assuming tax cuts signed into law by then-President George W. Bush in 2001 expire at the end of the year. And on Oct. 7, the CBO estimated that the federal budget deficit was "slightly less than $1.3 trillion fiscal year 2010, down from slightly more than $1.4 trillion in 2009." That's a debt increase of about $3.5 billion and $3.8 billion per day, respectively. "Outlays were lower and revenues were higher than previously expected," the CBO's analysis says. Upshot: We think it's reasonable to pause where Perry's research team landed in March. At that time, the CBO estimated the government would record $1.5 trillion in debt for fiscal year 2010, which breaks down to about $4.1 billion per day, though (as we note) those figures have since ratcheted down a bit. We're persuaded too that a case could be made for paying closer attention to the shifting ratio of the debt to the GDP. Regardless, Perry's calculation was on target. We rate his statement as True. | null | Rick Perry | null | null | null | 2010-11-17T10:08:02 | 2010-11-02 | ['None'] |
pomt-12101 | At the PEAK of slavery in 1860, only 1.4% of Americans owned slaves. What your history books (don't) tell you is that 3,000 blacks owned a total of 20,000 slaves the same year. | false | /punditfact/statements/2017/aug/24/viral-image/viral-post-gets-it-wrong-extent-slavery-1860/ | Confederate-themed posts are cropping up on social media in the wake of the Unite the Right march in Charlottesville, Va. The march was sparked by efforts to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee and included some marchers carrying Confederate symbols. One viral post sent to us by a reader said, "At the PEAK of slavery in 1860, only 1.4% of Americans owned slaves. What your history books doesn’t tell you is that 3,000 blacks owned a total of 20,000 slaves the same year." The post is signed, "Proud Southern Deplorable - Southern Rebel" and goes on to say, "If you're sick of the race baiting, please LIKE and SHARE." When we took a closer look, we found that the percentage of slaveholding families was dramatically higher than what the meme said, and that the number of slaves owned by blacks was presented in a misleading way. 'At the PEAK of Slavery in 1860, Only 1.4% of Americans owned slaves.' The primary source of data about slaves and slaveholding in 1860 is that year’s census. Census data from 1860 isn’t perfect, said University of North Carolina historian Joseph T. Glatthaar, author of Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served under Robert E. Lee. But it remains "the best evidence we have." In the big picture, the 1860 Census counted a total of 31,443,321 people, of which 3,953,760 were slaves. So slaves accounted for 12.6 percent of the national population. However, to address the assertion in the post requires more detailed data. Many states had outlawed slavery by 1860, so the national population figure dilutes the measurement by including many Americans whose states did not allow them to own slaves. The national population figure also includes slaves and children, and it doesn’t account either for family groupings or how many slaves a given family owned. So experts say that a more accurate measure of slaveholding in 1860 America would focus on states that allowed slavery, and would zero in on family or household units, as a way of limiting the statistical noise caused by counting slaves and children. "The number that really matters is how many American households in the South had slaves," said Adam Goodheart, a Washington College historian and author of 1861: The Civil War Awakening. Using Census data to research his book, Glatthaar calculated that 4.9 percent of people in the slaveholding states owned slaves, that 19.9 percent of family units in those states owned slaves, and that 24.9 percent of households owned slaves. (Households are a broader category than families.) See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com Each of these figures is significantly higher than the 1.4 percent cited in the social media post. State-by-state figures show some variation. In Mississippi, 49 percent of families owned slaves, and in South Carolina, 46 percent did. In border states, the percentage was lower -- 3 percent in Delaware and 12 percent in Maryland. The median for slaveholding states was about 27 percent. Using the same data, it's possible to calculate the statistic of dubious value cited in the viral image -- the percentage of all American families that owned slaves. The answer: 7.4 percent, which about five times greater than what the meme says. It's also possible that the Census data is misleadingly low, Goodheart said. "Many non-slaveholding whites in the South rented slaves from wealthier slaveholders," he said. "So it was very common for a white Southerner to be a 'slave master' but not technically a 'slave owner." See Figure 2 on PolitiFact.com '3,000 blacks owned a total of 20,000 slaves the same year.' We were unable to find hard data to debunk -- or support -- this figure. The most solid data we found was published in an article in the Root by Henry Louis Gates Jr., a Harvard University historian. Gates cited research by Carter G. Woodson, an African-American historian who died in 1950. He found that in 1830, a total of "3,776 free Negroes owned 12,907 slaves." With three more decades of population growth, it’s plausible that the number of black-owned slaves could have grown to 20,000 by 1860, historians told us. "I'd imagine that the (20,000 figure) quoted in the meme is probably not that far off from being true," said Junius Rodriguez, a Eureka College historian and author of Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia. But the 20,000 number is not necessarily as eye-popping as the meme makes it out to be. For starters, even if the number is accurate, it would still account for just a tiny percentage of all slaves held in the United States in 1860 -- specifically, one half of 1 percent. That runs contrary to the post’s framing. "That’s a very small number compared to Latin American or Caribbean societies," said Stephanie McCurry, a Columbia University historian and author of Confederate Reckoning: Power and Politics in the Civil War South. In addition, the figure is almost certainly inflated by a legal quirk in most antebellum southern states. It includes "many ‘owned’ family members whom they had purchased to become free," said Eric Foner, a Columbia University historian and the author of such books as The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery. "You could not free a slave in most southern states without sending them out of the state." Gates, writing in the Root, noted that the late historian Thomas J. Pressly used Woodson's statistics for 1830 to determine that about 42 percent of these black slaveholders owned just one slave. To Gates, this suggests that many -- though hardly all -- black "slaveholders" legally needed to "own" a family member such as a wife or child. As Woodson wrote in his 1924 book Free Negro Owners of Slaves in the United States in 1830, "In many instances the husband purchased the wife or vice versa. … Slaves of Negroes were in some cases the children of a free father who had purchased his wife. If he did not thereafter emancipate the mother, as so many such husbands failed to do, his own children were born his slaves and were thus reported to the numerators." In other cases, Woodson wrote, "Benevolent Negroes often purchased slaves to make their lot easier by granting them their freedom for a nominal sum, or by permitting them to work it out on liberal terms." Our ruling The viral post said that "at the PEAK of slavery in 1860, only 1.4% of Americans owned slaves. What your history books doesn’t tell you is that 3,000 blacks owned a total of 20,000 slaves the same year." In reality, far more than 1.4 percent of families in slaveholding states -- the most reasonable way to measure it -- owned slaves. The number was between 20 and 25 percent, and in some states, the rate was twice as high. As for black-owned slaves, they certainly existed, but they represented a tiny fraction of all slaves in the United States, and many were likely "owned" by their spouses or parents due to the prevailing laws in many slaveholding states. We rate the statement False. See Figure 4 on PolitiFact.com | null | Viral image | null | null | null | 2017-08-24T14:33:49 | 2017-08-22 | ['United_States'] |
