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obry-00025 | In September 2017, Gov. Scott Walker signed the Wisconsin state budget for 2017-19. State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, tweeted “we made historic investments in k12 education, with increases of over $200 per pupil each year totaling over $630 million.” The Observatory decided to fact-check Fitzgerald’s claims. We made historic investments in K12 education, with increases of over $200 per pupil each year totaling over $630 million. | verified | https://observatory.journalism.wisc.edu/2018/03/07/sen-scott-fitzgerald-touts-historic-investment-in-k-12-aid-is-he-right/ | null | null | null | Taylor Palmby | null | Sen. Scott Fitzgerald touts ‘historic’ investment in K-12 aid; is he right? | October 17, 2018 | null | ['Wisconsin', 'Scott_Walker_(politician)', 'F._Scott_Fitzgerald'] |
pomt-06639 | Under President Barack Obama’s jobs bill, "you can sue if you are unemployed and don't get the job and think you weren't hired because you are unemployed." | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/15/sean-hannity/sean-hannity-says-barack-obamas-jobs-bill-creates-/ | During the Sept. 13, 2011, edition of Sean Hannity’s show on the Fox News Channel, Hannity said that President Barack Obama’s jobs bill included a new way for Americans to sue for discrimination. In a discussion with former Florida State University football coach Bobby Bowden and Tucker Carlson, the editor of the Daily Caller, a conservative website, Hannity said that, under the bill, unemployed people would be able to sue for discrimination if they felt their status had kept them from getting a job. "There is a class where they could sue the employer they've interviewed with because they were discriminated against, because they were unemployed," Hannity said. "If I'm an employer and they implement that, I'm not going to interview anybody." Carlson added, "There's a new category to the Civil Rights Act with race, ethnicity." Hannity continued, "You can sue if you are unemployed and don't get the job and think you weren't hired because you are unemployed." Carlson replied that such a provision was a "giveaway to the trial lawyers." "We've gone entitlement crazy," Bowden said. "We have," Hannity agreed. We were curious about whether Hannity described the proposal correctly. We began by turning to the bill itself. The provision in question follows news reports that some companies have rejected unemployed job applicants out of hand as a way of filtering the large numbers of job resumes they’re receiving. In some cases, companies even made it clear in advertisements that they would not consider applicants who were unemployed. Since unemployment levels have remained stuck for months at near post-Great Depression highs, such practices posed a challenge for an administration that desperately wants to boost employment. So the bill states the overarching position that "denial of employment opportunities to individuals because of their status as unemployed is discriminatory." Specifically, the bill prohibits employers from publishing help-wanted ads that disqualify people who are unemployed, and bars employers from failing to consider or hire an individual "because of the individual's status as unemployed." The bill places similar restrictions on employment agencies. As for enforcement of the new provision, the bill says that "a court of the United States shall have the same jurisdiction and powers as the court has to enforce ... Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964" -- the landmark provision that bans employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. An individual who seeks redress through the courts, the bill says, "may be awarded, as appropriate" an order to employers to stop the prohibited practices, "reimbursement of costs expended as a result of the unlawful employment practice," damages up to $1,000 for each day of the violation, and "reasonable attorney’s fees." Lynne Bernabei, a Washington employment lawyer best known for representing whistleblowers, agreed that Hannity described the law accurately, though she said that individuals suing under the new provisions -- if they are ultimately enacted as written -- will still face a steep climb in the courts before they secure any compensation. "Any individual suing under this law has to prove that he was discriminated against because he was unemployed," Bernabei said. "Discrimination is always difficult to prove, and it wouldn't be any easier to prove in this context." But Hannity didn’t suggest that plaintiffs would somehow be assured of winning in court; he simply said that they would have the opportunity to sue. We rate Hannity’s statement True. | null | Sean Hannity | null | null | null | 2011-09-15T16:24:24 | 2011-09-13 | ['None'] |
pomt-06989 | Because of Democratic tax hikes, New Jersey ended a decade with fewer private sector jobs for the first time in recorded history. | mostly false | /new-jersey/statements/2011/jul/12/steve-oroho/sen-steve-oroho-claims-democratic-tax-hikes-are-bl/ | Amid the recent budget battle raging between Democratic legislators and Gov. Chris Christie, Republican Sen. Steve Oroho offered an interesting lesson in how New Jersey had already made history when it comes to private-sector job losses during the last decade. In a June 29 press release, Oroho criticized the fiscal year 2012 budget passed by the Democratic majority, but later scaled back by Christie and argued that Democratic tax hikes during the past 10 years contributed to those job losses. In fact, Oroho said the last decade was the "first time in recorded history" that the state had fewer private-sector jobs at the end than at the beginning of the decade. "Over the past 10 years, the Democrat majority have been intent on pushing through dramatic tax increases, and irresponsible budget gimmicks to fund an insatiable desire to spend taxpayer dollars," said Oroho, who represents Sussex County and parts of Hunterdon and Morris counties. Oroho added, "It is no coincidence that during this same period it was the first time in recorded history where the state had less private sector jobs at the end of the decade than we had at the beginning." PolitiFact New Jersey soon learned that Oroho’s statistic is accurate -- New Jersey had a net loss of private-sector jobs in a decade for the first time since payroll employment statistics were first collected. But the causes go beyond the tax increases imposed by Democrats, according to economic experts. First, let’s talk about where Oroho received his information. Oroho directed us to a May 3, 2010 article on NJ Spotlight written by James Hughes and Joseph Seneca of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. The article points to a net loss of 156,100 private-sector jobs between 2000 and 2010, marking the first such reduction for a decade since 1939. Hughes, dean of the Bloustein school, told us their analysis was based on state and federal employment data from December 1999 to December 2009. Following our own review of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, we reached a similar conclusion. For non-seasonally adjusted figures, New Jersey lost 152,700 private-sector jobs between December 1999 and December 2009, or about 4 percent, according to the federal data. Every other decade dating to 1939 saw private-sector job increases of between 8 percent and 26 percent, according to the federal data for non-seasonally adjusted figures. "We’ve never had a decade where we lost private-sector jobs before," Hughes said. So Oroho is right about that history lesson, but how much blame should be given to the tax hikes? After talking to experts and taking a closer look at the private-sector job numbers between December 1999 and December 2009, we found a major element missing from Oroho’s statement: the recession. According to federal data for non-seasonally adjusted figures, New Jersey saw private-sector job growth annually between 2003 and 2007. Then between 2008 and 2009 -- after the recession had hit -- the state lost 226,800 private-sector jobs, according to federal data. Bill Rodgers, chief economist at the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, argued that the recession and the weak recovery preceding it had a greater impact on job losses. "The taxes are not the main contributor," Rodgers said. Oroho acknowledged that other factors contributed to the job losses, including the general downturn in the economy, but he said the tax increases turned away capital investment, leading to the private-sector job losses. Those tax hikes included increases in the income, sales and corporate business taxes, according to the senator. "Capital’s like water," Oroho said. "It follows the path of least resistance." Hughes agreed that the tax hikes increased the cost of doing business in New Jersey and affected job figures. He also noted the impact of corruption scandals, saying: "Corporations don’t want to be near controversy." Michael Riccards, executive director of Trenton-based The Hall Institute of Public Policy, argued that tax hikes were not a major cause behind the job losses. The global economy and poor business practices in certain industries contributed to the loss of jobs, Riccards said. Let’s review: Pointing to Democratic tax hikes, Oroho said the last decade marked the first time since 1939 that New Jersey ended a decade with fewer private-sector jobs than it started with. He’s right, based on research by Rutgers professors and our own analysis of federal data. But given the impact of the recession on job losses -- and as the senator acknowledges himself -- tax hikes are not the only factors involved. We rate his statement Barely True. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. 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 | Steve Oroho | null | null | null | 2011-07-12T05:15:00 | 2011-06-29 | ['Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'New_Jersey'] |
snes-04801 | An Obamacare questionnaire asked respondents whether they'd ever been in an accident resulting in their own deaths. | mostly false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/have-you-ever-been-in-an-accident-resulting-in-your-death/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Have You Ever Been in an Accident Resulting in Your Death? | 6 May 2016 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01667 | Jason Carter backed three of Nathan Deal’s budgets but accuses the governor of "underfunding education." | true | /georgia/statements/2014/aug/20/john-padgett/gop-chair-correct-carter-voted-3-4-deal-budgets/ | Education. It’s the single biggest expense in the state budget (This year alone, the cost of k-12 education is $7.9 billion, or 43.4 percent of the state’s $18.3 billion budget). And it’s one of the biggest issues in this year’s closely watched governor’s race. On Aug. 12, Republicans issued a statement attacking Jason Carter, the Democratic state senator who is hoping to wrestle the job of governor from Republican Nathan Deal. Sonny Perdue, Deal’s predecessor, in 2003 became Georgia’s first Republican governor since Reconstruction. The GOP now controls the Georgia House, Senate and all major statewide offices. Democrats see Carter, a two-term state senator from the Decatur area and former President Jimmy Carter’s grandson, as their best chance for regaining a foothold. "How can Carter criticize Gov. Deal for 'underfunding' education when he backed three of (Deal’s) budgets?" John Padgett, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party, said in the press release. The release goes on to accuse Carter, 39, of playing politics -- voting for Deal’s first three state budgets, but against Deal’s last budget after announcing as a candidate for governor. All four budgets included major, so-called austerity cuts to education. "He (Carter) thinks that with enough rhetoric he can hide the fact that he cares more about advancing his own career than improving the education system in Georgia," Padgett said in the statement. The party chair is parroting a claim that Deal’s campaign has been making. PolitiFact decided it was time to fact-check Carter’s voting record on the state budgets. Carter has voiced concerns about the state’s commitment to public education during most of his short Senate career. His criticism, specifically of Deal on education, has sharpened in recent months, with his campaign manager at one point calling Deal Georgia’s worst education governor. (See PolitiFact’s Pants On Fire ruling of that claim.) For our current fact check, we started at the General Assembly website, where the votes of lawmakers on all bills -- including state budgets -- are public. We confirmed that Carter voted "Yes" with the majority in the Senate for Deal’s fiscal 2012, 2013 and 2014 budgets. Austerity cuts to education in each of those budgets exceeded $1 billion. In this year’s General Assembly session, only four out of 56 state senators voted against the 2015 budget. Gubernatorial candidate Carter cast one of those "No" votes. Austerity cuts were part of the 2015 budget. But at $747 million, they were the smallest since 2009 and, as such, viewed as largely positive by leaders in education. --------------------------------------------------- Austerity Cuts to K-12 education 2011-2015 2011 $1,089,521,696 2012 $1,147,859,436 2013 $1,143,762,797 2014 $1,061,127,407 2015 $746,769,852 Total 2003-2015 $8,436,724,814 Source: Allotment sheets, Georgia Department of Education Since 2003, governors and lawmakers haven’t fully funded schools based on the state’s education funding formula. These austerity cuts have totaled $8.4 billion, according to reports filed with the Georgia Department of Education. In combination with plummeting property tax collections -- fallout from the national housing market collapse -- the austerity cuts have thrown many of the state’s 180 school systems into a tailspin. As a result, there have been staff reductions, unpaid furlough days, larger class sizes and, in many cases, shorter school years. Carter has explained his decision to vote this year against Deal’s budget. At one of his back-to-back school tours last week, the Democrat said the 2015 funding boost was election-year politicking to mask the governor’s "dismantling" of public education. "The governor on average has underfunded our schools by $1 billion each year, and the claim that they have done enough is just not true," Carter said. "The $750 million shortfall into the education fund this year is not something I support." He would not comment about his three prior votes for Deal’s budget when contacted by PolitiFact. In an email, Bryan Thomas, Carter’s spokesman, reiterated many of the candidate’s past criticisms of Deal’s handling of k-12 education, as well as the popular HOPE scholarship program. "Governor Deal has shortchanged our schools by an average of $1 billion a year since taking office," Thomas said. "He likes to brag about his election-year budget, but he still missed the mark by more than $750 million." In November, Thomas said, voters can choose "between a governor who only seems to care about schools in an election year, or Jason, whose commitment to our schools has never wavered." (State education funding has increased during Deal's tenure, in part due to enrollment growth. Budget reports show K-12 spending has increased from $7.067 billion when he took office to $7.94 billion this year.) Carter, who was member of a special Senate task force on education in 2012, has said, if elected governor, he would push to create a separate education budget that would be tantamount to an untouchable trust fund for schools. In summary, John Padgett, GOP state chairman, was correct. Jason Carter voted in favor of three of Gov. Nathan Deal’s state budgets that each included $1 billion-plus in austerity cuts to education. Carter voted this year against a fourth, annual state budget proposed by Deal that included about $747 million in austerity cuts to K-12 education, the smallest cut since 2009. We rate Padgett’s statement True. | null | John Padgett | null | null | null | 2014-08-20T09:47:22 | 2014-08-12 | ['Nathan_Deal'] |
snes-02117 | A photograph shows Norwegian police officers in their skintight Summer uniforms. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/norwegian-police-officers/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Is This What Police Uniforms in Norway Look Like? | 3 July 2017 | null | ['Norway'] |
pomt-05323 | Says that President Obama promised that with the stimulus plan, "unemployment would never go above 8 percent. He even said it would be 6 percent by now." | mostly false | /ohio/statements/2012/may/17/bob-latta/bob-latta-says-obama-promised-stimulus-plan-would-/ | For almost three years, going back to mid-2009, a top talking point for Republicans has been that President Obama "promised" that the stimulus bill -- the two-year spending package he championed to revive the economy -- would keep unemployment below 8 percent. PolitiFact has examined the claim numerous times, and each time rated it Mostly False. But the claim still circulates. We heard it most recently from Rep. Bob Latta of Bowling Green, who represents Ohio's 5th District, with a new wrinkle. In a campaign statement endorsing Mitt Romney and criticizing the "broken promises" of Obama, Latta writes: "President Obama promised Americans that his stimulus plan would revitalize the economy and that unemployment would never go above 8 percent. He even said it would be 6 percent by now." The claim about current unemployment being 6 percent added something new. We asked Latta's office how he backed it up. As support for both the 6 percent and 8 percent figures, they pointed to a Jan. 9, 2009, report called "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan" from Christina Romer, then chairwoman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, and Jared Bernstein, the vice president's top economic adviser. The report, which others also have cited, projected that the stimulus plan proposed by Obama would create 3 million to 4 million jobs by the end of 2010. The report also included a chart predicting unemployment rates with and without the stimulus. Without the stimulus (the baseline), unemployment was projected to hit about 8.5 percent in 2009 and then continue rising to a peak of about 9 percent in 2010. With the stimulus, they predicted the unemployment rate would peak at just under 8 percent in 2009. The chart projects the current unemployment rate at about 6 percent with the stimulus, and about 6.5 percent without it. As Latta's staff rightly noted, the unemployment rate went higher. It peaked at just above 10 percent in early 2010 before falling to 8.1 percent in the most recent period. But what we saw from the administration in January 2009, before Obama took office, was a projection, not a promise. We could find no instance of anyone in the administration directly making a public promise. And the projection came with heavy disclaimers. "It should be understood that all of the estimates presented in this memo are subject to significant margins of error," the report states. "There is the more fundamental uncertainty that comes with any estimate of the effects of a program. Our estimates of economic relationships and rules of thumb are derived from historical experience and so will not apply exactly in any given episode. Furthermore, the uncertainty is surely higher than normal now because the current recession is unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity." A footnote that goes with the chart states: "Forecasts of the unemployment rate without the recovery plan vary substantially. Some private forecasters anticipate unemployment rates as high as 11 percent in the absence of action." The administration has acknowledged its projections were wrong. "None of us had a crystal ball back in December and January," Romer said in a July 2, 2009 interview on Fox. "I think almost every private forecaster realized that there were other things going on in the economy. It was worse than we anticipated." Indeed, in January 2009, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected the unemployment rate would climb to 8.3 percent in 2009 and peak at 9 percent in 2010. By February, the prediction was even higher — 9 percent in 2009 without the stimulus, and 7.7 to 8.5 percent with a stimulus. In a White House news conference on June 8, 2009, Bernstein said the projections made in January were off because economic numbers for fourth-quarter 2008 weren't yet available. When they were released, they revealed the economy was in worse shape than economists realized. The baseline -- the prediction of what the economy would have done without the stimulus -- was far too optimistic The implication of Latta's statement is that rising unemployment rates prove the stimulus didn't work. Many economists don't agree -- and argue that without the stimulus, unemployment would have been worse -- but it's difficult to empirically prove one way or the other. There is an element of truth here: The incoming administration did predict that unemployment would peak at just under 8 percent if Congress approved the stimulus package and that it would be about 6 percent now. But Latta's statement suggests Obama was offering some sort of guarantee. The administration never characterized it that way and included plenty of disclaimers saying the predictions had "significant margins of error" and a higher degree of uncertainty due to a recession that is "unusual both in its fundamental causes and its severity." It was an economic projection with warnings of a high margin for error, not a take-it-to-the-bank pledge of an upper limit on unemployment. Those are critical facts that Latta’s claim ignores. On the Truth-O-Meter, Latta’s claim rates Mostly False. | null | Bob Latta | null | null | null | 2012-05-17T06:00:00 | 2012-05-05 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-13783 | Just 9 percent of Muslims in Pakistan view ISIS favorably. Unfortunately, that 9 percent is 16 million people. And that’s just one country. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jul/20/newt-gingrich/gingrich-9-pakistanis-support-isis/ | Newt Gingrich wanted to make clear in his speech at the Republican National Convention that the majority of Muslims are peaceful. But, he said, it only takes a few bad apples ... If even a small percentage of the world’s billion Muslims support violence, "that is still a giant recruiting base," Gingrich said. "Pew Research finds that just 9 percent of Muslims in Pakistan view ISIS favorably," Gingrich said. "Unfortunately, that 9 percent is 16 million people. And that’s just one country." Gingrich has done his math well. A 2015 Pew report found that views of ISIS were "overwhelmingly negative" in a survey that included 10 Muslim majority nations. But Pakistan was an outlier. "One exception was Pakistan, where a majority offered no definite opinion of ISIS," the report said. "Only 28 percent in Pakistan had an unfavorable view of ISIS, and a majority of Pakistanis (62%) had no opinion on the extremist group." As this chart in the report showed, 9 percent of Pakistanis said they had a favorable view of ISIS. (The question was "Do you have a ____ opinion of the Islamic militant group in Iraq and Syria known as ISIS?) The population of Pakistan was about 199 million in 2015, according to the CIA. The country is 98 percent Muslim. Take 9 percent of the total and you get nearly 18 million people. One could say that just because they have a favorable view of ISIS, that doesn’t mean they would fight for ISIS. Their answers might have been different if they had been asked if they support ISIS, rather than think favorably of them. But Gingrich used the stat to show that the terrorist group enjoyed a large recruiting base. Even if a small fraction of the 9 percent were willing to take up arms or commit acts of terror, that would be a large number. Our ruling Gingrich said that just 9 percent of Muslims in Pakistan view ISIS favorably and that amounts to 16 million people. There are a some small issues with his statement. He got the numbers right but we don’t know how that might translate into a readiness to commit violence in the name of ISIS. Also, the survey was of all Pakistanis, not just Muslims. However, none of those details undermine Gingrich’s point. The data suggest there is large number of people who are inclined to respond to ISIS’ message. We rate this claim Mostly True. Correction, Sept. 12, 2016: This report has been changed to accurately reflect Gingrich’s quote. He said, "Pew Research finds that just 9 percent of Muslims in Pakistan view ISIS favorably," not "Pew Research finds that just 9 percent of Muslims in Pakistan support ISIS." The rating remains the same. | null | Newt Gingrich | null | null | null | 2016-07-20T22:52:40 | 2016-07-20 | ['Pakistan'] |
pomt-09786 | The Baucus bill "contains provisions that would send massive federal subsidies directly to both private insurance plans and government-chartered cooperatives that pay for elective abortion." | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2009/sep/21/national-right-life-committee/national-right-life-committee-says-baucus-bill-wou/ | With the recent release of the Senate Finance Committee plan for health care reform, the abortion issue has re-emerged in the health care debate. And both sides are choosing their words carefully to score political points. We are examining two seemingly similar statements from the National Right to Life Committee that we think get to the heart of the rhetoric. One is that under the bill proposed by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., federal funds (tax dollars) would subsidize abortions; and the other is that federal subsidies would go to insurance companies that offer abortion coverage. They sound similar, but we ended up with rulings at opposite ends of our Truth-O-Meter. We take a look at the first claim, that federal tax dollars would subsidize abortions, in a separate item and conclude the statement is False . In this item, we deal with a statement from NLRC legislative director Douglas Johnson that the Baucus bill "contains provisions that would send massive federal subsidies directly to both private insurance plans and government-chartered cooperatives that pay for elective abortion." If you look carefully, the issue here is government involvement in plans that offer abortion. And that's a big deal. The 1976 Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of federal funds for abortions through Medicaid except in cases of rape, incest or when the mother's health is in peril. So states that want to offer abortion coverage have to pay for it themselves. Similar restrictions on public funding for abortions applies to federal health care coverage extended to active and retired military and federal employees. Baucus said he attempted to "find language that just maintains the status quo" on abortion, because he didn't want the issue to be a distraction. "This is a health care bill, not an abortion bill," Baucus said. Maintaining the status quo, however, is a matter of perception. And that's because there are two competing realities. On the one hand, as President Barack Obama acknowledged in a July 21 interview, "We ... have a tradition of, in this town, historically, of not financing abortions as part of government-funded health care." In other words, the more than 250 private health plans that cover federal employees — because they are subsidized by the federal government — cannot offer full abortion services. On the other hand, many private plans (outside the government) currently offer abortion services. If the government starts providing health care subsidies but bans the participation of any plan that offers abortion services (as some legislators have suggested), abortion rights groups argue it would strip millions of women of benefits they currently get. According to a 2002 Guttmacher Institute study, 87 percent of employment-based insured health plans offered coverage for abortions (though not all companies select it for their employees). A 2003 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 46 percent of covered workers had coverage for abortions. The two surveys asked different questions, but the bottom line is that a significant percentage of women have health insurance that covers abortions. According to Baucus' chairman's mark, which provides a blueprint for the plan, abortion cannot be a mandated as part of any minimum benefits package except in cases of rape, incest or if the mother's life is in danger. However, health plans in the exchange or co-op would not be prohibited from providing abortion coverage. In fact, every state exchange would have to provide one plan that covers abortion and one that does not. The exchange is a virtual marketplace where people can comparison shop for an insurance plan. Baucus' alternative to a public option, a co-op, would be one alternative on the exchange (think of it as a credit union for health insurance). The plan provides federal dollars — through tax credits or cost-sharing credits — to subsidize the cost of insurance for people with modest incomes. So clearly, you'd have federal subsidies going to plans that cover abortions. But no more federal money would go to plans that offer abortion, so the added cost would presumably be passed on to consumers who choose plans that offer abortion, and efforts have been made to segregate funding so that only money from premiums — not tax dollars — would be used to pay for abortions. But if millions of uninsured people would now get insurance due to the health care plan, and some of the plans offer abortion coverage, we think it's fair to conclude the Baucus plan (or any other Democratic plan under consideration) would mean more women would have access to abortion services. That obviously doesn't sit well with National Right to Life and other antiabortion groups. Johnson said they'd like to see an amendment that would prohibit any insurer that gets federal subsidies from offering abortion services. Amendments to that effect failed in the House. The plan, as proposed, would lead to more abortion coverage, and therefore more abortions, Johnson said. The Hyde Amendment, he said, is "one of the most important abortion reduction policies adopted by Congress." Not only can't the federal government subsidize abortion, he said, it can’t subsidize plans that offer abortion. The Baucus bill, he said, is "a big departure from where we are now." Here's Planned Parenthood's take on the Baucus plan: "Planned Parenthood acknowledges that there are some compromises that need to be made to move health care reform forward, and we are willing to do so if it means more women can access affordable, quality health care from the provider of their choice. While we are concerned that the language in the Senate Finance Bill specifically singles out abortion, we understand it is necessary to move health care reform forward. "As it currently stands, it is a carefully crafted compromise which assures that access to abortion would neither be mandated nor prohibited — and that women would not lose health care benefits that they have had for decades, while also addressing concerns that no federal funds would be used for abortion." In the abortion debate, nothing is simple. And as we said, words are chosen carefully. Regarding Johnson's claim that the Baucus plan would result in "federal subsidies directly to both private insurance plans and government-chartered cooperatives that pay for elective abortion," we think he is on solid ground. One could argue whether or not this is a departure from making the bill "abortion neutral" — each side has its take on that — but the fact is the plan would allow insurers to offer abortion. And the plan includes federal subsidies to some who might choose to join such a plan. And so we rule Johnson's statement True. | null | National Right to Life Committee | null | null | null | 2009-09-21T16:18:56 | 2009-09-16 | ['Max_Baucus'] |
abbc-00358 | Tony Abbott went to the 2013 election pledging that under a Coalition government, there would be "no further cuts to defence". | in-between | http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/no-cuts-to-defence-promise-check/5431804 | null | ['defence-industry', 'defence-forces', 'liberals', 'federal-government', 'defence-and-national-security', 'abbott-tony', 'australia'] | null | null | ['defence-industry', 'defence-forces', 'liberals', 'federal-government', 'defence-and-national-security', 'abbott-tony', 'australia'] | Promise check: No cuts to defence | Sun 8 May 2016, 7:37am | null | ['Tony_Abbott', 'Coalition_(Australia)'] |
pomt-03215 | Says "your Legislative Assembly was within one vote of enacting each of those bills into Oregon law." | false | /oregon/statements/2013/aug/24/doug-whitsett/was-oregon-legislature-within-one-vote-enacting-fi/ | If you think back, you might remember a time during the 2013 legislative session when there were talks about a slate of measures to help curb gun violence. But much like the gun control debate on the national stage, nothing came to pass and the issue was largely abandoned. In a recent opinion piece for conservative political blog Oregon Catalyst, Sen. Doug Whitsett, a Republican from Klamath Falls, says, if not for one vote, the whole gun control narrative could have been completely different. "More than a dozen bills relating to firearms were introduced during the recently concluded 77th Legislative Assembly," he wrote. "Most of those bills would have, in some way, impinged upon our second amendment right to own and bear firearms." He then listed seven of them and continued: "Your Legislative Assembly was within one vote of enacting each of those bills into Oregon law. It was within one vote of grossly impinging on our second amendment rights." That’s quite the statement. We decided to take a look. Whitsett argues that the Senate was deadlocked on this issue. There were 14 Republicans in the Senate, all of whom were opposed to the gun legislation. If the 16 Democrats had all voted in favor, the legislation would have passed. But, he notes, Sen. Betsy Johnson, a Democrat from Scappoose, was opposed. Hers was the vote that kept these bills from becoming law. That strikes us an oversimplification of the process. We looked at the measure history for each of these seven bills he’d mentioned by number. Two of the measures -- the only two he mentions that originated in the House -- never got hearings in their committees. It’s a stretch to say they were a single vote from becoming law when they never even made it out of committee, let alone to the Senate, where Johnson serves. One Senate bill was in a similar situation. Four other Senate bills he mentioned did get hearings and were all passed out of committees with recommendations that they be passed by the full Senate. However, Senate President Peter Courtney sent them all to the Rules Committee where they died a quiet death. By Whitsett’s account, the reason they were sent off to die in Rules was that Courtney knew they had no chance of passing, thanks to the Republicans -- plus Johnson. "It was my understanding that had we not had 15 ‘no’ votes in the Senate, they would have passed with flying colors," Whitsett said. Without Johnson "it would have been the typical 16-14 party line vote." He may be right on certain bills. Johnson definitely helped defeat Senate Bill 700, which would have expanded background checks for gun purchases, as The Oregonian’s Jeff Mapes reported. Even so, that bill and the others would have had to make it through the House. Whitsett said he was under the impression the House had the votes to pass the gun bills. We can’t know for sure. House Speaker Tina Kotek had made it clear that jobs and schools were her priorities, not guns. We chatted with Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, one of the most vocal supporters of the various gun-control bills. She said Whitsett was right that the unified Republican opposition certainly helped table the subject. Still, Burdick added, had those bills made it out of the Senate, there was no sure bet they’d make it through the House, too. "The background checks bill would have had a very good chance," she said, referring to Senate Bill 700. "The other ones would have had a little tougher time." Whitsett said that gun-control advocates were within "one vote of enacting each" of the seven bills into law. Had he focused on Senate Bill 700 specifically, we might be inclined to agree. But some of the other bills did not even receive a hearing and there is no guarantee that others would have passed in the Senate, let alone received the 31 votes needed in the House. We rate this claim False. | null | Doug Whitsett | null | null | null | 2013-08-24T06:00:00 | 2013-08-16 | ['Oregon'] |
snes-01652 | Some horses can grow mustaches. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/can-horses-grow-mustaches/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Can Some Horses Grow Mustaches? | 28 September 2017 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00267 | BMW 435i Giveaway | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/bmw-435i-giveaway-like-farming-scam.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | BMW 435i Giveaway Like-Farming Scam | March 4, 2014 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-05546 | Says in the governor’s proposed budget "the use of that, what is called one-shots, is a 500 percent increase over the last Corzine budget." | mostly false | /new-jersey/statements/2012/apr/09/john-burzichelli/john-burzichelli-claims-chris-christies-proposed-b/ | New Jersey has for years patched its budget holes with one-time fixes, mending deficits with temporary tax increases or the use of surplus funds. Now, Gov. Chris Christie says he is weaning the state off such volatile resources, known as one-shots. But a Democratic lawmaker tells a different story. Assemblyman John Burzichelli, who represents parts of Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem counties and serves as deputy speaker, discussed the proposed fiscal year 2013 budget during a March 28 NJTV appearance. He said that "the use of one-shot monies, which means monies found that are only going to be available one time, are exceeding $600 million dollars in this budget and last year they were $96 million. "And that's a very dramatic change. So that tells you that the structural work that we're trying to do to keep the budget in balance is still struggling. And when you take advantage of income that is only coming one time the next year you have to find a way to replace that or you have to take other drastic steps," Burzichelli said, adding "that the use of that, what is called one-shots, is a 500 percent increase over the last Corzine budget." New Jersey Treasury Department documents show the state used $3.82 billion in one-shots in fiscal year 2010, the last budget former Gov. Jon Corzine signed. Christie’s 2013 budget proposal includes $1.64 billion in such revenues. That’s a decrease, not a 500 percent increase, as Burzichelli claims. So what gives? Let’s say a family spent less on groceries this year than last year, but spent more on cereal over the same time frame. Overall, the family spent less, even though they spent more on a particular type of food. That’s essentially how Burzichelli makes his claim. In total, Christie is using fewer one-shots than Corzine. But Christie’s reliance on a specific type of one-shots has increased. Christie is proposing to use $642.3 million in a type of one-shots called revenue-related initiatives, which includes transfers from funds dedicated for specific purposes, such as clean energy. That’s an increase of more than 490 percent from the $108.8 million used in fiscal 2010. In the current budget, Christie relied on $96.4 million in similar revenues. Burzichelli cites some of those figures in the television interview, but he doesn’t explain what they represent. A spokesman for the Assembly Democrats, Tom Hester, said Burzichelli was referring specifically to revenue-related initiatives. "It’s that simple. You can read it any way you want, but doing [so] ignores the irresponsible impact of these budget raids," he said. But by focusing only on some one-shots, Burzichelli ignores a larger context. In total, Corzine’s last spending plan relied on $3.82 billion in one-time revenue resources. In Christie’s proposal, one-time revenue totals $1.64 billion. Federal stimulus aid inflated the total use of one-time revenues in 2010. But John Sugden, a credit analyst with Standard & Poor’s who wrote a report in February critical of Christie’s proposed budget, said the federal aid is still a source of revenue that will have to be replaced the following fiscal year. Sugden said in an e-mail that "the use of non-recurring revenues (one-shots) to fund recurring expenditures, in our view, creates budgetary gaps or shortfalls in the following year regardless of what their source is." Our ruling Burzichelli said the reliance on one-time revenues in the governor’s proposed budget is a "500 percent increase over the last Corzine budget." That’s roughly correct for a particular type of one-shots that includes money diverted from dedicated funds. But the assemblyman doesn’t make that clear and the state relies on hundreds of millions of dollars in other one-time revenue-generating measures. And, in total, Christie is using less one-time revenue than Corzine. Burzichelli’s claim has a hint of truth but cherry-picks statistics and ignores critical context. We rate it Mostly False. To comment on this ruling, go to NJ.com. | null | John Burzichelli | null | null | null | 2012-04-09T07:30:00 | 2012-03-28 | ['Jon_Corzine'] |