vogo-00656 | Statement: The city of San Diego responded to 100 percent of pothole repairs within 72 hours of citizen notification during the 2009 fiscal year, according to annual budget documents. | determination: false | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/fact/the-pothole-pledge/ | Analysis: How the city calculates its response time does not reflect how long citizens wait for their complaints to be addressed. It uses an incomplete amount of data and includes some requests that resulted in no pothole repairs. In fact, the city’s calculation actually makes its response appear faster than reality. | null | null | null | null | The Pothole Pledge | January 21, 2010 | null | ['San_Diego'] |
vogo-00503 | Statement: “The average annual salary of general employees working for the city is $53,000, while their average pension is $37,000 after dedicating three decades of their professional lives to the city,” Michael Zucchet, a city of San Diego union leader, wrote in a Union-Tribune op-ed Oct. 7. | determination: mostly true | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/fact-check-cadillac-benefits-or-honda/ | Analysis: City of San Diego employees seem to face disparagement every week over their salaries and retirement benefits. | null | null | null | null | Fact Check: Cadillac Benefits? Or Honda? | October 19, 2010 | null | ['San_Diego', 'U-T_San_Diego'] |
goop-01488 | Justin Theroux Writing “Scathing Tell-All” About Jennifer Aniston, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/justin-theroux-jennifer-aniston-tell-all-secrets-untrue/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Justin Theroux NOT Writing “Scathing Tell-All” About Jennifer Aniston, Despite Report | 9:59 am, February 27, 2018 | null | ['Jennifer_Aniston'] |
pomt-14632 | I have not insulted Donald personally. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/28/ted-cruz/ted-cruz-said-he-never-insulted-donald-trump-recor/ | During the Fox News-Google debate in Des Moines, Iowa, Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz said he’s taken the high road in his squabbling with fellow candidate -- and frontrunner -- Donald Trump. "I have not insulted Donald personally, and I don't intend to," Cruz said during the Jan. 28, 2016, debate. We wondered, is Cruz’s claim accurate? Not really. Cruz, who once had a warm relationship with Trump, has been increasingly taking jabs at him, ever since Trump attacked him for possibly not qualifying for the presidency (due to his birth in Canada) and for saying things like, "Ted is a nasty guy. People don't like him." (Cruz’s staff did not respond to an inquiry.) One attack line Cruz has used that might be considered a personal insult is that Trump embodies "New York values." During a previous GOP debate in North Charleston, S.C., moderator Maria Bartiromo pressed Cruz on his use of that line. The Texas senator doubled down. "You know, I think most people know exactly what New York values are," Cruz said. "I am from New York," Bartiromo said. "I don't." Cruz responded, "What? You're from New York? So you might not. But I promise you, in the state of South Carolina, they do." Later in the debate, Trump parried Cruz’s attack by citing the city’s response to the 9/11 attacks as examples of "New York values." Trump received plaudits from many observers for his counter-shot, but that didn’t stop Cruz from later releasing a television ad with the closing line, "Donald Trump: New York values. Not ours." Another example of a Cruz swipe at Trump: After Trump pulled out of the Des Moines debate, saying that Fox moderator Megyn Kelly was biased against him, Cruz mockingly referred to the businessman as "gentle Donald" at a West Des Moines event. "Apparently Mr. Trump considers Megyn Kelly very, very scary," Cruz continued. "And, you know, Donald is a fragile soul." He also said that debate questioning could make Trump’s hair "stand on end." Cruz also had a joke at Trump’s expense during an appearance at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Iowa. Cruz referred to Trump’s earlier citation of "two Corinthians" in the Bible, rather than the more usual title, "Second Corinthians." Cruz joked, "Two Corinthians walk into a bar -- Ah, yes, Ricardo Montalban -- genuine Corinthian leather!" (Those Cruz’s age or older may recall the old Chrysler Cordoba commercials in which Montalban, the late, debonair actor, touted the car’s "Corinthian leather," which was actually a figment of the carmaker’s marketing imagination.) Then there’s the line Cruz used earlier in the very same Des Moines debate in which he made light of the absent Trump’s habit of insulting his fellow candidates: "Let me say I’m a maniac and everyone on this stage is stupid, fat and ugly. And Ben (Carson), you’re a terrible surgeon. Now that we’ve gotten the Donald Trump portion out of the way…." To be fair to Cruz, there’s a fuzzy line between making personal insults and fair-game critiques. And Todd J. Gillman has written in the Dallas Morning News that Cruz’s attacks "are sharp but indirect. And usually, he leaves enough wiggle room that Iowans believe him when he insists that he’s the one taking the high road, refraining from name-calling and personal insult." For instance, Gillman cited a comment Cruz made on the Christian Broadcasting Network, that "this election is not about any one person, any one individual who believes he or she will make America great. You know what, for seven years we’ve had a president in the White House who has had a Messiah complex." Gillman asked, "Did Cruz say Trump has a Messiah complex? Not exactly, but it definitely sounded that way." Our ruling Cruz said, "I have not insulted Donald personally." Determining what qualifies as an "insult" is somewhat in the eye of the beholder, but Cruz has certainly mocked Trump during several recent public appearances. We rate his statement Mostly False. | null | Ted Cruz | null | null | null | 2016-01-28T22:59:25 | 2016-01-28 | ['None'] |
pomt-13104 | The photonics bill that was sponsored in Congress and written, was written by Congressman Tom Reed, not Congresswoman Louise Slaughter. | false | /new-york/statements/2016/nov/04/mark-assini/photonics-funding-rochester-came-reed-bill/ | U.S. Rep. Louise Slaughter, D- Fairport, often takes credit for a new photonics manufacturing institute coming to Rochester. But her Republican opponent for the 25th Congressional District seat says the credit belongs elsewhere. During a debate, Gates Town Supervisor Mark Assini credited a congressman from another district in New York State for securing the photonics funding. "The photonics bill that was sponsored in Congress and written, was written by Congressman Tom Reed, not Congresswoman Louise Slaughter," said Assini, a Republican. Reed, R-Corning, represents a congressional district south of Rochester. "There's about 100 co-sponsors on this bill, and guess whose name was not on that co-sponsorship list?" Assini asked. Slaughter replied that her work on the project took place several years before Reed introduced his bill in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. "So he didn’t have a thing in the world to do with it, didn’t even have it decide to be photonics and to have it come to Rochester," she said. So, who’s right? The photonics timeline Vice President Joseph R. Biden and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced the American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics in Rochester last year. When completed, the institute is expected to add hundreds of new jobs to the region. It’s one of the largest investments in Rochester by the state and federal governments in recent years. Assini does not dispute Slaughter supported the project, but he believes she had no part in the legislation that brought the institute to the region. In fact, there was no legislation that led to the photonics institute. It was the result of an Obama administration initiative to spur advanced manufacturing in the United States, largely funded out of existing Defense Department money. In 2012, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology issued a report with its recommendations for boosting manufacturing investment and innovation. Among those recommendations: a "national network of innovation institutes." In response to that recommendation, the Obama administration created the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation in 2014. The network brings together research institutions, private-sector companies and nonprofits to come up with innovations in advanced manufacturing. No member of Congress had to do anything to secure funding. The money was already in the Department of Defense, which announced funding for creation of a photonics institute in 2014. Slaughter did send three letters that year asking the Obama administration to consider Rochester as a location for one of the institutes created under the program. But it was SUNY Polytechnic Institute that submitted the Rochester proposal on behalf of the SUNY Research Foundation and a consortium of 124 companies, nonprofits and universities. No elected officials, including Slaughter, were involved in writing and submitting the application, according to Empire State Development. In June 2015, Cuomo, Biden and other lawmakers announced state and federal funding for the institute. Where did the funding come from? Assini says his debate reference was to the Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation Act of 2014, or RAMI. Under RAMI, the Secretary of Defense can provide financial assistance "to a person or group of persons to assist the organization in planning, establishing, or supporting a center for manufacturing innovation." The bill was sponsored by Reed in the House, but did not pass as a standalone bill. It was later included in an omnibus spending bill that became law in December 2014. RAMI had nothing to do with the Rochester institute, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Rochester institute would have been approved and funded even if RAMI had not passed. The funding had already been announced by the Department of Defense before RAMI became law in December 2014. Our ruling At a debate between candidates in the 25th Congressional District, Assini said, "The photonics bill that was sponsored in Congress and written, was written by Congressman Tom Reed, not Congresswoman Louise Slaughter." Financial support for the new photonics institute comes from Department of Defense funds that existed before Congress approved the Revitalize American Manufacturing and Innovation Act of 2014. The Department of Defense says Rochester was selected based on the application prepared by SUNY Polytechnic Institute. The state says no lawmakers were involved in crafting the application, but Slaughter did ask the Obama administration to consider Rochester in the selection process. We rate Assini’s claim as False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/0a6ff59a-dc68-4f2b-907f-a66231686f02 | null | Mark Assini | null | null | null | 2016-11-04T17:42:33 | 2016-10-18 | ['United_States_Congress', 'Louise_Slaughter', 'United_States_House_of_Representatives'] |
chct-00037 | FACT CHECK: Have Immigrant Child Detentions Increased By 433 Percent? | verdict: true | http://checkyourfact.com/2018/10/09/fact-check-unaccompanied-minor-433-percent/ | null | null | null | Brad Sylvester | Fact Check Reporter | null | null | 10:20 AM 10/09/2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01807 | Beware of New Killer Insect from India | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/beware-of-new-killer-insect-from-india-fiction/ | null | health-medical | null | null | null | Beware of New Killer Insect from India | Jan 19, 2016 | null | ['None'] |
tron-01004 | CONFICKER or DOWNADUP Virus and the April 1 Super Strain | virus! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/conficke-downadup/ | null | computers | null | null | null | CONFICKER or DOWNADUP Virus and the April 1 Super Strain | Mar 13, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-06451 | Even a 100 percent tax on millionaires would only fund four months of government operations, failing to seriously address budget deficits and debt. | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2011/oct/20/paul-ryan/ryan-says-100-percent-tax-millionaires-would-only-/ | In the view of U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the government should limit the subsidies given to the wealthy through Social Security and other entitlement programs. But the House Budget Committee chairman is against slapping higher tax rates on millionaires -- the plan President Barack Obama and other Democrats are pushing in the name of tax fairness and deficit reduction. In early October, Senate Democrats backed the president’s 5.6 percent surcharge on income over $1 million. Ryan argues some small businesses would get hurt by the approach because of the way they file taxes. And more taxes on the rich don’t add up to much when compared with the deficit and debt, Ryan said Oct. 9, 2011 on NBC’s "Meet the Press." "If you took all the income from every millionaire in America today, it would run the government for about four months." he said. "I have a better idea. Instead of job-killing tax increases why don’t we just stop subsidizing wealthy people? Let’s go after the crony capitalism, the corporate welfare in the tax code, in spending. And why don’t we income adjust our spending programs so we don’t subsidize wealthy people as much? I think that’s a better idea to get more savings in the budget, and get our debt down without doing economic damage." That first sound bite -- discussing in hypothetical terms the impact of a 100 percent tax rate on people making $1 million a year -- drew some attention. So we decided to take a look. A critical bit of background: America’s millionaire-earners club has shrunk in size during hard times -- 235,000 tax returns listed adjusted gross income over $1 million in 2009, down 26 percent from the 320,000 a year earlier. (Editor's note: For clarity, we added the word "earners" to this paragraph. 10/21/2010) So the year matters in Ryan’s comparison. (PolitiFact Wisconsin has examined claims about the wealthy before. On March 10, 2011, we rated True a statement by liberal filmmaker Michael Moore that 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. Moore referred to net worth rather than income.) We asked Ryan’s office for support for his claim, and were pointed to analyses by the Tax Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. Ryan based his math on one that used 2008 IRS numbers, while citing some arguments from another that was based on 2009 figures. The 2009 data, which came out in summer 2011, is the latest available. It shows $727 billion in income reported by the million-and-up set in 2009, based on the adjusted gross income line on the federal tax return. In the same year, you could have run the $3.5 trillion federal government for about 2.5 months on that income, according to our calculations and those of the Tax Foundation’s David Logan, an economist whose work Ryan cited. Ryan’s office said he was basing his statement on the now-outdated 2008 IRS data that showed about $1.07 trillion in income from people making more than $1 million. Run that into the $2.9 trillion federal budget for 2008 and you do get the four months Ryan mentioned. (We found there’s another way to get to four months: Use a broader income measure favored by some researchers, including those at the Tax Policy Center, another Washington, D.C.