pomt-09350 | Teachers will not be able to return to work after raising their children. | mostly false | /florida/statements/2010/apr/06/paula-dockery/dockery-says-sb-6-would-not-allow-teachers-return-/ | One of the most contentious issues of the 2010 legislative session is a plan to overhaul teacher pay and tenure. Teachers statewide overwhelmingly oppose the legislation, known as SB 6, which has been buoyed by Republican leaders. Sen. Paula Dockery, a candidate for governor, was one of a few Republicans to vote against SB 6 when it passed the Senate last month. The House plans a vote soon. Dockery followed up her vote by writing an opinion column that ran in the Lakeland Ledger on April 3, 2010, and contained some explosive charges about what's wrong with the bill. Here's an excerpt: "SB 6 will destroy jobs. The bill makes it nearly impossible for someone not currently teaching to renew his or her teaching certificate. Teachers will not be able to return to work after raising their children. They will have their certifications threatened if they are activated for military duty, or otherwise unavailable to teach, for longer than one school year." (Read the whole column here.) It's a strong statement with broad implications. We chose to focus on the claim that "teachers will not be able to return to work after raising their children." Could that be true? First, some basics about SB 6. Among other things, the bill would make it easier to fire teachers and base their pay on test scores rather than the current schedule based on years of service and degrees. Supporters say it would reward high-performing teachers and make it easier to get rid of underperforming teachers, while detractors say it will deter teachers from the profession. Teachers hired on or after July 1, 2010, would be placed on a one-year probationary contract during which time they could be fired and then later would be placed on subsequent contracts. Teachers hired before July 1, 2010, keep their jobs as long as they can show "effective performance" in four of the five years leading up to renewal. We contacted Dockery's campaign and Senate office to ask how she reached the conclusion that parents who leave their teaching jobs for some length of time could not later return to work. Her Senate spokeswoman, Rachel Perrin Rogers, referred us to a portion of SB 6 that states: "Beginning with the 2014-2015 school year, the requirements for the renewal of a professional certificate shall include documentation of effective or highly effective performance as demonstrated under s. 1012.34 for at least 4 of the preceding 5 years before the renewal certification is sought." "This is saying you can't renew your certificate if you haven't done what is outlined in this chapter," Rogers said. "How can I renew it if I have taken time off?" But in the same section of the bill Rogers pointed us to, we found this: "The State Board of Education shall adopt rules to define the process for documenting effective performance under this subsection, including equivalent options for individuals who have not been evaluated under s. 1012.34," which relates to evaluating teachers. That part indicates there is an exception -- although not clearly spelled out -- for teachers who don't get evaluated because they are on leave. Thomas Butler, spokesman for the state Department of Education, explained it this way: "As currently written, the bill states that the State Board would have to adopt rules to define the process for documenting effective performance to meet renewal requirements, including for individuals who are not evaluated under 1012.34. As such, individuals who are on leave from the district and who would not have such an evaluation and, therefore, would be included in the rule." So the state Board of Education would develop the rule with public input after the bill becomes law. We asked Butler to clarify how the law would apply to a mother who takes time off from teaching to raise children. "When a mom takes time off she obviously won't be receiving evaluations," Butler told PolitiFact Florida. "She is not going to have evaluations so it's implied she will fall under the state board rule that hasn't been developed." Kathy Hebda, deputy chancellor for educator quality at the Department of Education, will oversee the rule writing. Hebda said the bill says the state board "shall" write the rule -- so it will definitely happen. "It's actually requiring the state board to adopt a rule to include an equivalent option for individuals who didn't get evaluated," she said. "There are going to be a lot of people in that scenario including persons who decide to leave the classroom for a couple of years and come back. The state board is going to have to have a process to bring that person back in and let them renew the certificate." That could include teachers who had worked at private schools or out of state, she said. Roberto Martinez, a member of the state board that will develop the rules, said he had not heard anything about this particular issue. However he said that if a rule needs to be written to address parents who want to return to teaching, that will be done. "I'm not about to penalize a mom. ... I would encourage women to work and raise a family." Critics of the bill say the language is not clear in terms of the effect on teachers who take leaves. State Rep. Marty Kiar, D-Davie, who has introduced amendments related to the bill, said in an interview that the issue of the effect on teachers who take leaves has not yet arisen in committee meetings. "I'm going to ask the questions on the floor tomorrow to the bill sponsor," he said on April 6. So, let's review. SB 6 clearly states that teachers must show "effective or highly effective" performance for four of the five preceeding years -- which clearly can't be done for teachers who want to return from a few years' leave. But the bill also directs the state Board of Education to adopt rules to document effective performance for teachers not evaluated. The state Department of Education says that clause means the state board will create a rule that will apply to teachers who have taken leave to take care of their children for example -- although SB 6 doesn't clearly spell out that scenario. Dockery said "teachers will not be able to return to work after raising their children." We find there is a provision in SB 6 to prevent this scenario, but because the rules won't be written until after the bill becomes law, we can't definitely say what will happen. We rule Dockery's claim 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 | Paula Dockery | null | null | null | 2010-04-06T18:53:39 | 2010-04-03 | ['None'] |
pomt-03423 | The immigration bill includes free "Obamacars," motorcycles or scooters. | pants on fire! | /florida/statements/2013/jun/26/blog-posting/does-immigration-bill-include-free-obamacars-teens/ | As chief defender on the right of the Senate immigration bill, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has been churning out press releases debunking myths about the bill. "Remember the ‘Marcophone’ myth? Now we have the Obamacar myth," says a June 25 Rubio press release. Yep, you read that right: Rubio, a potential 2016 Republican presidential contender, issued a press release claiming that a conservative slam against the Democratic president is a myth. Rubio’s press release linked to a June 24 article on the conservative news site Breitbart with the headline "New Immigration bill has taxpayer subsidized Obamacars for youths." It featured a photo of a goofy-looking Obama climbing into a car. "Breitbart News has learned there is a provision included in the immigration bill that could be used to give free cars, motorcycles, scooters or other vehicles to young people around the country over a period of 15 months after the bill passes," the story said. "The new provision is a result of the latest addition to the Corker-Hoeven amendment, which is essentially an entirely new version of the bill." The claim was made multiple times on the Internet, including on Fox News on June 25. The commentators joked about the alleged car giveaway with contributor Laura Ingraham asking, "I want to know, are Segway scooters part of the deal?’ " PolitiFact previously examined a claim by bloggers that proposed immigration legislation would give away taxpayer-funded cell phones. We ruled that claim False. That referred to grants aimed at helping American ranchers and others in remote locations along the border get satellite phone service so they can be in touch with authorities. Are free "Obamacars" another rumor driven off track? The roots of the car rumor The Breitbart article related to an amendment filed in June by Sens. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., and John Hoeven, R-N.D., to the Senate immigration bill. Their amendment would double the number of border patrol agents to 20,000, complete 700 miles of fencing, and add E-Verify for employment, among other requirements. Another amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., was tacked on to the Corker-Hoeven amendment, and passed on a procedural vote, 67-27, on June 24. The Breitbart article credited another conservative publication, the Washington Examiner, for uncovering "the new Obama stimulus program" that was part of the Sanders amendment. The Examiner article stated that a version of the bill would provide $1.5 billion for jobs for American youth, and was a sweetener to get Sanders’ support. Sanders' intention was to help unemployed young people hit hard by the recession. In a June 21 press release, his office said it was "the least Congress should do in a bill that allows college students from around the world to take jobs that young Americans would otherwise perform." The Breitbart article relied on an anonymous GOP Senate aide to explain the amendment:"This appears to give states authority to buy, lease or rent motorcycles, cars and scooters or anything kids want to buy to get to and from a job," the GOP aide said. But the Examiner article and the Sanders press release didn’t mention cars, motorcycles, scooters -- heck, not even a tricycle. So we hit the virtual road in search of some sort of transportation connection. Sanders amendment would provide transportation ‘services’ A fact sheet about the amendment by Sanders stated that the money for the jobs program would include providing "important services such as transportation and child care, necessary to enable young Americans to participate in job opportunities." Neither the fact sheet nor the amendment defines transportation services. Rubio’s press release states that transportation services "means the program could provide a service, like a bus ride to a work site, but it cannot provide a car, scooter, motorcycle, or pair of rollerblades." Rubio spokesman Alex Conant told PolitiFact in an email that "...the key word in the legislation is ‘service.’ That qualifier means that they will be provided ‘services’ and not ‘goods’ as in ‘goods and services’ (a common term when referring to tangibles and intangibles). In practice, it means the program can gives kids a bus pass – but it’s not giving them a car." Breitbart published a new post in response to Rubio saying his "narrow reading of the bill is unlikely to be applied by the federal government." We asked Warren Gunnels, senior policy adviser to Sanders, who would decide what could qualify as a transportation service. If the law passed, the U.S. Labor Department would have 20 days to create regulations for the jobs program and states would have 30 days to respond. Gunnels said that local workforce boards would come up with proposals that would be vetted by states and then submitted to the Labor Department, which would have the final say. So to believe the Obamacar claim would mean, for example, that a workforce board in Miami would suggest that it would give away free cars or motorcycles, Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s administrators would give that the thumbs up, and the Labor Department would declare that engines go. To be fair, it’s not expressly spelled out in the amendment that car/scooter/rollerblade giveaways are a no-no and that bus passes are a cheaper idea, but there is also no proof that the government would give away vehicles. The transportation and childcare services language is similar to Obama’s American Jobs Act presented to Congress in 2011, which never became law. Sanders provided PolitiFact a response via his spokesman: "This amendment addresses a crisis in youth unemployment in this country. The unemployment rate for 16- to 19-year-olds is 24.5 percent and higher for Hispanics and African-Americans. What my amendment says, which is obvious, is that providing a job for a young person is meaningless if they don’t have transportation to be able to get to that job. So the program has the option of providing funding for bus fare or subway tickets or other means of transportation. It is only the wild imagination that we have come to expect from Fox TV that would come up with this preposterous idea that we are buying automobiles for young people." Our ruling An amendment by Sanders to the immigration bill would provide a youth jobs program that includes the possibility of transportation and child care services. That prompted conservative news outlets to make claims such as, "New Immigration bill has taxpayer subsidized Obamacars for youths." Sanders’ amendment doesn’t define in detail what the transportation services would entail. Ultimately if the bill passes, local workforce boards would propose jobs programs that would be signed off by the states and approved by the U.S. Labor Department. There is no proof to support the idea that the program would include free car, motorcycle or scooter giveaways. In fact, that such a process would end up allowing car giveaways seems laughable. We are putting the brakes on this rumor. Pants on Fire! See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2013-06-26T11:53:09 | 2013-06-25 | ['None'] |
pomt-09551 | Federal employees are making twice as much as their private counterparts. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/feb/03/scott-brown/politifact-debut-brown-says-federal-jobs-pay-twice/ | Only 12 days after his upset victory in Massachusetts, Republican Sen.-elect Scott Brown made his debut on the Sunday morning talk circuit. He talked about health care, the war in Afghanistan and deficit reduction in an interview with Barbara Walters on the Jan. 31, 2010 episode of This Week. Brown encouraged President Barack Obama to put a freeze on federal position hires and raises because, "as you know, federal employees are making twice as much as their private counterparts." Federal jobs don't exactly have a reputation for bringing in big bucks, so we were curious about Brown's claim. Before we get into his statement, it's useful to understand how the government sets salaries. Trade, craft and laboring workers are paid according to the Federal Wage System, which pegs pay to local prevailing rates. Salaries for white-collar employees are set under a separate pay system that determines salaries by comparing government positions to similar jobs in the private sector. Increasingly, some agencies and departments are using pay schemes that are more closely tied to performance rather than tenure, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and these workers are generally paid more. It turns out that Brown has talked about federal employee pay before. On Jan. 4, before he was elected, Brown called for a temporary pay freeze for federal workers. "I recognize that our federal workers do important work, but it’s not right that lesser-paid private sector workers suffering through a recession have to pay for expensive government salaries,” he said, citing numbers from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank. In August 2009, Cato published an analysis of wage statistics from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, a branch of the U.S. Commerce Department. According to those numbers, the average wage for 1.9 million federal civilian workers was $79,197, compared to $50,028 for the nation’s 108 million private-sector workers. (The analysis leaves out combat military personnel on the theory that there aren't equivalent jobs in the private sector.) Chris Edwards, the director of tax policy studies at Cato who wrote the analysis, later said it generated some controversy. Some critics said that the federal work force is generally more skilled than, say, people who work in the service industry. So naturally, the average would be higher. (Edwards acknowledged that was "an important factor to consider," but said the increase in federal wages has much steeper than the private sector. "Has the composition of the federal work force really changed that much in just eight years to justify such a big relative gain? I doubt it.") Secondly, some critics argued that an average is not especially useful when comparing private and public-sector salaries. John Palguta, vice president of public policy for the Partnership for Public Service, a group that urges people to work in government, told us that a more useful comparison is to look at specific jobs in the public and private sectors and see how they compare. For example, he said, federal doctors and nurses typically do not make as much as they could in private jobs. We checked a variety of sources for apples-to-apples comparisons and found a variety of results. One study came from the Federal Salary Council, an advisory group of labor relations experts and representatives of federal employee unions that helps the U.S. Office of Personnel Management set wage rates. It found that for comparable private and public jobs such as lawyers, public sector employees are paid on average 26 percent less than private sector counterparts. When we checked individual jobs using the most recent Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data (from 2008), we found many federal salaries were indeed higher, but some were lower. Higher: A government-employed nurse makes about $74,460 on average, while someone in the same position working for the private sector makes about $65,130. A cashier working for the government makes on average $34,470 while a cashier working in a store only makes a mean of $18,880 annually. And a public-relations manager working for the government makes about $132,410 a year compared to $101,220 in the private sector. Lower: Petroleum engineers working for the government earn an average of $93,140; in the private sector, they make an average of $119,140. An editor working for the government only makes $42,210, compared to an average of $57,180 in the private sector. It's worth noting that the BLS's overall average for federal jobs is $68,740 compared to the private sector average of $42,270, so it reflects the Cato Institute findings. That brings us back to Brown's original statement, that federal employees make twice as much "as their private counterparts." First, even if you look at the average overall, he's exaggerating the difference. The numbers he cites from the Cato study are not twice as high. Secondly, it's important to understand that a big reason for the disparity is the different mix of jobs in the federal work force. It has more higher-paying white-collar jobs, experts told us, while there are more lower-paying, blue-collar jobs in the private sector that bring the average down. So it is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Finally, we found it's a mixed bag when comparing individual private and public sector occupations -- the "private counterparts" he spoke of. Some public jobs pay more, some pay less. And the public ones that pay more are not consistently double as he claimed. So he's wrong to say it's double and wrong to suggest that it's always the case when comparing specific jobs. We rate his claim False. | null | Scott Brown | null | null | null | 2010-02-03T18:48:28 | 2010-01-31 | ['None'] |