-based research organization. That measure, though, goes beyond the "adjusted gross income" used on federal tax forms.) So, settling the math: By choosing 2008, Ryan was using outdated numbers … but also more conservative ones. His point would have been stronger with the new numbers, showing government could be run for an even shorter period. Now, what about the way Ryan presents the statement? Critics said Ryan’s quip falsely implied that some Democrat is actually proposing a 100% tax on millionaires to run the government. We think that’s a bit too literal; Ryan is clearly raising a hypothetical to make a point. But what specific point was he trying to make? Ryan spokesman Kevin Seifert told us his point was that raising income taxes on higher-income earners "would not address the federal government’s debt and deficits." Ryan uses a wildly hypothetical scenario. A 100 percent tax obviously would have negative effects and is a political non-starter. But Ryan is using it to address a serious issue, so let’s take it at face value for a moment. By our calculation, the U.S. government would have taken in $800 billion more in tax revenue if it had taxed people making more than $1 million at 100 percent, according to IRS data from 2008, the year Ryan used as his base point. That doesn’t make much of dent in America’s $14 trillion debt, to be sure. But if we’re talking about the deficit, which Ryan did on "Meet the Press," that $800 billion would have wiped out the 2008 deficit -- with another $370 billion to spare. Looked at that way, the number undermines Ryan’s larger point. Our conclusion Ryan conjures a hypothetical to make a point about the limits of taxation for budget savings, saying that that even a 100% tax on people making more than $1 million would run the government only for about four months. He’s right, if you use slightly outdated data or adopt a measure that’s not as on point as the one he uses. Newer data tells a bit different story, even while somewhat bolstering Ryan’s point. But he misfires in suggesting a limited budget impact from such a hypothetical tax. In the year he chose, the federal deficit would have been wiped out. So, Ryan is close to the mark on his math but the details work against his overall point. We rate his claim Half True. | null | Paul Ryan | null | null | null | 2011-10-20T09:00:00 | 2011-10-09 | ['None'] |
snes-04908 | Photograph depicts massive rally for Bernie Sanders in Washington Square Park in April 2016. | miscaptioned | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/as-the-world-berned-picture/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Kim LaCapria | null | ‘As the World Berned’ | 15 April 2016 | null | ['Washington_Square_Park', 'Bernie_Sanders'] |
abbc-00323 | The claim: Tanya Plibersek says terrific OECD data shows that the larger the difference between the richest and the poorest, the less likely it is that a country's growth will be strong. | in-between | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-02/does-the-gap-between-rich-and-poor-affect-a-countrys-growth/5906486 | The claim: Tanya Plibersek says terrific OECD data shows that the larger the difference between the richest and the poorest, the less likely it is that a country's growth will be strong. | ['world-politics', 'alp', 'political-parties', 'government-and-politics', 'federal-government', 'australia'] | null | null | ['world-politics', 'alp', 'political-parties', 'government-and-politics', 'federal-government', 'australia'] | Fact check: Does the gap between rich and poor affect a country's growth? | Thu 11 Dec 2014, 12:44am | null | ['None'] |
farg-00463 | “Court Orders Obama To Pay $400 Million In Restitution.” | false | https://www.factcheck.org/2018/03/obama-not-ordered-pay-400m-restitution/ | null | fake-news | FactCheck.org | Angelo Fichera | ['Iran'] | Obama Not Ordered to Pay $400M Restitution | March 14, 2018 | 2018-03-14 20:24:27 UTC | ['None'] |
vogo-00111 | Statement: “The two border sections with triple fencing outside San Diego reduced infiltration by 92 percent,” Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote in an April 4 column. | determination: false | https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/news/the-phantom-triple-fence-fact-check/ | Analysis: Washington is trying out immigration reform again and border security looms large in that conversation. | null | null | null | null | The Phantom Triple Fence: Fact Check | May 15, 2013 | null | ['Charles_Krauthammer', 'The_Washington_Post', 'San_Diego'] |
pomt-08133 | They tried to give us $400 million to build a high-speed train that goes 39 miles an hour. | half-true | /ohio/statements/2010/dec/08/john-kasich/ohio-gov-elect-john-kasich-rejects-passenger-train/ | Gov.-elect John Kasich rarely minces words when it comes to the proposed Cleveland-to-Cincinnati passenger train, declaring the idea "dead" under his watch while deriding the locomotives "high speed" moniker. The train, supported by outgoing Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, would operate four times a day, making six stops (including Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati) over its 258-mile trek across Ohio. And it comes with a $400 million check from the federal government, enough to get the train up and running by late 2012, supporters say. The rail plan Kasich says prefers -- one to get Ohio’s economy moving forward -- is to get more freight trains to ship goods made in Ohio to out-of-state places. He calls the passenger train a "money pit" because it is estimated it will cost the state about $17 million annually to maintain and operate it, with no guarantee enough Ohioans will buy tickets to eat up those expenses. But most of Kasich’s criticism about the passenger train has targeted its projected speed. "They tried to give us $400 million to build a high-speed train that goes 39 miles an hour," Kasich told CNN reporter John King during a television interview on Nov. 19. He said something similar the day after his election during a news conference in Columbus. Kasich recalled being in a deli in Plain City while on the campaign trail where a model train was set up inside the restaurant going in a huge circle. "You know, I think that (toy) train goes faster than the 39 mph high-speed train," Kasich said. He was being sarcastic, yes, but sticking to an underlying point that the proposed passenger train would travel too slowly for anyone to actually want to ride on it. Strickland’s administration says Kasich is deliberately misleading Ohioans about the train’s speed to win support for his idea to scrap the plan altogether and that the new governor knows that its average speed will be faster than 39 mph. Politifact Ohio decided to check. Confusion over the train’s projected speed can actually be pinned on the Strickland administration. The initial proposed schedule called for the train to complete the route from Cleveland to Cincinnati in 6.5 hours. While the top speed would be about 79 mph, the average would be just 39 mph. A person driving a car between the two cities could make the trip at the posted vehicle speed limits in a little over 4 hours. To combat that criticism, the Ohio Department of Transportation hired a railroad planning firm to study and revise the travel schedule. It surmised that by taking out some curves and switching up the planned route it could shorten the trip’s duration. ODOT released an updated report in September saying the newer analysis cuts the trip down from 6.5 hours to 5 hours and 15 minutes