pomt-06858 | #Business formation is still on the rise in Ohio! So far in 2011 we’ve assisted w/ 44,443 new business filings. | mostly true | /ohio/statements/2011/aug/03/jon-husted/ohio-secretary-state-jon-husted-touts-rise-new-bus/ | Ohio politicians have made job creation a top priority and talking point. Gov. John Kasich, for instance, runs nearly every policy proposal through the jobs filter and frequently cites his belief that the state must be more business friendly to spur job growth. Even Secretary of State Jon Husted wants the public to know that he is keeping a close eye on jobs, an issue that he and fellow Republicans successfully harnessed during the 2010 election, when they knocked Democrats from office in part by blaming them for the state’s job woes. Though Husted’s most visible duty is overseeing elections, he is responsible for keeping track of the paperwork filed by individuals and companies – both non profit and for-profit corporations -- that want to do business in Ohio. On July 18, 2011, a tweet by his office’s Twitter account, @OhioSOSHusted, noted that his office has processed more requests to set up companies through June of this year than the office processed during same period last year. "#Business formation is still on the rise in Ohio! So far in 2011 we’ve assisted w/ 44,443 new business filings." The tweet also included a link to a news release his office posted to the Internet. PolitiFact Ohio was intrigued by the tweet and specifically whether the increase in business filings is an indicator of an upswing in business as the message -- and its exclamation point -- suggests. The state handled 41,891 business filings through June 2010. That means the state processed 2,552 more business filings through the first six months of this year – or about 6 percent -- compared to last year, according to Husted’s office. "The number of new business selecting Ohio as a place to do business is heading in the right direction," Husted said in the news release. To get a better perspective on business filings, PolitiFact Ohio asked Matt McClellan from Husted’s office for the six-month and yearly totals of business filings dating back to at January 2005, nearly three years before the recession officially began in December 2007. McClellan offered these additional figures: 2005 (January through June) 42,919; (total for the year) 78,025 2006 (January through June) 41,664; (total for the year) 79,653 2007 (January through June) 41,401; (total for year) 77,582 2008 (January through June) 41,145; (total for year) 77,858 2009 (January through June) 39,691; (total for the year) 75,854 2010 (January through June) 41,891; (total for the year) 80,081 Broadly speaking, these figures show the total number of filings has bobbed up and down and currently trending upward slightly. Narrowing the focus, the January-through-June average total filings for the years leading up to the start of the recession is 41,994; the January-through-June average total filings during the recession is 40,909, or about a 2.5 percent fewer. So how does that compare to the 2011 January-through-June figure that inspired the tweet? It is nearly even with the pre-recession yearly six-month average; and slighlty ahead of the recession average. While the filings figures offer trend line, they tell us very little about the nature of the businesses, leaving to speculation whether they represent signs of real new businesses, future businesses, or just paperwork signaling legal and tax changes. Also, it’s impossible to calculate the number of new businesses without knowing what is happening to existing businesses. If, for instance, new filings increased by 5,000 but 6,000 businesses failed, the uptick in filings, by itself, would create a misleading sign of growth. Husted seems to acknowledge that these numbers provide an incomplete view, but he still sees these as a positive sign. "While recognizing these number can’t provide a complete picture of Ohio’s job climate, they are an important indicator of economic activity that Secretary Husted hopes will add to the discussion of how to improve the state’s overall climate for business," Husted’s news release states. It’s hard to ignore, however, a caveat at the bottom of Husted’s press release: "Filing as a business in Ohio does not guarantee the company will begin operations, be profitable or create jobs." So where does Husted’s tweet land on the Truth-0-Meter? The figure in of itself is correct and points to a slight post-recession upward trend. But the context around the tweet – the figure is worth boasting about because it’s a sign of economy recovery – seems overly optimistic, especially given the news release’s footnote that there’s no guarantee these filings mean more jobs will be created. Husted’s claim is accurate, but leaves out details that provide clarification. PolitiFact rates this claim Mostly True. | null | Jon Husted | null | null | null | 2011-08-03T06:00:00 | 2011-07-18 | ['Ohio'] |
pomt-11572 | NFL lawyer, who claimed Super Bowl is ‘rigged’, found dead. | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2018/feb/02/eco-news/story-nfl-lawyer-said-super-bowl-rigged-and-was-mu/ | Days before the Super Bowl, fake news articles circulating on Facebook claimed that a National Football League lawyer named Dan Goodes was shot dead in a "gangland-style execution" hours after blowing the whistle on the "rigged Super Bowl." "NFL lawyer, who claimed Super Bowl is ‘rigged,’ found dead," stated the Feb. 1 headline on Eco News, a website that claims it is on the frontline for "earth liberation." Facebook users flagged the post as being potentially fabricated, as part of the social network’s efforts to combat fake news. The story copies an earlier fake story by YourNewsWire, a website that publishes fake news. We sent messages to both websites and didn’t get a reply. We found no evidence that an NFL lawyer named Dan Goodes even exists, or that he was found dead in his BMW in Manhattan. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told PolitiFact that the NFL has no attorney named Dan Goodes. He called the story "ridiculous," "bogus" and "fake." The story said that Goodes had been representing the NFL in Minneapolis to promote the 2018 Super Bowl featuring the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots when he went off script and claimed that the NFL rigged the game to earn maximum revenue for league. "According to Goodes, the fat cat franchise owners and their pampered players do not care who wins, as long as they continue reaping the lucrative financial benefits provided by the system," the article said. The article included a mock screenshot of a Jan. 28 New York Times article about the alleged shooting of the lawyer founded slumped over the wheel of his BMW. But the article doesn’t appear in Nexis. "Nothing about this is real, down to the URL," New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told PolitiFact. "It's a false reference to a non-existent NYT story." The Eco News story included a photo of two police officers at a crime scene. We searched Google images and found it matched an Associated Press photo of a crime scene near the site where a police officer was fatally shot in the Bronx in July. It also contained an alleged photo of NFL headquarters; however, a search of that photo in Google images resulted in a match to a picture on the South Park Studios website. Other conspiracy theories about Super Bowl rigging Readers should beware of other conspiracy theories about the Super Bowl. The Facebook page Satire Daily, which clearly identifies itself as satire, published a video seemingly documenting that the NFL had openly admitted to rigging games. Snopes debunked the claim in January. The video focused on a referee who congratulated the team’s quarterback Tom Brady after the Patriots beat the Jaguars. That actually happened. Referee Clete Blakeman did Brady a congratulatory pat on the chest, which fueled some conspiracy theories. NFL spokesman McCarthy told PolitiFact, "It's not uncommon for an official to congratulate a player after a game." Another situation that fueled conspiracy theories stemmed from an actual NFL ad on social media in January before the NFC Championship Game. The ad featured photos of the Patriots and Vikings quarterbacks and said, "When you donate to United Way, you could score 2 club-level seats to watch the Patriots vs. the Vikings battle it out for the coveted Super Bowl title!" The NFL apologized for the ads. "It was a regrettable mistake," an unnamed NFL spokesman told media. "The ads were mocked up using all the (possible) combinations, but weren’t supposed to go until Monday when the matchup is known. Obviously, someone jumped the gun." McCarthy also told PolitiFact the ad was a mistake. Our ruling In the world of real news, PolitiFact has fact-checked many claims related to past Super Bowls related to weather, records and spending as well as human trafficking and domestic violence and economic impact. But in this case, the claim that an "NFL lawyer, who claimed Super Bowl is ‘rigged’, found dead" is fake news. We rate this story Pants on Fire! See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Eco News | null | null | null | 2018-02-02T12:18:09 | 2018-02-01 | ['Super_Bowl', 'National_Football_League'] |
pomt-09447 | George W. Bush was "the least popular president in modern history." | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2010/mar/08/dana-milbank/milbank-says-bush-was-least-popular-president-mode/ | It's become an article of faith for many Democrats that the presidency of George W. Bush was a failure. That kind of opinion is beyond the scope of the Truth-O-Meter, but we do feel comfortable assessing something more concrete: measuring how Bush fared in public opinion polls. In a March 7, 2010, opinion column, the Washington Post's Dana Milbank took a critical -- and in some cases, rather harsh -- look at the new memoir by Karl Rove called Courage and Consequence: My Life as a Conservative in the Fight. In his column, Milbank writes that before the former Bush adviser published his book, he had "2 1/2 years to reflect on what turned Bush into the least popular president in modern history." We thought it worth checking whether Milbank was correct that George W. Bush was "the least popular president in modern history." We will start by raising a caveat. Milbank's exact words were that Bush was "the least popular president in modern history." There's no direct scientific measurement of popularity, but the polling industry offers two barometers that come close: presidential approval ratings and presidential favorability. Approval ratings are based on how well poll respondents rate the job someone is doing as president ("Do you approve or disapprove of the job the president is doing?"). By contrast, favorability questions are more broad. They usually ask whether the respondent feels favorably or unfavorably toward the president. (Pollsters call the two numbers the "fave/unfave"). Favorability is not strictly about someone's job performance, though that certainly plays a role in most people's assessments; rather, it's about how they feel generally toward the person. The differences between these two measures are not trivial. President Bill Clinton famously recorded strong job-approval ratings even as his personal popularity sagged during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The opposite seems to be happening with President Barack Obama, who has maintained relatively robust favorability rankings even as his job approval numbers have sunk. However you decide this question, most polling experts agree that Gallup offers the best source material to test Milbank's claim, since it offers both the longest-running data set (going as far back as Harry Truman for approval rating) and the most consistent wording. One drawback: Gallup only began asking regular favorability questions in 1992, the final year of George H.W. Bush's presidency. The company continued through the presidencies of Clinton, George W. Bush and Obama. Here's how Bush stacked up: Measured on favorability, Bush did indeed record the lowest numbers of the four presidents studied. His father George H.W. Bush never fell below 38 percent favorability, Clinton never fell below 42 percent, and Obama has not yet fallen below 55 percent. But George W. Bush recorded a low of 32 percent. That bolsters Milbank's point, but it's a narrow field. It only compares Bush against the full term of one other president -- Clinton -- and brief portions of two others. And besides, it's hard to argue that the "modern" presidential era, to use Milbank's term, began in 1992. Polling experts told us job approval is a better measure. That allows us to compare Bush against nine of his predecessors and Obama. But there are several ways to slice the data: • Average job-approval rating. On this one, George W. Bush ranks in the bottom half of the table, but well above the bottom. With an average job-approval rating of 49.4 percent, Bush ranked below John F. Kennedy (70.1 percent), Dwight Eisenhower (65.0), George H.W. Bush (60.9), Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton (tied at 55.1) and Ronald Reagan (52.8). But Bush ranked ahead of Richard Nixon (49.0), Gerald Ford (47.2), Jimmy Carter (45.5) and Truman (45.4). (We're not counting Obama in this category because of his short tenure.) So by this measure, Bush was not the least popular modern president. • Final job approval rating. Measured by final job-approval rating just before they left office, Bush ranks low, but -- once again -- not the lowest in the "modern era." He ranks behind Clinton (66 percent), Reagan (63), Eisenhower (59), Kennedy (58), George H.W. Bush (56), Ford (53) and Johnson (49). But Bush is tied with Carter at 34 percent, and ranks ahead of Truman at 32 percent and Nixon at 24 percent. (Here too, we won't count Obama because he's in the midst of his term.) By this measure, too, Bush was not the least popular modern president. • Lowest job approval rating at any point. By this measure, Bush -- who bottomed out at 25 percent approval -- comes close to ranking the lowest. His worst rating is lower than those of nine presidents (including Obama) and is narrowly ahead of two others. In descending order, the low scores run from a high of 56 percent (Kennedy), through Eisenhower (48), Obama (47), Ford and Clinton (37 each), Johnson (35), Reagan (35), George H.W. Bush (29) and Carter (28). Bush's score ranked slightly ahead of Nixon at 24 percent and Truman at 22 percent. We asked Gallup spokesman Eric Nielsen whether there was any practical difference between Bush's 25 percent, Nixon's 24 percent and Truman's 22 percent. He noted that most of these polls have an error margin of plus or minus 3 percent, which suggested to him that these three low scores are close enough to be statistically tied. So even though Bush's worst number isn't technically the lowest of the bunch, it's close enough that we can't say for sure that it's not the lowest. • Highest presidential disapproval ratings. Gallup doesn't post a summary of highest disapproval ratings on its Web site, but Charles Franklin, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin (Madison) and co-founder of the Web site Pollster.com, told PolitiFact that only four presidents have registered disapproval ratings north of 60 percent. George H.W. Bush peaked at 60 percent disapproval in Gallup's polls. Nixon peaked at 66 percent. Truman peaked at 67 percent. And George W. Bush peaked at ... 71 percent -- easily the highest on record. So measured by highest disapproval ratings, Milbank would be right. The results, then, are a mixed bag. We can't use the favorability rating because it only goes back to 1992. As for job approval, two of the three measures show that Bush was definitely not the least popular president. In the third, it was a statistical tie for the bottom spot. The only way Bush is the clearly the least popular is when measured by disapproval ratings. So we rate Milbank's claim 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 | Dana Milbank | null | null | null | 2010-03-08T19:08:36 | 2010-03-07 | ['None'] |
tron-02071 | The Little Boy Who Wanted to Buy a Doll For His Sister in Heaven | unproven! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/doll/ | null | inspirational | null | null | null | The Little Boy Who Wanted to Buy a Doll For His Sister in Heaven | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14423 | If you look at Latino kids between 17 and 20 who graduated high school, 36 percent of them are unemployed or underemployed. … African-American kids are unemployed or underemployed to the tune of 51 percent. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2016/mar/10/bernie-sanders/bernie-sanders-statistic-black-hispanic-unemployme/ | During the Univision-Washington Post Democratic presidential debate in Miami, Bernie Sanders highlighted the bleak economic prospects of minority youths. "One of the points that I've been making, and media does not seem to pick up on it, is that we have a real crisis not only with real unemployment in America being close to 10 percent, but youth unemployment in this country," Sanders said. "If you look at Latino kids between 17 and 20 who graduated high school, 36 percent of them are unemployed or underemployed. … African-American kids are unemployed or underemployed to the tune of 51 percent." We checked a nearly identical statement by Sanders back in July 2015, when Sanders mentioned it at a campaign event in Portland, Maine. We rated it Mostly True. Now, eight months later, we’ll revisit it. We’ll start by noting that the most commonly used unemployment-rate statistic is not as high for each group as Sanders indicated. The most readily available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics covers the age range from 16 to 19, which isn’t identical but gives a quick approximation. For whites in that age range, the official unemployment rate in February 2016 was 13.9 percent, for Hispanics it was 15.6 percent and for African-Americans it was 23.3 percent. In other words, the official unemployment rate shows that African-American youth unemployment is significantly higher than white youth unemployment and, to a lesser extent, higher than Hispanic youth unemployment. Still, the levels for each group are lower than what Sanders said. So what’s going on? Sanders’ camp pointed us to research published in June 2015 by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-of-center think tank. The numbers in the report match what Sanders said at the debate. This data is different from the more familiar measurements for a few reasons. One, the institute didn’t just look at employment status for people between the ages of 17 and 20; it limited its reach to high school graduates who were not enrolled in further schooling. And two, EPI counted not only unemployed workers but also those who were working part-time due to the weakness of the economy and those who were "marginally attached to the labor force." The latter category includes people who did not meet the strict definition of being in the job market, but weren’t entirely out of the market, either. The statistic EPI used, known by the wonky shorthand U-6, is officially called a measure of "labor underutilization" rather than "unemployment." EPI itself used the term "underemployment" in its research. At the Miami debate, Sanders described this statistic accurately, referring to individuals who are "unemployed or underemployed." So his statement has merit. However, the data is getting a little stale, and since the employment picture has generally been improving since the middle of last year, that’s a potential problem for the accuracy of Sanders’ statement. The last month analyzed in the EPI study was March 2015. We don’t know exactly how much improvement there’s been for young, minority, high school graduates since then, because that specific slice of the data isn’t readily available on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website. But we can do a quick estimate based on the change in unemployment rates for 16-to-19-year-old Hispanics and African-Americans between March 2015 and February 2016. During that period -- since the EPI report came out -- the unemployment rate for young Hispanics fell from 20.9 percent to 15.6 percent, and for young African-Americans, it fell from 25.1 percent to 23.3 percent. In other words, it’s quite possible that the unemployment rates for young, minority, high-school grads is lower now than what Sanders stated. We should caution that the unemployment rate for subsets of the population, such as minority groups, tends to be volatile and has a larger margin of error than for the population as a whole. Still, the unemployment rates for these groups do seem to be lower in more recent months. During 2015, the black youth unemployment rate often reached or exceeded 30 percent, making the current rate of 23.3 percent particularly low -- the lowest since 2000, in fact. Similarly, in 2015, the Hispanic youth unemployment rate often reached or exceeded 20 percent, a level well above the current 15.6 percent rate. Our ruling Sanders said that "if you look at Latino kids between 17 and 20 who graduated high school, 36 percent of them are unemployed or underemployed. … African-American kids are unemployed or underemployed to the tune of 51 percent." As was the case when we first reviewed this claim last July, Sanders’ general point is correct -- that in an apples-to-apples comparison, African-American and Hispanic youth have significantly worse prospects in the job market than whites do. But while Sanders had support for this data when he first began using these numbers eight months ago, there’s reason to believe that the improving job market has lowered these rates, at least somewhat. The statement is accurate but needs clarification or additional information, so we rate it Mostly True. | null | Bernie Sanders | null | null | null | 2016-03-10T00:27:48 | 2016-03-09 | ['None'] |
snes-03674 | Hillary Clinton's campaign manager Robby Mook deleted most of his tweets due to an FBI investigation. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spooked-clinton-campaign-manager-deleted-tweets/ | null | Politicians | null | Dan Evon | null | ‘Spooked’ Clinton Campaign Manager Deleted Tweets | 29 October 2016 | null | ['Federal_Bureau_of_Investigation'] |