and increases the average speed from 39 mph to just over 50 mph. That report has gone unchallenged to this point, and it’s average speed is in line with the average speeds of passenger trains in Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Texas and Oklahoma, according to ODOT. That’s fast enough for Strickland officials to want to keep this project on track. Strickland rejected Kasich’s request to pull the idea saying not only will Ohioans ride the train but that the plan could produce about 16,000 jobs. Also, ODOT in October released a report declaring that more Ohioans are riding passenger trains, proof the Strickland administration says that the 3C train would be a success. Kasich has not let up. He’s written to both Strickland and President Barack Obama asking them to forget the train program altogether and allow Ohio instead to use the $400 million on some other infrastructure projects. After the Obama administration rejected that request, Kasich enlisted the help of outgoing Republican Sen. George Voinovich. In November, Voinovich introduced a bill to allow Kasich to bypass federal authorities and use the money to fix Ohio’s roads and bridges rather than build a passenger train. The bill, however, isn’t expected to survive. Other states, meanwhile, have said they’d like Ohio’s share of rail money if Kasich doesn’t want it. So Kasich is correct in that the federal government has approved $400 million in stimulus for development of high-speed rail service in Ohio. But his use of 39 mph as an average speed for the train relies on projections the administration discarded and ignores results of a newer study that included changes to the rail route. That’s an important detail; one that’s needed to keep things in context. We rate Kasich claim about the 3C train as Half True. | null | John Kasich | null | null | null | 2010-12-08T06:00:00 | 2010-11-19 | ['None'] |
pomt-01368 | In 2013, Dan Patrick voted "against funding to test the backlog of rape kits, allowing rapists to walk free." | pants on fire! | /texas/statements/2014/oct/17/leticia-van-de-putte/leticia-van-de-putte-says-dan-patrick-voted-agains/ | In a video ad, Democratic lieutenant governor nominee Leticia Van de Putte presents Republican nominee Dan Patrick as too extreme on vital public safety issues. The ad’s narrator initially says Patrick, a Houston senator, "would deny victims of rape any options at all," a claim rooted in Patrick’s statement in a January 2014 debate that he would permit an abortion only to save the life of an endangered mother. "And," the narrator says, "he voted against funding to test the backlog of rape kits. Allowing rapists to walk free." Patrick, the narrator says, "is just too dangerous." Did Patrick vote against testing backlogged rape kits, letting rapists walk? Van de Putte cites Patrick vote against 2014-15 state budget Manny Garcia, a spokesman for Van de Putte, a San Antonio state senator, told us by email the basis of her rape-kit claim was Patrick’s vote against the final version of the overall 2014-15 state budget that cleared the Senate in May 2013. A backup document Garcia sent over noted a June 6, 2013, Texas Tribune news story stating that the budget allotted $11 million to the Texas Department of Public Safety "to help address the state’s massive backlog of untested rape kits. "In 2011," the story said, "the Legislature passed Senate Bill 1636, by state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, which requires that state law enforcement agencies report the number of untested rape kits and submit a certain number to DPS for testing." The story said the new funding would "cover the outsourcing costs to have the kits tested, and DPS estimates that based on historical data, about half of the untested kits will yield traces of DNA." According to legislative records, Davis in May 2011 won unanimous Senate approval of her proposal when it was sent to the House and again in the body’s concurrence with House amendments--meaning Patrick voted "aye" twice as well. We asked the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault about the impact of the funding. A staff attorney, Chris Kaiser, said by email the tests are just starting to happen, but it’s "reasonable to assume that out of all those kits there will be some investigations and prosecutions resulting from DNA hits. However, we’re talking about fairly long-term effects of the 82nd Legislature’s funding, not immediate analysis that is helping to scoop offenders off the streets today." Patrick’s actions in 2013 session Next, we focused on Patrick’s actions. As noted in a previous fact check, Patrick was among four senators who voted against the final version of the 2014-15 state budget. In a May 30, 2013, public interview with the Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith, Patrick said he voted "no" -- after backing earlier versions -- because education initiatives, including funds to pay for students to take the SAT, weren’t in it. He did not mention the budgeted money to test the kits. Legislative records show Patrick supporting, and even having a hand in launching, the spending to test the kits. Patrick serves on the Senate Finance Committee, which on March 13, 2013, unanimously voted in favor of the panel’s version of Senate Bill 1, the budget act, including the money for testing the kits. To our inquiry about Patrick’s position on the rape-kit expenditure in the 2013 session, Torie Camp, an Austin consultant who was then a TAASA official, emailed us what she described as a March 13, 2013, Senate Finance Committee document indicating Patrick was among a subset of senators to initially put the kit funding into the budget. The document, including the typed notation "tentative work group decisions," indicates several committee members, including Patrick, were tasked as a "work group" with resolving the finance panel’s public safety new spending items. And, the document indicates, those senators by that date had agreed to pencil in $10.95 million in state revenue to pay for outsourcing DNA screening and testing services for approximately 10,000 sexual assault kits a year. (The document is also posted online by the Legislative Budget Board which has also posted a similar document indicating the commitment of money to the kits was an unsettled issue for senators as of Feb. 12, 2013.) On March 20, 2013, Patrick was among 28 senators who voted to advance the budget (including the kit-test funding) to the House, according to the Senate Journal entry for that day. Two senators (though not Patrick) voted "no." Generally in the 2013 session, Camp said by phone, "we never got a sense that anybody was opposed to this money in there. This wasn’t something anybody wanted to oppose." Rapists walking free? Camp said that after the budget took effect in September 2013, DPS proceeded to bid out the tests of the kits to private laboratories which, Camp said, started working through kits in fall 2014. Camp said it makes sense that some of the resulting DNA "hits," to be passed along by DPS to local police departments, will lead to individuals being convicted of assaults -- and be taken off the streets. For now," she said, "we’re just not far enough into the process to know we’re going to take sexual offenders off the streets. But my guess is we will." By email, DPS spokesman Tom Vinger said that effective June 2014, the agency had an agreement for the University of North Texas Health Science Center to test about 1,000 kits. Also, Vinger said, the department has contracted with companies in Dallas and Virginia to test the kits. "In the coming months, we will ultimately direct agencies where to send their kits," he said. "The actual testing is expected to take place over two years." Vinger said DPS doesn’t track successful prosecutions related to sexual assault testing — whether via kits or other evidence. Vinger also