pomt-07404 | Texans spend $2.5 billion gambling in our neighboring states every year. | mostly true | /texas/statements/2011/apr/29/texans-economic-development/pro-gambling-group-says-texans-annually-gamble-25-/ | An online banner ad on the Austin American-Statesman’s website April 19 made us eager to try our luck. "Thank you Texas," says a color postcard featuring slot machines and addressed to the state of Texas. The ad, sponsored by a group that seeks to legalize slot machines in Texas, features three messages -- New Mexico thanking Texas for "your" $27 million and Louisiana and Oklahoma each offering thanks for "your" $1 billion. Text below the postcards states: "Texans spend $2.5 billion gambling in our neighboring states every year." That’s a lot of quarters. Is it right? We asked Texans for Economic Development, the ad’s sponsor, for elaboration. The group, consisting of horse racing interests, wants Texas lawmakers to ask voters to permit slot machines at 13 in-state horse and greyhound tracks and three Indian reservations. Its spokesman, Mike Lavigne, passed along a July 7, 2010, report prepared for the group by TXP, an Austin economic policy consulting group, stating that in 2009, Texans spent $2.7 billion on gaming and related activities in nearby states. The report says Texans gambled most of that -- $2.57 billion -- immediate neighbors-with-casinos: Oklahoma, where the report says Texans threw down nearly $1.2 billion; Louisiana, about $1.1 billion; and New Mexico, $27 million. The state-by-state figures were based on various sources "including state gaming commissions, primary field research, convention and visitors bureaus ... and other academic studies," the report says. We wondered where those figures originated. Casinos would be ideal sources for how much Texans plunk down across state lines, but we found no evidence they talk about their customer base. Hence, Alan Meister, who analyzes gaming issues for an Arlington, Va., consulting firm, advised us that certain "assumptions have to be made" to estimate the dollars gambled by residents of various states. In an interview, Jon Hockenyos,TXP’s president, explained that the firm had to mesh different data "to get the right order of magnitude" for how much Texans were gambling. "It’s like making fruit salad," he said. The firm’s recipe, according to Hockenyos: --In Oklahoma, researchers counted Texas license plates at a range of tribal gambling venues, finding Texas plates accounted for 90 percent of the vehicles in a sampling from halls close to Texas; 47 percent of plates at a sampling of casinos farther away; and 6 percent of establishments farthest from Texas. Using the number of slot machines at each hall, TXP concluded that Texans accounted for 37 percent of the casinos’ total reported gaming revenue in 2009, which TXP estimated at $3.2 billion based on a national Indian gaming report. Hockenyos also noted a March 9 news article in The Tulsa World, quoting a study by Meister, that said tribal gaming revenue in Oklahoma for 2009 was $3.1 billion. The estimated piece of the Oklahoma gambling action credited to Texans: $1.18 billion. --For Louisiana, TXP zeroed in on a 2009-10 report by the state on the economic impact of Louisiana’s riverboat casino industry. It said 62 percent of the casinos’ visitors came from another state or more than 150 miles away. TXP, mindful that Texans accounted for 70 percent of the combined 2008 populations of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi, extrapolated from those percentages to estimate the Texans’ share of the far-away visitors -- 43 percent -- and multiplied that percentage by the state-reported 2009 gambling revenue, about $2.5 billion. Wade Duty, executive director of the Louisiana Casino Association, forwarded what he described as a yet-to-be published January survey result indicating that 49 percent of riverboat casino customers hail from other states or more than 150 miles away. Informed of the lower figure, Texans for Economic Development reduced its estimate of the money Texans gamble in Louisiana from $1.1 billion to $869 million. Duty said he’s not sure about the assumption that Texans comprised 70 percent of those out-of-state and long-distance gamblers. The Harvey Canal, site of a New Orleans riverboat casino, may be beautiful, he said, but "people aren’t spending 16 hours in a car to come from Midland." Duty called TXP’s revised estimate for how much Texans’ gambled "more reasonable," but said: "I can’t say it’s correct." Duty said a better way of estimating Texans’ expenditures would start with interviews of gambling patrons to gauge where they came from, how long they’d stayed and what they’d gambled. --For New Mexico, TXP concluded that Texans over all accounted for about 8 percent of the money gambled in casinos and racinos, which are race tracks with slot machines. Hockenyos noted that nearly 4,000 slot machines -- a little less than one third of all the slot machines in the state -- are in southern New Mexico, near El Paso. El Paso’s population accounts for more than 65 percent of the residents of that southern sector, Hockenyos said, and Texans account for more than 20 percent of New Mexico’s annual visitors. TXP applied the Texans’ 8 percent to what it then believed to be relevant gaming spending of nearly $350 million, making the Texans’ share $27 million. However, Hockenyos said, he later realized he’d inappropriately folded in licensing fees and also under-counted the year’s gambling expenditures, which were $968 million, according to records posted online by the New Mexico Gaming Control Board. The revised Texans’ portion? About $77 million. So, with the firm’s latest tweaks, the three-state estimate is closer to $2.1 billion. Everyone aboard with that? Well, no. Stephen Reeves, a spokesman for the anti-gambling, Baptist-backed Christian Life Commission, said counting license plates is a poor way of gauging how much Texans spend in casinos. He followed up by email: "However, if doing so I would suggest that the frequency that a particular car shows up must be taken into account to determine how much money they are ‘spending.’" Our take: The fruit-salad methodology used by the consulting group was not perfect. Absent precise data, though, TXP’s estimate of how much money Texans gamble in neighboring states looks reasonable, though it’s a stretch to claim Texans gamble the same total amount every year. We rate the statement Mostly True. | null | Texans for Economic Development | null | null | null | 2011-04-29T06:00:00 | 2011-04-19 | ['None'] |
pomt-07027 | You see a whole bunch of Korean cars here in the United States, and you don't see any American cars in Korea. | mostly true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jul/04/barack-obama/barack-obama-said-you-dont-see-american-made-cars-/ | President Barack Obama criticized Congress at a Wednesday press conference for not passing legislation that would help the economy. One example, he said, was that Congress needs to approve pending trade agreements. "I think these trade deals will be important because right now South Korea, frankly, has a better deal when it comes to our trading relationship than we do. Part of the reason I want to pass this trade deal is you see a whole bunch of Korean cars here in the United States, and you don't see any American cars in Korea. So let's re-balance that trading relationship. That's why we should get this passed," he said. We decided to fact-check Obama's statement about cars in the United States and Korea. Our first stop was to look at the statistics on auto imports and exports. We turned to numbers compiled by the U.S. Commerce Department. The numbers show that the United States exported 16,659 vehicles to Korea in 2010. Korea, meanwhile, exported 515,646 vehicles to the United States. That means that for every car we sent to Korea, the Koreans sent more than 30 to us. And we should note the 16,659 represented a six-year high; between 2005 and 2010 the number was even lower. It's true that South Korea has a smaller population than the United States, with about 48.8 million people there and 313.2 million people here. But that is an imbalance of about 1 to 6, significantly smaller than the disparity in auto sales. So Obama's larger point about a significant trade imbalance for cars is correct. Experts we spoke with also said he was largely correct that South Korea has "a better deal" when it comes to our trading relationship. Still, Obama's statement requires a few qualifications, they said. For one thing, there are not clear categories of American cars and Korean cars. Kia Motors, for example, has a large auto plant in Georgia, and Hyundai Motors has a plant in Alabama. It's possible that some of the cars the United States sold to Korea could be Korean-branded cars. Meanwhile, General Motors owns the Korean auto company Daewoo, which it purchased back in 2001. One estimate we saw said GM sold 90,000 Korean-made cars in Korea in 2008. This year, GM decided to end the Daewoo brand and operate as GM Korea. The Korean-made cars it now sells in the country carry typical American brands like Chevrolet. Additionally, the experts we spoke with presented a more nuanced picture of whether the trade agreement would actually help U.S. automakers sell more cars in Korea. Koreans tend to favor smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, and the government there maintains strict standards for fuel efficiency and other things that make it hard for American companies to compete, even if tariffs between the two countries are reduced. To look at it more optimistically, though, they said the proposed trade agreement would not make things worse for U.S. automakers. "I don't think we can get any worse," said Sean McAlinden, chief economist for the independent Center for Automotive Research. "The Koreans are doing all the damage they can do right now." Finally, we wanted to address the point of whether American made cars are rarely seen in Korea. David Straub, who leads the Korean Studies Program at Stanford University, lived in Seoul in 2007, so we asked him if he ever saw an American branded car while he was there. He said the statistics show that there are indeed some American cars are in South Korea. "But did I ever see an American car? I don't recall seeing one," he said. It's worth noting that Obama's press conference didn't do much to prod Congress to act on the trade agreement. The day after his remarks, Senate Republicans boycotted a hearing on the trade agreement, arguing that the trade agreement should not include $1 billion in additional spending to help workers who become unemployed as a result of international trade. Overall, though, we found little dispute that Obama's statement, "You see a whole bunch of Korean cars here in the United States, and you don't see any American cars in Korea," is largely correct, if you account for the complexity of international trade. Korean companies are building cars in America, while American companies build cars in Korea. We rate his statement Mostly True. | null | Barack Obama | null | null | null | 2011-07-04T08:10:10 | 2011-06-29 | ['United_States', 'Korea', 'South_Korea'] |
pomt-03773 | Says the president of the University of Texas has raised four-year student graduation rates to 75 percent. | false | /texas/statements/2013/apr/02/matt-mackowiak/matt-mackowiak-says-ut-president-has-raised-four-y/ | Analyzing flashpoints of debate concerning the flagship University of Texas, Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak credited UT’s president with greatly driving up student graduation rates. Bill Powers, who has faced public questioning from members of the UT System Board of Regents, "has instituted reforms on his own," Mackowiak wrote in an opinion column published by the Austin American-Statesman on April 1, 2013. He added that UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa had recently said Powers raised UT-Austin’s "four-year graduation rate from 53 percent to 75 percent." We were unaware of such a spike since Powers took over as president in 2006. After emailing Mackowiak about his conclusion, we turned to news stories on campus graduation rates as well as research cupboarded by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. According to a June 7, 2012, American-Statesman article, Powers set a goal in 2011 of at least 70 percent of the fall 2012 entering class earning a degree within four years. In contrast, UT's graduation rate had lately ranged from about 46 percent in 2000 to nearly 53 percent in 2005, the story said, with the 51 percent rate for the class of 2011 proving to be the highest among the state's 38 public universities for that year. A Feb. 12, 2013, Statesman news story said UT efforts to meet the goal "include stepped-up freshman orientation to reshape a campus culture that has long tolerated a more leisurely trajectory to graduation; the appointment of a senior vice provost to champion the four-year graduation cause; and the allotment of $5 million to encourage students to finish on time, with some of that money earmarked for financial aid to those making steady academic progress." Next, we asked the coordinating board for its calculation of UT-Austin’s four-year graduation rates. Spokesman Dominic Chavez emailed us a spreadsheet indicating the rate has ranged from 52 percent in fiscal 2007, which began Sept. 1, 2006, about seven months into Powers’ tenure, to 53 percent in fiscal 2012, the year ending Aug. 31, 2012. Chavez said each board calculation reflects the share of full-time students who enrolled in the fall of the year four years before, meaning the 2012 rate would sweep in students who had first enrolled in fall 2008 and graduated by the end of August 2012. Chavez said the reported rates may differ from other calculations because the board credits an institution where a student began his education even if the student has transferred and ultimately graduated elsewhere. We also asked UT-Austin about its four-year graduation rates. Spokesman Gary Susswein emailed a spreadsheet indicating the four-year rate has improved from 51 to 52 percent through Powers’ presidency. As we gathered this information, Mackowiak said by email that he picked up the graduation statistic from remarks by Cigarroa during a public interview by the Texas Tribune. In the March 28, 2013, interview, Cigarroa credited Powers for saying "we will increase the four-year graduation rate from 53 percent to 75 percent. And he put his neck out on the line and he’s going to do it." On review, Mackowiak said, it’s clear the escalated four-year graduation rate is a goal. "It’s my mistake," he wrote. At Mackowiak's nudge, the American-Statesman published a correction of his column. Our ruling Mackowiak said UT-Austin’s president had driven four-year graduation rates to 75 percent. However, the latest four-year graduation rate on the campus was no greater than 53 percent, compared to rates the same or a bit lower in the other full years of Powers’ presidency. The institution's declared goal is a four-year rate of at least 70 percent. We rate the claim as False. UPDATE, April 9, 2013: This story was updated to reflect the American-Statesman publishing a correction of Mackowiak's oped column. This did not affect our rating of his claim. | null | Matt Mackowiak | null | null | null | 2013-04-02T14:00:00 | 2013-04-01 | ['University_of_Texas_at_Austin'] |
pomt-15079 | The Obama administration’s "own Environmental Protection Agency" has said its Clean Power Plan "will have a marginal impact on climate change." | half-true | /wisconsin/statements/2015/sep/21/scott-walker/even-epa-says-obamas-power-plan-will-have-only-mar/ | When the second Republican presidential debate took up climate change, Gov. Scott Walker made a counterintuitive claim about President Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, which requires the nation’s power plans to reduce their carbon emissions by nearly a third. About midway into the Sept. 16, 2015 debate, held in California, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida was expressing concerns to moderator Jake Tapper about higher utility rates and fewer jobs. That's when Walker interjected and said: "A lot of those people, though, and I'm going to echo what Senator Rubio just said. This is an issue where, we're talking about my state, it's thousands of manufacturing jobs. Thousands of manufacturing jobs for a rule the Obama administration, (its) own EPA has said will have a marginal impact on climate change." Walker’s campaign confirmed to us that the governor was referring to the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, and to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. There are differences of opinion, of course, over how much one plan in one country can affect the global climate. But to Walker’s claim: Did the EPA -- the agency administering the Clean Power Plan -- say the plan’s regulations would have only a marginal effect on climate change? The plan In August 2015, the Obama administration announced that its Clean Power Plan regulations would require power plants to reduce carbon emissions, from 2005 levels, by 32 percent by 2030. (A 2014 draft of the plan had sought a 30 percent reduction.) Advocates said the reduction would help attack global warming and provide reductions in other emissions that create soot and smog. But the announcement prompted Walker to add Wisconsin to states that are challenging the first-ever requirements in court. The reductions won't be uniform, because individual states rely on different mixes of coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, water, wind and the sun to provide power. Wisconsin, which has traditionally relied heavily on coal, faces having to reduce emissions 34 percent-- the sixth-highest rate in the country, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. EPA’s view As for the the EPA, it has described the Clean Power Plan as a necessary, though not sufficient, step in addressing climate change -- and as part of a larger strategy to spur other nations to reduce emissions. During a July 2015 congressional hearing, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, challenged EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy on the impact on climate change. The Texas Republican quoted a former EPA assistant secretary under Obama as saying the plan would, at most, reduce the global temperature by 1/100 of a degree Celsius. McCarthy responded by saying that the value of the plan can’t be measured that way. She said that while the plan mandates carbon emission reductions in the United States, it also aims to prod other nations to reduce their emissions and to trigger investment in technological innovations that also will reduce emissions. The value of the plan is "in showing strong domestic action, which can actually trigger global action," McCarthy said. "(I’m) not disagreeing that this action in and of itself will not make all the difference we need to address climate action. But what I'm saying is if don't take action domestically, we will never get started." (Separately, EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia told us the agency has said the Clean Power Plan "is only one component of our larger strategy," which includes measures for vehicle fuel efficiency and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.) During the same hearing, there were fears expressed that the plan will drive up the cost of electricity to consumers. And U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., expressed concern that China, India and Russia would not reduce the growth in their carbon emissions. So, the head of the EPA acknowledges that the Clean Power Plan -- since it applies only to the United States -- can have only a limited impact on global climate change. But besides reducing carbon emissions in the United States, the plan is aimed at getting other nations to do the same. Other views We interviewed two experts about the Clean Power Plan and the EPA’s take on it: Adele Morris of the Brookings Institution’s Climate and Energy Economics Project, and Chip Knappenberger of the Cato Institute’s Center for the Study of Science. Both agreed that the United States historically is a major emitter of carbons, but growing nations such as India and China will play a larger role in future emissions. And they agreed that a key part of the EPA’s strategy with the Clean Power Plan is that as a global leader, if the United States reduces emissions, other nations might be spurred to do so, as well. Other experts have made the same point. "This appears to be an intentionally obfuscating perspective," Dallas Burtraw, a senior fellow at Resources for the Future a think tank that tracks energy policy, said of Walker's claim. "Climate change is a global problem. The contribution of U.S. efforts are greater, in my mind, for the influence they have on the behavior of the other nations of the world than for the specific reductions that the U.S. achieves. The greater contribution is leadership in this case." In June 2015 -- five months before a United Nations summit meeting aimed at forging a global accord to cut climate-warming emissions -- China submitted a plan to the U.N. detailing how it plans to reduce fossil fuel emissions by 2030. The New York Times reported that climate policy experts cited the significance of China’s plan, given that the United States and China -- the world’s top greenhouse gas polluters -- have long been viewed as the biggest obstacles to reaching a meaningful global warming deal. Our rating In the debate, Walker said the Obama administration’s "own Environmental Protection Agency" has said its Clean Power Plan "will have a marginal impact on climate change." The EPA acknowledges that the plan can have only a limited effect on global climate change, given that they order reductions in carbon emission only in the United States. But a key aim of the plan is to spur other nations to reduce their emissions, as well, and to spur new technologies that will help reduce emissions. Walker’s statement is partially accurate, but leaves out important details -- our definition of Half True. | null | Scott Walker | null | null | null | 2015-09-21T11:42:11 | 2015-09-16 | ['Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-08571 | Says the U.S. Constitution provides for just compensation when land is taken under eminent domain. | true | /texas/statements/2010/sep/28/todd-staples/todd-staples-says-us-constitution-provides/ | Republican Todd Staples, the state agriculture commissioner seeking re-election against Democrat Hank Gilbert, is no lawyer. But he kinda played one in a Sept. 16 interview on an Austin radio station. Staples, pitching for listeners to sign an online petition urging the 2011 Legislature to embrace "true eminent-domain reforms," told KVET-FM morning hosts Bob Cole and Bucky Godbolt: "What we're talking about is a basic constitutional right of property owners. Our United States Constitution says that if eminent domain has to be used, a property owner must be justly compensated, period." The Bill of Rights says pay up? Get out (that's just an expression). The actual language doesn't say "must," but the meaning aligns with Staples' comment. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution says no private property shall "be taken for public use, without just compensation." Nationally, Staples is among figures to air frets about the power of government to "take" property for declared public purposes, in part reacting a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision, in Kelo v. City of New London, upholding a community's right to take property for an economic redevelopment project; the plaintiff had maintained the city's plan for her land did not constitute "public use" under the Fifth Amendment. According to an April 2009 article in the American Bar Association's Journal, 43 states enacted statutes or constitutional amendments restricting the use of eminent domain in the wake of the court ruling, while at least five state supreme courts issued rulings to "significantly impede government power to take private property." In Texas, the federal ruling contributed to the 2009 Legislature proposing a state constitutional amendment which voters adopted last year. The amendment prohibits the taking of private property for transfer to a private entity for the purpose of economic development or to increase tax revenues, according to the Texas Secretary of State's office. Gilbert has questioned Staples' bonafides for talking up laws against government taking private property without just compensation. In a Sept. 17 press release, the Democrat singles out measures Staples supported as a state senator to suggest he's not always aligned with private property owners. That sally may be valid; we're not judging it here. We rate Staples' statement to KVET as True. | null | Todd Staples | null | null | null | 2010-09-28T06:00:00 | 2010-09-16 | ['None'] |
pomt-07771 | A federal system that verifies employees are authorized to work in the U.S. is inaccurate "anywhere from 50 percent all the way up to in excess of 80" percent of the time. | half-true | /georgia/statements/2011/feb/23/david-raynor/Georgia-Chamber-E-Verify-accuracy-problems/ | Backers of bills before the General Assembly argue that stopping illegal immigrants from working in Georgia can be as simple as pushing a few buttons. Just type a new employee’s name into the website of the federal program E-Verify, which confirms whether he or she can work legally in the U.S. Some employers already use it, but Georgia should make it mandatory, backers argue. Not so fast, critics say. "There are some inaccuracies that exist within pilot programs such as E-Verify," cautioned David Raynor, a lobbyist for the Georgia Chamber of Commerce, on Feb. 8 in a legislative committee meeting on one of the bills. How bad is the error rate? State Rep. Rich Golick, R-Smyrna, a co-sponsor of the bill, asked Raynor. "I don’t have it, Mr. Chairman, in front of me today. I know we’ve seen quotes from different reports that have shown anywhere from 50 percent all the way up to in excess of 80," Raynor replied. That same day, Gov. Nathan Deal noted "there are questions being raised" about E-Verify’s accuracy. Sounds bad, we thought. So, are there inaccuracies in E-Verify? House Bill 87 and Senate Bill 40 would require many businesses to use E-Verify, which handled more than 16 million queries during fiscal year 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. SB 40 exempts farmers and other employers who participate in federal programs that allow noncitizens to work here legally. An employer enters a new hire’s information, which E-Verify tries to match with records from the Social Security Administration and the DHS. If there’s a match and the worker is authorized, the employee stays. If there’s no match, the system issues a "tentative nonconfirmation," which the employee can contest. If that challenge is unsuccessful, E-Verify issues a "final nonconfirmation," and the employee can be fired. E-Verify, which was originally named the "Basic Pilot Program," is mandatory for federal contractors and employers in Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina and Utah. In Georgia, public agencies and employers with public contracts must use it. Now, on to our analysis. A chamber spokeswoman referred us to Kim Thompson, an Atlanta labor attorney who advises the chamber on E-Verify. "I wouldn’t say the problems are necessarily significant, but there are problems," Thompson said. She said she has handled cases in which E-Verify failed to confirm legal workers, but the program’s accuracy has recently improved. Thompson referred PolitiFact Georgia to the federal Government Accountability Office, which issued a report on the program in December, plus an audit of the program by independent contractor Westat, a research company. Indeed, the GAO and experts for and against making E-Verify mandatory agree that the program has improved. It’s overwhelmingly accurate for authorized workers, but it fails to catch a large percentage of illegal ones. The most current data says that overall, it was inaccurate between 2.3 and 5.7 percent of the time, according to Westat. For legal workers, its error rate was between 0.6 percent and 1 percent, Westat found. But of the workers it thought may be unauthorized, 22 percent were actually legal. E-Verify mistook legal, foreign-born workers for illegal ones 20 percent more often than it did for their U.S.-born counterparts, according to Westat. The system especially struggled with workers with Hispanic and Arab surnames, which means "increased potential exists for an adverse impact on individuals’ civil rights and civil liberties," the GAO warned. Los Angeles County, which used the program, had a harder time with E-Verify. There, it was wrong 2 percent of the time, and 95 percent of the people it thought may be illegal workers turned out to be legal, according to the Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank that thinks mandating E-Verify may do more harm than good. E-Verify’s biggest shortcoming was catching illegal workers. It cleared them to work an estimated 37 to 64 percent of the time. Illegal workers and shady employers often use fraudulent documents that E-Verify can’t detect, the GAO said. Whether E-Verify is accurate enough to be mandated is up for debate. "I would say that if it’s not ready now, it’s on the cusp of being ready," said Janice Kephart, an expert with the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for lower immigration levels. Marc Rosenblum, an immigration expert with the Migration Policy Institute, told PolitiFact Georgia that E-Verify does little for employers since it fails to catch so many unauthorized workers. He concluded in a report this month that "E-Verify remains vulnerable to identity fraud and employer misuse, and offers no ability to detect off-the-books employment." To sum up: E-Verify is overwhelmingly accurate with legal workers but fails to identify a large percentage of illegal ones. Indeed, as Raynor said, "there are some inaccuracies that exist" in E-Verify. But his suggestion the error rate ranges between 50 and 80 percent was too high. E-Verify’s worst error rate -- for illegal workers -- is high, but it’s still well below what Raynor suggested. For all workers, it shrinks to 2.3 to 5.7 percent. While Raynor’s main point was correct, he was wrong on important details about E-Verify’s overall accuracy. We therefore rule his statement Half True. | null | David Raynor | null | null | null | 2011-02-23T06:00:00 | 2011-02-08 | ['United_States'] |
pomt-10978 | The Electoral College is much more advantageous for Democrats. | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/17/donald-trump/donald-trumps-questionable-claim-electoral-college/ | It may be more than a year and a half since the presidential election, but time and again, President Donald Trump has brought up his Electoral College victory in 2016 — even at unexpected moments, such as the joint press conference he held with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on July 16, 2018. At one point, Trump said, "The Democrats lost an election which, frankly, they should have been able to win, because the Electoral College is much more advantageous for Democrats, as you know, than it is to Republicans." When we checked with political experts, they expressed skepticism that the Electoral College is "much more advantageous to the Democrats," particularly today. The myth of the "blue wall" During the 2016 campaign, there was a widespread belief among the public that there was a "blue wall" of solidly Democratic states protecting Clinton. It’s human nature to assume what has happened previously will continue into the future. So after Barack Obama, a Democrat, won the 2008 and 2012 elections, some assumed that the Democrats would have a leg up in 2016 as well. To take just one example, in 2014, a column in the conservative Washington Examiner was headlined, "How the Electoral College favors Democrats and why Republicans must change it." The column argued that the Democrats start with a base of 242 electoral votes, compared with just 170 for the Republicans. Under that scenario, the Democrats would need just 28 more electoral votes to clinch the presidency; the Republicans would have a much tougher road to winning. But there’s a catch: To get to that 242 number, the column lumped in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — with a collective 46 electoral votes — with those Democratic base states. There was some logic to that decision, as each of the three states had voted for the Democratic nominee in the previous six presidential elections. And in the case of Michigan and Wisconsin at least, Hillary Clinton’s campaign effectively agreed, largely skipping appearances in those states as Election Day neared. But there are two problems with using this argument as support for Trump’s assertion. First, the notion that Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are bedrock Democratic states was shattered by Trump himself. And his victory undermines his assertion in Helsinki -- in the present tense -- that the Electoral College favors Democrats. Any Democratic candidate in the future isn’t going to make the same mistake Clinton did. They will consider each of these three to be battleground states. Second, contrary to the "media narrative," professional election handicappers never considered Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to be Democratic locks. While the Democrats had won them for six elections running, independent analysts typically considered them battleground states. The following chart summarizes the ratings that several nonpartisan handicappers gave to Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the 2008, 2012, and 2016 elections, where accessible online. The handicappers are the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball, and this author (for Stateline.org in 2008, and for Governing magazine in 2012 and 2016). These analysts use first-hand reporting, past history, and polls to produce a subjective assessment of each state; they are not mathematical models based only on poll results. The ratings "lean Democratic" and "toss-up" mean that a state is considered competitive. "Likely Democratic" is not considered to be competitive, but is less safe than the most solid category, "safe Democratic." The ratings shown are for each group’s final handicapping before Election Day. State Cook 2008 Cook 2012 Cook 2016 I.E. 2016 Sabato 2012 Sabato 2016 Stateline 2008 Govering 2012 Governing 2016 Mich. Lean D Lean D Lean D Lean D Likely D Lean D Likely D Lean D Lean D Pa. Lean D Lean D Lean D Lean D Lean D Lean D Lean D Lean D Lean D Wis. Lean D Lean D Lean D Tossup Lean D Likely D Likely D Tossup Lean D In every analysis, Pennsylvania was considered a lean Democratic state — that is, the Democrats had an edge, but the contest was competitive and hardly in the bag. Wisconsin was considered a toss-up state (the most competitive category of all) or a lean Democratic state a clear majority of the time. And Michigan was considered a lean Democratic state a clear majority of the time. So while the popular perception was that, since the Democrats had won six straight elections in each of those states they were bound to win again, professional handicappers had a more nuanced view of the Democrats’ chances in those states. This caveat didn’t always get picked up in the larger discussion. In reality, a reasonable breakdown of "base" states for each party — particularly after the 2016 results have added another data point — would give Republicans at least 179 electoral votes that are pretty safe in today’s environment. They are: Alabama (9 electoral votes), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Georgia (16), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Montana (3), Nebraska (4 of 5 electoral votes), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (38), Utah (6), West Virginia (5) and Wyoming (3). For their part, the Democrats can rely pretty solidly on states worth 187 electoral votes: California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14), New York (29), New Mexico (5), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3) and Washington state (12). This leaves the following states in the battleground category and assigned to neither party, with a combined 172 electoral votes: Arizona (11), Colorado (9), Florida (29), Iowa (6), Maine (4), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), Nebraska (1 of 5 electoral votes), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20), Virginia (13), and Wisconsin (10). Is this breakdown subject to disagreement? Absolutely; this list has a relatively generous threshold for counting a state as a battleground. Reasonable people will disagree. But if it’s in the ballpark, then the breakdown is 187 electoral votes to start for the Democrats, 179 to start for the Republicans, and 172 up for grabs. It’s hard to call that "much more advantageous for the Democrats." Could Republicans actually be the ones who benefit? Contrary to Trump’s assertion, there’s evidence that the Republicans may actually benefit from the Electoral College system. In the five most-recent elections starting with 2000, the Republicans have twice lost the popular vote but won the presidency thanks to the Electoral College. In 2000, Democrat Al Gore defeated Republican George W. Bush by more than 547,000 votes nationally. In 2016, Clinton defeated Trump by an even larger margin — almost 2.9 million votes. Neither of the popular vote winners became president. "That certainly doesn’t suggest the Electoral College has a Democratic bias. In fact, it indicates the opposite," said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato's Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia Center for Politics. Two factors explain why today’s political environment, if anything, gives Republican states a leg up in the electoral college. First, smaller states get a disproportionately large impact in the Electoral College, because each state (plus the District of Columbia) gets a guaranteed two electoral votes before the rest of the electoral votes are allotted based on House seats (and thus, indirectly, on population). While there are some smaller blue states, the smallest states are disproportionately Republican-leaning. For instance, deep-red Wyoming gets one electoral vote for roughly 193,000 people, while deep-blue California gets one for every 719,000. An even bigger impact today may stem from the demographic makeup of the battleground states that shifted from Obama to Trump. Whites without college degrees — a key base of Trump’s support — "are overrepresented in swing states as compared to the country as a whole," Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com has written. "Sure, there were some exceptions, such as Virginia. But in the average swing state … whites without college degrees make up an average of 45.3 percent of the electorate, higher than their 41.6 percent share nationwide. That’s a big part of why Clinton won the popular vote while losing the Electoral College." Kondik said that as of today, "the Electoral College has a Trump lean because of his white, non-college coalition being an above-average share of the electorate in the key swing states of the Frost Belt. I say ‘Trump lean’ because that advantage might not be apparent for other Republicans with different coalitions in the future." Kondik’s point about changing coalitions making a difference brings up another issue: There doesn’t appear to be a permanent bias for either party, since electorates and demographics change over time. "I don't believe either party has had a long-lasting lean in the Electoral College," said David Wasserman, an analyst for the Cook Political Report. Our ruling Trump said that "the Electoral College is much more advantageous for Democrats." There may have been a popular misperception prior to the 2016 election that Democrats had a large number of solidly blue states that made it much easier for them to reach 270 than the Republicans. But professional handicappers never considered states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin to be solid for the Democrats, even in the 2008 and 2012 elections — and any notion that they continue to be solidly Democratic going forward was exploded by Trump’s wins in those states, making his use of the present tense dubious. There may even be a modest Republican lean to the Electoral College in this political moment, but we couldn’t find evidence of a permanent bias either way. We rate the statement False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2018-07-17T15:23:57 | 2018-07-16 | ['None'] |
pomt-12187 | I’m one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash, no political action committee money. | half-true | /texas/statements/2017/jul/27/beto-orourke/beto-orourke-claims-near-uniqueness-not-taking-cor/ | U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, the punk rocker turned Democratic politician from El Paso, vowed to go against "politics as usual" in Washington while spreading the word about his quest to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas in the 2018 elections. O’Rourke, addressing Dallas supporters at a March 2017 campaign kickoff event, provided some detail as to what that means to him. Toward the end of his remarks, he asked for personal campaign donations, adding to cheers and applause: "I’m one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash, no political action committee money. I don’t want you worried that when I’m taking a vote, making a decision, writing a bill, looking at an amendment, that I’m listening to anyone but you, the people that I want to serve and that I want to represent." Nobody seeking federal office can legally accept direct corporate or union donations, the Federal Election Commission notes. Yet political action committees--open to anyone’s contributions or founded and run by individuals working for corporations or affiliated with labor unions, membership organizations or trade associations--routinely fuel campaigns. In the 2016 elections, PACs gave $472.7 million to congressional candidates, according to the campaign finance tracking website OpenSecrets.org run by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. According to the site, PAC donations accounted for 35 percent of campaign funds for House Democrats, 39 percent for House Republicans, 15 percent for Senate Democrats and 27 percent for Senate Republicans. O’Rourke amends We inquired into the basis of O’Rourke’s claim to near-uniqueness for not taking PAC money. By email, O’Rourke replied that he’d revise what he says going forward. "What I should have said," O’Rourke said, "is that there are only two members of Congress who do not take PAC money and who also do not have a leadership PAC (which gives PAC contributions to other members), myself and Ro Khanna," a California Democrat. In a March 2017 press release, Khanna said he and O’Rourke had introduced legislation barring members of Congress and aspirants from accepting PAC donations. That release grouped Khanna and O’Rourke among six House members who didn’t accept PAC donations in the run-up to the 2016 elections. That count was based, the release said, on a December 2016 breakdown of candidate finance filings posted by Colorado-based CleanSlateNow, which focuses on changing how campaigns are funded. O’Rourke’s reply to us included a different count attributed to information on the OpenSecrets site. O’Rourke wrote: "There are four members of Congress (based on the Open Secrets website) who did not take PAC money in the last cycle (either to their Congressional campaign or to their leadership PAC if they had one) -- myself, Ro Khanna, John Sarbanes and Francis Rooney. Both Sarbanes and Rooney have PACs themselves that make PAC contributions to other candidates." Reviewing web posts and records Information on the OpenSecrets site indicates that into May 2017, Cruz had raised more than $1.9 million from PACs with the contributions accounting for 2 percent of more than $117 million he’d raised starting from his 2012 election to the Senate. The comparable entry for O’Rourke doesn’t show a zero for his PAC donations. It indicates instead $297,969 in PAC contributions to O’Rourke campaigns, amounting to 5 percent of O’Rourke’s $6.3 million in contributions since 2011, the year before his initial election to the House. We asked O’Rourke’s campaign about the tallied PAC contributions. A senior adviser, David Wysong, said by phone that O’Rourke accepted such donations through his first couple of House elections but stopped doing so before seeking his third term in 2016. By email, Wysong provided a document he described as a February 2015 form letter from O’Rourke to possible PAC contributors after which, Wysong said, O’Rourke accepted no PAC donations. From O’Rourke’s letter: "Starting with this election cycle, I plan to no longer accept PAC contributions. I've made this decision in an effort to focus more of my campaign efforts on bringing new, smaller and local donors into the campaign." Wysong also emailed an example of O'Rourke turning back such such aid--an October 2016 letter from O’Rourke’s campaign manager, Brianna Carmen, returning a donation from the Treasury Employees PAC. Wysong noted too that according to an FEC summary page about O’Rourke’s Senate finance report filed in July 2017, the candidate raised more than $2 million from April through June 2017, none of that from PACs. Banana peels With help from the center’s research director, Sarah Bryner, we confirmed from the OpenSecrets site and FEC filings that O’Rourke did not bank any PAC contributions as he sought re-election in 2016 or in the first months of his Senate bid. But this proved a slog to confirm because PAC names repeatedly appear in O’Rourke’s contribution reports. His July 2017 filing with the FEC separately shows $14,580 in contributions from other candidate committees. How unique? Our first focus was on gauging the accuracy of O’Rourke’s claim to being one of two members not accepting PAC aid. After identifying each current senator and House member on the U.S. Congress website, we checked the OpenSecrets site for PAC contributions to each member; the site provides a summary page for each member showing her or his contributions by cycle and over the years. Candidate contributions are further broken down by categories including individual contributions, PAC contributions and self-financing. Here’s the site’s entry for O’Rourke covering the 2016 election cycle: SOURCE: Summary for Beto O’Rourke, OpenSecrets.org (accessed May 10, 2017) From OpenSecrets posts, we identified five House members who did not get PAC contributions before the 2016 elections: O’Rourke; Khanna; Sarbanes, D-Md.; Jared Polis, D-Colo; Rooney, R-Fla--with Polis, Khanna and Rooney also fielding no PAC aid in their House careers. A conflict we didn't settle: CleanSlateNow previously identified Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., as not getting PAC help in his 2016 re-election bid. In contrast, Roe’s OpenSecrets summary page for Roe indicates he got $6,000 in PAC donations before that election. Next, we eyeballed FEC-posted information, focusing on campaign filings by House members’ principal campaign committees for 2015-16. These records confirmed Khanna did not get PAC contributions that cycle. Otherwise, the records showed, Rooney received a $10,296 PAC contribution from Rooney Victory on Dec. 30, 2016; Sarbanes received donations from the VoteSANE PAC; and Polis logged contributions attributed to JStreetPAC, AmeriPAC and ActBlue. Similarly, our FEC search suggested that O’Rourke’s campaign in 2015-16 received $110,721 attributed to PACs (including ActBlue, JStreetPAC and the New Democrat Coalition PAC). Of this total, $74,400 in contributions were designated for the 2018 Democratic primary. So, candidates including O'Rourke took PAC aid? Not so, we found, in that the donations were almost uniformly made by individuals whose personal contribution were routed through supportive "conduit" PACs--a phrase we hadn’t heard before. It looked to us like the donation to Rooney came from a committee devoted to his candidacy. On the FEC site, the respective 2016 donations marked as "PAC" to Sarbanes, O’Rourke and Polis were each accompanied by a column describing the donations as a "conduit total," with a note stating the donation was "earmarked through this organization." We sought more information about ActBlue, the largest aggregator of individual contributions among the PACs linked to O’Rourke. The group says on its web site that it offers tools to help Democratic candidates but it’s not a traditional PAC that rounds up donations and obscures specific donors. ActBlue says it "acts as a conduit federally and in most states, which means we provide the infrastructure for campaigns and organizations to fundraise online, but we don’t fundraise on behalf of anyone. Unlike groups that spend large sums of cash from undisclosed sources, ActBlue offers grassroots donors a way to give fully disclosed donations to the candidates and causes they choose," the group says. CONDUIT PAC DONATIONS TO BETO O’ROURKE CAMPAIGN, 2016 CONDUIT PAC NAME INDIVIDUAL DONATIONS AGGREGATE TOTAL ActBlue 121 $77,294 ActBlue Technical Services 74 $14,070 JStreet PAC 21 $16,140 New Democrat Coalition 9 $4,501 SOURCE: Spreadsheet listing contributions to O’Rourke campaign, based on search of Federal Election Commission website, June 2016, PolitiFact Texas In July 2017, when we looked afresh at the OpenSecrets summary page for O’Rourke in 2017-18, it showed $29,160 in PAC contributions to O’Rourke’s Senate campaign. A few days later, the chart indicated $43,740 in PAC donations. Red flags? Negative, Bryner told us, saying the charts summarizing O’Rourke’s Senate contributions were erroneous and would be rectified. Significantly, Bryner also showed us how to query an FEC site that provides detailed files about all candidates, parties and other political committees. From the site, we fetched a July 23, 2017 commission list itemizing more than 45,000 PAC contributions to congressional candidates in the 2017-18 election cycle. That list showed no PAC contributions to O’Rourke. Experts concur We asked campaign finance experts to guide us to documentation distinguishing donations through conduit PACs from traditional PAC contributions. Judith Ingram, press officer at the FEC, showed us that in quarterly filings, ActBlue donations present an individual name as a line item below each listing of ActBlue as a donor, along with a text field that explains the individual donation is part of a conduit total. Ingram further confirmed that the JStreet PAC contributions reported by O’Rourke were made by individual donors employing the PAC as a conduit. Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy at the nonpartisan watchdog group Common Cause, echoed Ingram’s comments--that groups such as ActBlue act as intermediaries by processing payments that "can be attributed to an actual donor, a human being." If a donation was a traditional PAC contribution, Spaulding explained, the listed contributor would be the PAC alone, and there wouldn’t be a specific individual’s name linked to it. Our ruling O’Rourke said: "I’m one of two members of Congress out of 535 that takes no corporate cash, no political action committee money." Unsaid: no candidate can take corporate cash; that’s illegal. Otherwise, we found, O’Rourke was one of at least five (not two) House incumbents to keep no PAC contributions in the run-up to the 2016 elections. He also hasn’t accepted PAC aid into 2017 though he drew on about $297,000 in PAC donations in his House bids of 2012 and 2014--actions not recapped in his Dallas call for contributions. We rate this claim 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. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Beto O'Rourke | null | null | null | 2017-07-27T15:11:27 | 2017-03-31 | ['United_States_Congress'] |
snes-05597 | A Home Depot manager in Spokane Valley, WA, rudely refused to provide a veterans discount to a customer. | unproven | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/home-depot-veteran/ | null | Politics | null | Snopes Staff | null | Did a Home Depot Manager Refuse to Provide a Veterans Discount? | 20 August 2015 | null | ['Spokane_River', 'The_Home_Depot'] |
pomt-10533 | He (Obama) chairs the subcommittee on Europe. ... He's held not one substantive hearing to do oversight. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/feb/27/hillary-clinton/dormant-while-obama-campaigns/ | In one of the more pointed barbs in a Feb. 26, 2008, debate, Sen. Hillary Clinton charged that Sen. Barack Obama has been so busy running for president that he hasn't done much of anything as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on European Affairs. "I also have heard Senator Obama refer continually to Afghanistan, and he references being on the Foreign Relations Committee," Clinton said. "He chairs the Subcommittee on Europe. It has jurisdiction over NATO. NATO is critical to our mission in Afghanistan. He's held not one substantive hearing to do oversight, to figure out what we can do to actually have a stronger presence with NATO in Afghanistan." Obama responded: "Well, first of all, I became chairman of this committee at the beginning of this campaign, at the beginning of 2007. So it is true that we haven't had oversight hearings on Afghanistan." Although Obama acknowledges the point, we sought to confirm what the subcommittee has been doing. Congressional records show, and spokesmen for several subcommittee members confirm, the subcommittee has not held any policy hearings since Obama was appointed chair in early 2007. The subcommittee's jurisdiction includes "all matters, policies and problems concerning the continent of Europe, including the European member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization." The chair sets the agenda for a subcommittee and Obama could have asked to hold a hearing on NATO and its role in Afghanistan. But Clinton's claim, while technically true, is unfair, said Andrew J. Fischer, a spokesman for Republican Sen. Richard Lugar. Lugar now serves as a minority member of the Foreign Relations Committee, but he was the chair, from 2003 to 2006, when Republicans controlled the Senate. He is the ranking Republican on the committee. Fischer, who is a minority staff member of the Foreign Relations Committee, said something as major as NATO's role in Afghanistan would typically be held before the full Foreign Relations Committee, rather than Obama's European subcommittee. In fact, the Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Afghanistan on Jan. 31, 2008, and NATO was a part of the discussion. Obama attended a Democratic debate in California that day. Clinton is not on the committee. The Clinton campaign put out a statement reiterating Clinton's comments to reinforce the theme that Obama is more about talk than action. "Given the opportunity to take the reins of leadership and shape two critical areas of U.S. foreign policy — Afghanistan and our alliances in Europe — Senator Obama has done next to nothing," the statement said. Obama's campaign did not respond to a request for comment. So let's look at Clinton's statement: "He chairs the subcommittee on Europe." Yep. "It has jurisdiction over NATO." Yep. "NATO is critical to our mission in Afghanistan. He's held not one substantive hearing to do oversight, to figure out what we can do to actually have a stronger presence with NATO in Afghanistan." Yep. Some may argue that the issue of NATO's role in Afghanistan typically and more appropriately would come before the full Foreign Relations Committee. But Clinton is right when she says Obama's subcommittee has been largely dormant while Obama has campaigned for president. We rate her comment True. | null | Hillary Clinton | null | null | null | 2008-02-27T00:00:00 | 2008-02-26 | ['Europe', 'Barack_Obama'] |
pomt-03379 | Economic Development Commission Executive Director Keith Stokes "sent me a letter and he said the taxpayers will never be on the hook for these bonds" for 38 Studios. | true | /rhode-island/statements/2013/jul/10/charlene-lima/rhode-island-rep-charlene-lima-said-economic-devel/ | One of the hot-button issues of the 2013 General Assembly session was whether the state should repay the bonds sold to help finance 38 Studios, the now-bankrupt video-game company founded by former Boston Red Sox player Curt Schilling. One state representative who has argued against repayment is Charlene Lima, a Democrat from Cranston. She told the House on June 26 that, before the bonds were sold in November 2010, she had been promised by the executive director of the Rhode Island Economic Development Commission (RIEDC) that taxpayers would not have to foot the bill if the deal with 38 Studios didn't live up to its promise. "When I was complaining to the former director, Keith Stokes, he sent me a letter and he said the taxpayers will never be on the hook for these bonds, for this money," Lima said. "How was this properly vetted by these people if they were saying the taxpayers wouldn't be on the hook? And guess what. Today they ARE on the hook." We're not going to get into the merits of the state’s controversial decision to start paying the cost of the "moral obligation" bonds, but we wondered whether Stokes, who resigned after 38 Studios collapsed, really had made a specific pledge in writing. We called Lima and she quickly forwarded a copy of an Oct. 4, 2010 letter from Stokes in which he complained that Lima had offered an "inaccurate characterization of this investment and the RIEDC's degree of concern for Rhode Island taxpayers" in a news release she had authored. At the time, the bond sale had been approved and the bonds themselves were about to be sold. Stokes wrote, "In the unlikely event that the company is not able to meet its debt obligations," the state would have first crack at 38 Studio's assets. "These collateral assets, in addition to the debt repayment reserves, would be used to pay back the loan before the application of any public funds would be considered. "This ensures that under no circumstances would taxpayers be asked to repay $75 million." As Lima now notes, taxpayers are being asked to pay the money. (The $8.2-billion state budget, which the General Assembly passed and Governor Chafee signed, included $2.5 million for the first required taxpayer payment on the bonds. The total owed, with interest, is about $112.6 million.) To sum up, Lima said she received a letter in 2010 from then-RIEDC official Keith Stokes in which he insisted that Rhode Islanders would not be on the hook for the 38 Studios bonds. Lima earned a Pants on Fire last month for a comment she made about Rhode Island's failure to pass the Constitutional amendment authorizing the federal income tax. "If my pants were on fire," she said, "what is he? A towering inferno?" We don't have varying levels of conflagration. And in this case, we're simply judging the claim Lima made on the House floor. She has the evidence and we rate her statement True. (If you have a claim you’d like PolitiFact Rhode Island to check, e-mail us at politifact@providencejournal.com. And follow us on Twitter: @politifactri.) | null | Charlene Lima | null | null | null | 2013-07-10T00:01:00 | 2013-06-26 | ['None'] |
snes-02852 | Trump’s Unsecured Android Device Source of Recent White House Leaks | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trumps-cell-phone-leaks/ | null | Technology | null | Arturo Garcia | null | Trump’s Unsecured Android Device Source of Recent White House Leaks? | 2 March 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14912 | Smog was invented in Los Angeles. It was. The name was invented. There was a fellow at Caltech and he came up with the idea and they called it smog. | half-true | /california/statements/2015/nov/03/jerry-brown/jerry-browns-hazy-claim-l-invents-smog/ | LISTEN TO THIS STORY: Sunshine, Hollywood and freeway gridlock are all inextricably linked to Los Angeles, and so is smog. But was the City of Angels the first to create the noxious, eye-stinging, smudgy haze? Weren’t other industrial cities spewing thick black smoke and creating smog centuries ago? As it turns out, it depends on what you consider ‘smog.’ Gov. Jerry Brown, a warrior in the state’s air pollution battles, offered his California-centric version of smog’s history during a speech in Los Angeles in October. "Smog was invented in Los Angeles. It was," the governor told an audience at Griffith Observatory, with downtown Los Angeles cloaked in a brown haze several miles away, as shown in photos of the event. "The name was invented. There was a fellow at Caltech and he came up with the idea and they called it smog." The governor made the claim during a ceremony marking the signing of California’s landmark climate change bill, SB 350. It requires the state to get 50 percent of its electricity from air-friendly, renewable energy sources by 2030. We decided to fact-check Brown’s "smog was invented in Los Angeles" statement, to cut through what seemed like a dubious claim. Smog checking First, it’s clear L.A. has no ownership over the term smog. Brown sounds like he was having some fun with the "invented in Los Angeles" portion, from listening to him speak. Still, he was literally and blatantly wrong. News articles from as early as 1905 credit London doctor Harold Des Veaux with coining the word smog to describe natural fog contaminated by smoke, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Great Britain’s affliction with foul air is referenced in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, written in 1606. But its soot-choked skies date as far back as the 12th century, when wood became scarce and residents turned to burning coal to keep warm, according to a history of the country’s air pollution by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It’s clear that other urban centers fought the effects of smog long before anyone imagined the metropolis we call Los Angeles. So, what kind of smoke was the governor blowing? "Jerry Brown -- brilliant as he is -- is confusing some facts," said Chip Jacobs, author of Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles. "We didn’t invent smog. Smog has been known to arise in many parts of the world well before he was born." We were headed for a False or Pants On Fire! Then, Jacobs added this comment: "Brown did have something right in his jumbled pronouncement -- the Caltech professor." Was there some truth behind the governor’s inartful statement? To get a better picture, we contacted the California Institute of Technology, based in Pasadena. School officials confirmed that Brown was referring to a 1940s-era Caltech professor named Arie Haagen-Smit. Haagen-Smit was the first to prove that automobile exhaust, when exposed to sunlight, creates what’s referred to as photochemical smog, or modern-day smog. It’s the same hazy brown gunk that’s polluted Los Angeles’ air for more than half a century. And it is different from the thick, black coal-driven smoke of London’s industrial era. "Professor Haagen-Smit did not invent (photochemical) smog, but he discovered the mechanism behind it. This has often been described as inventing smog," wrote Professor Richard Flagan, who teaches chemical engineering at Caltech, in an email. Another expert on air quality in Los Angeles said the governor’s claim is less murky than it appears. "The term smog was used earlier, but it meant something totally different. The definition totally morphed," said Sarah Elkind, a history professor at San Diego State University. "Los Angeles was the first city to deal with photo-chemical smog, which is part of the reason why I would judge Gov. Brown’s statement as mostly correct," added Elkind, author of the book How Local Politics Shape Federal Policy: Business, Power, and the Environment in Twentieth Century Los Angeles. A spokesman for the governor said in an email that Haagen-Smit "was the first one who coined the term for the modern air pollution produced by motor vehicles that we think of today." He also acknowledged that the term smog had been used to describe other types of pollution long before the 1940s. Our ruling Gov. Jerry Brown said: "Smog was invented in Los Angeles. It was. The name was invented. There was a fellow at Caltech and he came up with the idea and they called it smog." A look at historical sources shows the term smog dates back more than a century. It was coined by a London doctor to refer to the smoky black air that fouled Great Britain during its industrial period. Brown’s statement ignores this history, viewing smog’s origin with only a California lens. But looking deeper, a gradual shift in the term’s meaning took place in the 1940s and 1950s as scientists, including Caltech professor Arie Haagen-Smit, studied the cause of Los Angeles’ persistent and foul brown haze. In his statement, the governor references Haagen-Smit, who is credited as the first to prove L.A.’s smog was caused by automobile exhaust, and who at least one current Caltech professor says is "often described as inventing smog." The governor’s statement, while fuzzy at first glance, is partially accurate. But it leaves out important details and takes information out of context. We rate the claim Half True. | null | Jerry Brown | null | null | null | 2015-11-03T00:00:00 | 2015-10-07 | ['Los_Angeles', 'California_Institute_of_Technology'] |