said "backlog" is misleading in reference to the kits now being tested since most of them hadn’t previously been submitted to a crime lab for testing, based on decisions by local law enforcement agencies and prosecutors, he said. In August 2013, according to a New York Times/Texas Tribune news story published at the time, DPS estimated there were close to 20,000 untested kits statewide per information from various law enforcement agencies. The story said the untested kits had collected in police evidence rooms amid tight budgets, overworked crime labs and, in some cases, determinations by authorities that there was insufficient cause to test a kit. By email, we pointed out to Van de Putte that Patrick evidently played a role in initially putting the money for testing the kits into the budget and there is no indication his vote against the full final budget allowed rapists to walk. Garcia, stressing Patrick’s opposition to the final budget, emailed: "If it was up to him alone, the budget would not have passed at that point in time, Meaning that testing for the rape kits would not be funded." Our ruling Van de Putte said Patrick voted "against funding to test the backlog of rape kits, allowing rapists to walk free." This claim is flawed in various ways -- starting with blaming Patrick for a result that didn’t come to be. In reality, Patrick appears to have been among senators to initially put the kit-test funding into the state budget. And while he voted against the final overall budget, there’s no indication he did so to stop the kits from being tested. Also, the contention that rapists walked free as a result of Patrick’s action is incorrect. The funding (to repeat) passed into law. When a statement is incorrect and ridiculous, the Truth-O-Meter warms up in a hurry. Pants on Fire! PANTS ON FIRE – The statement is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. | null | Leticia Van de Putte | null | null | null | 2014-10-17T12:38:49 | 2014-10-15 | ['None'] |
tron-00408 | President’s Dog, Bo, and Handler Flew Alone in a Separate Plane to Maine | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/bo-flies-solo/ | null | animals | null | null | null | President’s Dog, Bo, and Handler Flew Alone in a Separate Plane to Maine | Mar 27, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10319 | McCain got more money from Airbus' U.S. executives than any other politician. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jul/31/campaign-money-watch/mccain-campaign-bouyed-by-airbus-execs-and-lobbyis/ | An independent political group called Campaign Money Watch has begun airing a TV ad that paints Sen. John McCain as a bought-and-paid-for politician who swung a lucrative defense contract to a European company over an American competitor. The issue is McCain's role in a highly contentious and much-publicized battle over a contract to build a fleet of air refueling tankers for the Air Force. Chicago-based Boeing has been at odds with a rival bidder, a partnership between U.S.-based Northrop Grumman and European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company (EADS), the parent company of Airbus. To the surprise of many, Airbus was awarded the roughly $40-billion contract in March 2008, but the General Accounting Office upheld a protest from Boeing, concluding that the Air Force made a number of errors in the bidding process. The contract will now be re-bid. What's interesting about this attack is that McCain's role in this particular defense project has long been seen as one of taxpayer hero. The whole reason there was a competitive bid for a contract to build the tankers is because McCain led a charge to scrap the Air Force's original plan, which was to lease jetliners from Boeing. As McCain made noise, government studies concluded that costs for the lease plan had been vastly underestimated. People were fired, some went to jail. It was a big scandal, and McCain has rightly claimed credit for it on the trail. None of that background appears in the ad. The ad claims McCain's campaign has been too cozy with Airbus. An announcer in the TV ad states: "Seven of McCain's staff and fundraisers lobbied for Airbus" and "McCain got more money from Airbus' U.S. executives than any other politician." The ad is on target when it calls out McCain for having seven campaign staffers and fundraisers who lobbied for Airbus; and for accepting contributions from Airbus executives. Former McCain finance chairman Thomas G. Loeffler's firm lobbied for Airbus parent company EADS. Loeffler's lobbying ties led to his departure from the McCain campaign in March. Susan E. Nelson left Loeffler's lobbying firm to be McCain's finance director. William L. Ball III, a former secretary of the Navy and frequent McCain surrogate, and John Green, who took a leave from Ogilvy Public Relations to serve as McCain's legislative liaison, also have lobbied for EADS. And three McCain fundraising bundlers — Kirk Blalock, Kirsten Chadwick and Aleix Jarvis — are with Fierce Isakowitz & Blalock, which has done lobbying work for EADS, according to campaign finance records at Opensecrets.org and Public Citizen. As for political contributions, the ad states that "McCain got more money from Airbus' U.S. executives than any other politician." The Center for Responsive Politics prepared a report for PolitiFact that backs that up. U.S. employees of EADS/Airbus have contributed $15,700 in this election cycle to McCain's campaign. The next highest recipient was Mark Warner, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, who has gotten $2,800. Barack Obama has gotten $2,650. Neither McCain nor Obama has gotten any money from Airbus PACs, which have spread around $123,000 to 22 congressional candidates this election cycle. Given those numbers, we rule this claim True. | null | Campaign Money Watch | null | null | null | 2008-07-31T00:00:00 | 2008-06-09 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-01795 | Between June 30 and July 10, CNN interviewed "17 Israeli public officials versus one" Palestinian official. | half-true | /punditfact/statements/2014/jul/24/rula-jebreal/fact-checking-rula-jebreals-claim-cnn-had-17-israe/ | Palestinian journalist Rula Jebreal accused CNN of presenting a one-sided picture of the fighting in the Gaza Strip in a heated July 22 interview on MSNBC. A day earlier, she called MSNBC’s coverage "disgustingly biased" toward Israel. PunditFact wanted to see if Jebreal had a point, using the evidence she laid out in her interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. (Watch the video for more from their chat.) Jebreal told Hayes that on CNN "between June 30 and July 10, you had 17 Israeli public officials vs. one" Palestinian public official. While the statistic doesn’t necessarily prove bias, it does suggest lopsided coverage of the Israel-Gaza crisis. Is Jebreal right? The source of her count Biased coverage of the Israel-Gaza crisis has been a constant cable news subplot. ABC News’ Diane Sawyer acknowledged she mislabeled a Palestinian family assessing damage after an Israeli bomb strike as an Israeli family. NBC News raised questions for pulling reporter Ayman Mohyeldin off the story for a script he wrote about four Gaza children killed by a bomb on a beach because it was allegedly seen as too sympathetic to Palestinians. Jebreal emerged as a Middle Eastern voice in Western media after sharing her experiences about growing up in the West Bank and reporting in Egypt during the Arab Spring. While Jebreal did not respond to our attempts to reach her, we were able to find the source of her claim about CNN. Two years ago, Yousef Munayyer, executive director of The Jerusalem Fund and The Palestine Center, reviewed transcripts of CNN’s coverage of Gaza fighting from Nov. 14, 2012, when Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari was killed in an Israeli airstrike, until Nov. 21, 2012, the day a cease-fire was announced. During that week, he found officials from Israel appeared on the network 45 times, compared to five appearances by Hamas officials and 20 combined appearances of spokespersons for the Palestine Liberation Organization, Palestinian Legislative Council and Hamas. Munayyer revived the media watching to document the current crisis, and on July 10, Munayyer tweeted new observations of CNN. Munayyer again relied on available transcripts of CNN programming. In @CNN coverage of Israel/Palestine since 6/29 they have had 35 guests on the topic this is how they break down (1/2) — Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) July 11, 2014 17 Israeli officials 4 Israel lay persons 1 Palestinian official 4 Palestinian lay persons 8 Unaffiliated 6 Michael Oren appearances (2/2) — Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) July 11, 2014 In an interview with PunditFact, Munayyer said the exercise shows CNN alarmingly favored Israeli perspectives. Munayyer said a more thorough analysis will be done whenever the conflict ends. Munayyer started analyzing coverage to coincide with the discovery of the bodies of three missing Israeli teens in the West Bank on June 30. (The boys had been missing since June 12, the tipping point of the conflict. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced June 15 that Hamas was responsible "for a fact.") On July 2, a retaliatory killing of a Palestinian teen escalated the fighting. Four days later, the beating of an American-Palestinian teen by Israeli police made the U.S. airwaves. On July 8, the Israelis launched an official offensive operation known as "Protective Edge." When Munayyer tweeted on July 10, the death toll in Gaza had reached at least 78. Who did Munayyer count? For starters, he was looking at appearances, not individual guests. He counted Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, as six Israeli officials because he gave six interviews. Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, was also counted six times. Israel Defense Forces spokesman Peter Lerner was counted twice and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was counted once. President Shimon Peres was counted twice, bringing Munayyer’s tally to 17 appearances from Israeli officials. (However, Munayyer told us he counted two more appearances from Peres on July 10, the same day as his tweet, upping the total for that period to 19. He says he thinks he sent the tweet without "closing out" the July 10 appearances.) Former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren got his own category in Munayyer’s tally because he is now CNN’s Middle East analyst. Conversely, Munayyer counted just one Palestinian official, -- Palestinian Ambassador Maen Areikat, though there were other Palestinian "lay persons" invited as CNN guests, including lawyers for the Tampa teen beaten up by Israeli police, and Muyanner himself. Munayyer told us he focused on CNN because it’s more mainstream than MSNBC and Fox News and typically throws more resources on the ground to cover international crises. His team reviewed transcripts for every hour of news coverage to see who was invited to weigh in. He excluded interviews within correspondent’s reports, looking instead for pundits and analysts asked to provide their take of the situation by phone or in-studio. "The question we’re trying to ask is, who is CNN trying to give a platform on this issue, and is it done in a balanced way?" Munayyer said. "My hunch is there’s going to be slight improvement over 2012, but there’s still a lot of work to do to get towards parity." In the interview with Jebreal, Hayes argued one reason for the uneven coverage is the difficulty of booking a spokesperson for the militant group firing rockets into Israel, Hamas. Still, Munayyer told us, "that doesn't mean there aren't Palestinian voices who can speak to the situation on the ground from an informed Palestinian perspective that would provide a greater sense of balance to all of the Israeli perspectives that are there." In a statement, CNN said, "Our team of correspondents, anchors and contributors have been reporting live from the Mideast fairly across all our platforms. Our reporting represents all sides (Israeli, Palestinian and Hamas) daily. We're comfortable with the Palestinian voices we have included from Gaza, Qatar, Washington, D.C., and New York when supplemented with our countless live reports from Gaza with three correspondents on the ground." Our own tally We set out to match up Munayyer’s preliminary analysis with our own, using a computer program we subscribe to called Critical Mention. The program allows us to search video going back 30 days for all major news networks, and it allows us to search using the closed captioning transcript. We scanned the network’s discussion of Israel, Gaza and Palestine from June 29 to July 10, the same window as Munayyer. Our findings suggest Munayyer undercounted the number of Palestinian officials CNN had on air. The following breakdown somewhat mirrors the categories Munayyer outlined, which do not include voices from correspondents’ news packages. There is no perfect way to do this, however, as it’s awkward to classify appearances by people with neutral titles and biased commentary and vice versa. With that note, here’s what we found (and here’s a link to our chart of who appeared when): 20 appearances by Israeli public officials (four of these were replays); 2 appearances by Israeli laymen; 5 appearances by Palestinian officials; 11 appearances by Palestinian laymen, including Munayyer himself; 6 appearances by Michael Oren. While Munayyer found one appearance by a Palestinian official, we found five. Four were by Palestinian Ambassador Maen Areikat, and one was a prerecorded interview with PLO committee member Hanan Ashrawi. Other "pro-Palestinian" voices included four appearances by Palestinian-American relatives and lawyers commenting on the case of Tariq Abu Khdeir, the Tampa teen beaten by Israeli security. Former PLO legal adviser and spokesperson Diana Buttu accounts for five "layman" appearances, though one appearance was cut before it began when CNN lost the phone connection. Another former PLO adviser and current Brookings Institution fellow, Khaled Elgindy, appeared once on CNN. It’s also worth noting efforts to incorporate more Palestinian voices that fall outside of the timeline Munayyer and Jebreal talked about, closer to daily news. CNN host Jake Tapper, for example, interviewed Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad by phone on July 18. Seem complicated? It is. What drives the disparity Marda Dunsky, a former journalist who teaches at Northwestern University’s Medill School and author of Pens and Swords: How the American Mainstream Media Report the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, said the imbalance of Israeli and Palestinian news sources in most mainstream coverage is well documented, but it does not necessarily imply a deliberate attempt to mislead. It’s an accessibility issue. The shortage of Palestinian voices is more often a symptom of two very different warring societies, she said. "The Israeli government has people in many different branches who are trained specifically to speak to the media," she said. "The Palestinian government is not as well developed, and as a result it lacks the same depth of field when it comes to official sources." Buttu, the former PLO spokeswoman and legal adviser, told us in an interview that her CNN appearances are a "drop in the bucket" compared to Michael Oren, the network’s on-hand Middle East analyst and former Israeli ambassador to the United States. "No matter what any Palestinian commentator says on the show, at the end of the day they always have Michael Oren," she said. "That’s quite problematic. Can you imagine if a former Palestinian ambassador of the United States served as a commentator on Fox, don’t you think they would be up in arms in that? It’s accepted as commonplace at CNN." Buttu’s bigger issue is with the style of questions directed at Palestinian guests, and that she is often asked about the official Palestinian position even though she has not been an official for years. Another thing to remember: Both sides point to bias in reporting. Countering Munayyer’s media-monitoring group are U.S.- and Israel-based organizations such as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and HonestReporting. Our ruling Jebreal said, on CNN "this time around, you have, between June 30 and July 10, you had 17 Israeli public officials vs. one" Palestinian public official. She is referencing a preliminary tally of Israeli and Palestinian officials’ voices during that time by a pro-Palestinian media watcher. Our tally confirms there was a disparity, but it was not quite as lopsided as Jebreal said. We found 20 appearances by Israeli public officials on CNN compared to 5 appearances by Palestinian officials. Also, the tally is measuring appearances, not the number of officials from each side who appeared. And it's worth noting that any look at the media coverage is incomplete because the story is continuing to unfold. Because of those caveats, we rate Jebreal’s claim Half True. | null | Rula Jebreal | null | null | null | 2014-07-24T15:00:08 | 2014-07-22 | ['Israel', 'CNN'] |
tron-00115 | ICE Agent Commits Suicide in NYC, Reveals Plans to Roundup Americans | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/ice-agent-commits-suicide-nyc-reveals-plans-roundup-americans/ | null | 9-11-attack | null | null | null | ICE Agent Commits Suicide in NYC, Reveals Plans to Roundup Americans | May 11, 2016 | null | ['New_York_City'] |
pomt-11887 | Says Roy Moore "has advocated getting the federal government out of health care altogether, which means doing away with Medicaid, which means doing away with Medicare." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2017/oct/26/doug-jones/does-roy-moore-want-end-medicaid-and-medicare-his-/ | In the race for Alabama’s Senate seat, Democratic candidate Doug Jones is warning that Republican nominee Roy Moore’s small government conservatism could imperil federal programs that provide health care to millions of Americans. "My opponent in this race has advocated getting the federal government out of health care altogether, which means doing away with Medicaid, which means doing away with Medicare," Jones said in a Sept. 27 interview on NBC’s Meet the Press Daily. With the Dec. 12 general election drawing near, we wondered whether Jones had accurately stated Moore’s small government approach to health care reform. Jones put words in Moore's mouth. Jones' campaign pointed to this statement from Moore’s spokesman: "Roy Moore wants to make sure that the federal government is getting out of the health care business entirely," Moore campaign chairman Bill Armistead said in a Sept. 23 press release, which highlighted differences between Moore and his former Republican rival Sen. Luther Strange on the issue of Obamacare repeal. There is a subtle but crucial difference between Armistead’s and Jones’ statements. Jones said Moore wants the federal government out of health care — Moore’s spokesman said he wants the federal government out of the health care business. The space between those statements is the crux of this fact-check. For more than 50 years, the federal government has played a role in giving health insurance to the poor and elderly through Medicaid and Medicare. These public insurance programs are distinct from the kind of private insurance customers can buy from companies like Unitedhealth and Aetna. While Moore clearly supports shrinking the federal government, the key question is whether Moore wants the federal government out of private insurance only, or if he also wants the federal government to end its role in public programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, as Jones said. No evidence Moore wants to end Medicaid, Medicare Moore’s campaign declined to say if he wants to do away with Medicaid or Medicare. A description of his policy positions on his campaign website is silent as to these specific programs, and we were unable to find a single instance where Moore explicitly called to end the government’s role in public insurance. What we did find were numerous examples of Moore calling for the repeal of Obamacare. "We do not need socialized medicine which will ultimately lead to loss of quality and affordability of heath care, as well as a loss of access to the latest medical technology. Obamacare should be completely repealed as soon as possible," Moore’s campaign website states. It’s unclear exactly what Moore would like to see Obamacare replaced with. But the record seems to suggest he’s amenable to the federal government playing some role in Medicaid and Medicare into the future. One clue is Moore’s support for the House-passed American Health Care Act. That bill would have curtailed, but not abolished, Medicaid, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. It would not have eliminated Medicare either. "Obamacare has not been fully repealed, although steps have been made in the right direction, and I support the bill that has passed Congress," Moore said in a Sept. 21 Republican primary debate against Strange. An interview Moore gave to the Montgomery Advertiser suggests he recognized the federal government’s fundamental role in public insurance as a given even before Obamacare took effect. "It’s not the role of the government to be involved in health insurance," Moore told the Montgomery Advertiser June 27. "Before Obama came in, the federal government wasn’t involved, except for Medicaid and Medicare, with health insurance." A Moore profile in the July 24 Montgomery Advertiser described him as "noncommittal on cuts to Medicaid." With respect to Republican replacement efforts at the time, Moore said he "would have to see what cuts they’re talking about" for Medicaid before he took a position. That’s a far cry from calling to abolish the program. It’s possible Moore may take a harder line on public insurance programs in the future. But for now, we’ve found no evidence he wants to abolish Medicaid or Medicare. Our ruling Jones said Moore wants to end the federal government’s role in Medicaid and Medicare. The record clearly demonstrates Moore wants to repeal Obamacare. He may not have articulated what he wants the health insurance system to look like, but we found no evidence to suggest he wants to end the federal government’s role in Medicaid and Medicare. We rate Jones’ statement False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Doug Jones | null | null | null | 2017-10-26T17:07:27 | 2017-09-27 | ['Medicare_(United_States)', 'Medicaid'] |
tron-02260 | Ebola is Spreading in the U.S. with a 2nd Confirmed Case | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/ebola-2nd-case/ | null | medical | null | null | null | Ebola is Spreading in the U.S. with a 2nd Confirmed Case | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['United_States'] |
tron-00763 | Obama, Now That You Work For Me by Chuck Norris | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/norris-obama-letter/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Obama, Now That You Work For Me by Chuck Norris | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
Subsets and Splits
SQL Console for pszemraj/multi_fc
Filters dataset entries containing 'law' in categories, tags, or reason fields, providing basic topic classification but offering limited analytical insight beyond simple keyword matching.
Healthcare Related Entries
Retrieves sample records containing healthcare-related keywords but doesn't provide meaningful analysis or patterns beyond basic filtering.