snes-04183 | Rush Limbaugh accused President Obama and the Democrats of recruiting lesbian farmers to "attack" conservative rural areas of the U.S. | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/limbaugh-obama-sending-lesbian-farmers/ | null | Conspiracy Theories | null | David Emery | null | Rush Limbaugh: Obama Sending Lesbian Farmers to Invade Red States | 24 August 2016 | null | ['United_States', 'Barack_Obama', 'Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'Rush_Limbaugh'] |
pomt-11087 | Say a boy was 'caged' in a wire enclosure. | false | /texas/statements/2018/jun/15/tweets/tweeted-photo-inaccurately-indicates-boy-caged-fed/ | A photo made us wonder if a small boy was placed in a cage with other youngsters as part of federal authorities cracking down on families trying to cross from Mexico into the U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced April 6, 2018 that Homeland Security would refer all illegal border crossings to the Justice Department for prosecution. Parents faced with criminal charges would hence go to detention centers, leaving their children unaccompanied and subject to being housed separately by the government. Toward the end of May 2018, The Washington Post reported that the government lately had custody of more than 10,700 children in shelters. That story didn’t mention any children getting held behind bars or inside cages. Also that month, President Donald Trump accurately said in a tweet that Democrats had just mistakenly depicted four-year-old photos of children behind bars as if the children were recently confined in such conditions. The photo that drew our attention appeared in a June 11, 2018, tweet showing the boy in a cage with what looks like three other children, his fingers gripping the enclosure’s wire frame, his face fretful. By the time we saw it, the debunkists at Snopes.com had concluded that the photo was "miscaptioned" because it was snapped at a protest staged in Texas, Snopes said. Tweet features photo The tweet showcasing the photo was posted by Jose Antonio Vargas, a journalist and filmmaker, and it doesn’t say where the photo was taken--whether at a protest or inside a facility. Vargas’s tweet otherwise says: "This is what happens when a government believes people are ‘illegal.’ Kids in cages." Vargas further said, in a tweet responding to his photo tweet, that he’d pulled the image from a friend’s Facebook page and hadn’t determined its precise origin. "I shared it," Vargas tweeted, because "when I was detained in McAllen in 2014, I was with boys who were locked up. It wasn’t okay then; it’s not okay now." Snopes.com specified that the photo was taken at a Texas protest June 10, 2018, though we saw that a string of protest photos posted on Facebook as noted by Snopes did not include the specific photo of the boy caged. Utah journalist identifies photographer Nothing we saw on Facebook from the organization credited by Snopes with posting the photo, the Texas chapter of the Brown Berets de Cemanahuac, presented the photo. But our online searches yielded a June 12, 2018, declaration directed at Vargas on Twitter. "This photo," the tweet at Vargas says, "was taken by Leroy Peña as part of a protest with the Brown Berets on June 10th, presumably in Texas." That nudge, which we spotted in a June 13, 2018, post about the photo on the Twitchy website, was attributed to Utah journalist-activist Kaz Weida. Yet by the time we saw Weida’s tweet, we noticed the web link Weida offered to the original photo didn’t lead to a live web page. We also didn’t spot the photo in scrolling through Peña’s public Facebook posts from what looked to us like the June 10, 2018, protest in Dallas that included children standing inside a four-sided open-topped enclosure erected outside a building. Next, we sought help from Weida, who suggested by email that we plug the link she’d tweeted into the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, which compiles and saves web posts. Following that guidance, we saw that the archive on June 12, 2018 saved what appeared to be a copy of Peña’s since-deleted 7:46 a.m. June 11, 2018 Facebook post featuring a message atop two versions of the photo showing the unhappy boy fenced in. Peña opened that Facebook post: "This was part of our protest yesterday, but this is actually going on right now, at this very moment, in child detention centers throughout this country." Dallas resident says he took photo Next, we connected with Peña, who responded to our Facebook message by giving an interview by phone in which he said he’d taken and posted the photos of the boy. At the moment he took the photo, Peña said, the boy had just followed his older brother through a gate into the enclosure set up for the protest outside City Hall in Dallas. Peña said that after getting behind the fencing, the boy spotted his mother outside the space--which explains his wrenched look. Peña, who said he lives in Dallas, said the boy’s mother quickly fetched him. "He was only in there 30 seconds," Peña said. We reached out about the tweeted photo to Homeland Security and the Administration for Children and Families within the Department of Health and Human Services, which has oversight of children transferred into government custody when adults are detained, and didn’t hear back. Our ruling A photo tweeted in opposition to federal authorities separating children from parents detained at the U.S.-Mexico border showed what looked like an unhappy boy in a cage. The photo wasn’t taken of a boy in custody, we found. Rather, the child was in an open-topped enclosure temporarily erected for a June 2018 Texas protest of the separation of children from parents. We rate the tweeted version of the photo False. FALSE – The statement is not accurate. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Tweets | null | null | null | 2018-06-15T17:08:48 | 2018-06-11 | ['None'] |
pomt-10599 | Says he was the only Republican candidate at a prior debate who said lower-income workers were being hurt by the economy. | mostly false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jan/24/mike-huckabee/his-recollections-are-way-off/ | At a debate in Boca Raton on Jan. 24, 2008, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee suggested that he was more in touch with how the economy was hurting working people than the other GOP candidates. He said he was the only candidate at a prior debate — the one on Oct. 9, 2007 — to point out that middle- and lower-income Americans were feeling economic pain. "A few months ago, when we were all in Dearborn, Mich., your network was the sponsor, with CNBC and MSNBC, and every one of us were asked, 'How's the economy doing?' " Huckabee said during the debate in Boca Raton. "Every one of my colleagues said, 'It's doing great.' And they gave all the numbers. ... The truth is I was the only guy on that stage who said, 'It may be doing great if you're at the top. It's different if you're on the bottom.' " We find Huckabee's recollections are way off the mark. He is correct that he indicated some sympathy for working people during the Oct. 9 debate. He plugged his proposal for a national sales tax to help the less fortunate regain their footing. "The people who handle the bags and make the beds at our hotels and serve the food, many of them are having to work two jobs, and that's barely paying the rent. And you know what else? They don't think that they can afford for their kids to go to college; they're pretty sure they're not going to be able to afford health insurance," he said. But he is wrong about the comments of his rivals. Huckabee might have been the biggest pessimist that night, but Ron Paul, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson each noted that Michigan residents were suffering as a result of their state's battered economy. Paul suggested it was because the nation was living beyond its means while McCain stated the United States was losing industrial jobs and not taking care of those who are left behind. Others qualified their statements, depicting Michigan as something of an anomaly in an otherwise strong economy. Romney said his birth state was "undergoing a one-state recession." And Thompson said while pockets of the economy were having difficulty, he had no reason to believe the country was heading for a recession. While Huckabee gets the award for tough-talking realist, he was hardly alone in acknowledging hard times. For that reason, we judge his statement Barely True. Editor's note: This statement was rated Barely True when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to Mostly False. | null | Mike Huckabee | null | null | null | 2008-01-24T00:00:00 | 2008-01-24 | ['Republican_Party_(United_States)'] |
pose-00067 | Eliminate the excessive subsidies to Medicare Advantage plans and pay them the same amount it would cost to treat the same patients under regular Medicare. | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/70/eliminate-the-higher-subsidies-to-medicare-advanta/ | null | obameter | Barack Obama | null | null | Eliminate the higher subsidies to Medicare Advantage plans | 2010-01-07T13:26:47 | null | ['Medicare_(United_States)'] |
pomt-09422 | St. Pete Beach's local version of Amendment 4 resulted in "seemingly endless lawsuits (that) decimated the city's legal budget and forced the city to raise the property tax rate." | half-true | /florida/statements/2010/mar/16/citizens-lower-taxes-and-stronger-economy/referendums-over-growth-issues-forced-city-raise-t/ | In its campaign to discredit a ballot initiative giving voters more authority over land use, a statewide political action committee says voters only need to look at tiny St. Pete Beach and its problems since adopting a similar policy. Amendment 4, which will appear on ballots in November, essentially would give citizens veto power over major development proposals and land use changes. Opponents say a similar citizen initiative on growth and planning in St. Pete Beach has resulted in government run amok. "The seemingly endless lawsuits (as a result of the changes) decimated the city's legal budget and forced the city to raise the property tax rate. Now this idea threatens every town in Florida," a narrator states during a 2 minute, 15 second Web ad produced by a group called Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy. The group is an offshoot of Floridians for Smarter Growth, which is funded by developers, home builders, U.S. Sugar, and other business groups. We'll begin by noting that there is considerable debate between supporters and opponents of Amendment 4 if St. Pete Beach's experiences are truly analogous to the statewide ballot proposal. We plan to examine the analogy in a future Truth-O-Meter item. But because the advertisement is now on the Web, we'll still examine the individual claims. For this item, we need to go way back in time, back to the day that developers actually were interested in building condo high rises, back when developers wanted to cram as many units as they could onto a property, back when people actually could flip condos for substantial profits. Yep, way back to 2005. Back then, St. Pete Beach's five-member City Commission was considering changing the town's road map for growth, the Comprehensive Plan. The commission considered incentives to lure additional hotels that could increase the density of a development and change the allowed uses. The talk of change didn't sit well with many residents, who formed a group called Citizens for Responsible Growth. They collected enough petitions to get a proposal on the ballot that would require voter approval for height increases and other changes to land use plans. It got contentious. The city sued to stop the vote, and appeared to have won, but then lost on appeal. A developer also sued saying the petition process was costing him money. Voters narrowly approved most of the changes to the City Charter in November 2006, making St. Pete Beach the first town in Florida where residents directly controlled development decisions. Voters also elected two members of Citizens for Responsible Growth to the City Commission, giving them a majority. That prompted a pro-developer group -- Save Our Little Village -- to start its own petition drive to amend the city's comprehensive plan. The city's elected officials -- who had gone from being largely pro-development to anti-development -- tried to stop them. It got even more contentious. Save Our Little Village sued. The city's attorney resigned under pressure from the commission. Then, another election, another change of power and eventually, another referendum. This time, the pro-development side won. By December 2009, the city was involved in six different lawsuits prompted by the policy. Now there's another lawsuit and talk of another petition drive. Whew. Again, we're not ready to address the question of the similarity between the beach policy and Amendment 4. We're here to examine the policy's impact on the city's tax rate. And yes, in 2009, the city did increase its tax rate .107 mills (or $0.107 for every $1,000 of taxable value). The tax rate increase raised about $255,000 citywide, according to the city budget. During the Sept. 21, 2009, meeting where the tax rate increase was approved, there were two main reasons cited: Declining property values. City Manager Mike Bonfield said that property values have decreased more than 10 percent, and that as a result, the town would still be taking in $385,000 less in property tax collections -- even with a higher tax rate. The tax rate increase is needed "to fund a variety of services we provide in the city," Bonfield said. Legal fees. City Commissioner Jim Parent suggested the city might increase its legal budget from $200,000 to $250,000 to pay for potential litigation related to development issues and a possible lawsuit with Pinellas County over emergency medical services. The city already had budgeted an extra $100,000 for fiscal year 2010, according to budget documents. Parent said he was worried that after the city overshot its legal budget in 2008-2009 by about $100,000, that it would do so again. "Without additional budgeted funds, it could force us to reduce some other things," said Parent, who suggested the city's Fourth of July fireworks display could be impacted. But after discussion, and after consultation with City Attorney Michael Davis, commissioners decided to to leave the legal budget the same. After reviewing the discussion and interviewing Bonfield, we conclude that declining property values appeared to be the most significant factor, although the cost of legal fees was also discussed. "I guess you could attribute the extra legal fees as a reason why we needed to raise millage," Bonfield said. "But nobody said we need to raise this millage to put it in a fund for legal. I wouldn't say there's a direct correlation." In its ad, the group Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy says St. Pete Beach's local version of Amendment 4 resulted in "seemingly endless lawsuits (that) decimated the city's legal budget and forced the city to raise the property tax rate." Yes, there were lawsuits, but they weren't the only costs mentioned for the city legal department. Yes, the city slightly raised its rate in 2009 -- although the net result still was a decrease on most homeowners because of sharply falling property values. But the discussion at a town meeting indicates that the decision was motivated by several factors, most notably the decline in property values, as well as legal fees. So we find the claim Half True. | null | Citizens for Lower Taxes and a Stronger Economy | null | null | null | 2010-03-16T19:04:44 | 2010-03-10 | ['None'] |
tron-00994 | Save MSN Messaging | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/msn/ | null | computers | null | null | null | Save MSN Messaging | Mar 16, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-14696 | We have completely turned our economy around. | half-true | /florida/statements/2016/jan/12/rick-scott/rick-scott-says-he-completely-turned-around-florid/ | Gov. Rick Scott kicked off the 2016 legislative session by touting Florida’s growth under his guidance, which he said was an about-face from the direction the state was headed before he took office. "We have completely turned our economy around, and more families are thriving here today than five years ago," he said during his State of the State address in the Capitol on Jan. 12, 2016. The part about more thriving families (and there are more, with Florida last year officially becoming the country’s third-largest state) is too subjective to explore in detail. But what about the economy? We wanted to see if Scott was right about whether Florida’s economy had reversed direction from five years ago. Our look at the data shows the state has turned several economic corners, but the picture isn't so bright when you look at wages. Florida’s numbers In January 2011, Scott inherited an economy ravaged by the worst recession in decades, a housing market in the tank and a double-digit unemployment rate. There were signs the state was already climbing out of the doldrums before Scott took office (the national recession officially ended in mid 2009), but Florida’s recovery was good enough to win Scott a second term. When we asked Scott’s office for evidence, they sent us some selected statistics to support his statement, including reductions in state debt and environmental permitting times. We decided to compare some key indicators that economists said would best illustrate how the economy had changed in order to see where Florida is now. We compared from 2010, the year before Scott’s first term started, to the most recent numbers available. We learned the state has performed better under certain measures than others. Unemployment rate: In November 2015, the unemployment rate in Florida was 5 percent, the same as the national rate. That’s the lowest Florida’s rate has been since January 2008. November’s rate is still a preliminary figure, but it’s much lower than the 10.7 percent it was in December 2011. Payroll employment per month: It’s true the state has added jobs. The latest figures show that between December 2010 and November 2015, Florida added 1,011,800 private-sector jobs. But when you subtract the 27,300 government jobs that have been lost in that same span, the net change is 984,500 new jobs. Per capita personal income: This statistic refers to how much income was earned per person in the state. The U.S. Commerce Department Bureau of Economic Analysis, which measures income starting midyear, says that in 2009-10, income in Florida grew 2.2 percent. But then that growth slowed down each year. In the last fiscal year data available, 2012-13, that figure dropped by -0.1 percent. Per capita real GDP: This measures all of the inflation-adjusted economic activity per person in Florida. In 2009-10, per capita real GDP dropped by 1 percent. In 2013-14, the latest year available, it was growing by 1.2 percent. That amounts to $38,664 per person in 2014, about $300 more than it was in 2010. Last year Florida’s per capita real GDP lagged the national average by more than $10,000. Industrial production: The BLS maintains a national index that measures the value of manufacturing output, compared to a "base" rate of 100, but Moody’s Analytics maintains proprietary estimates for each state. In December 2010, this rate was 96.56 for Florida, and by November 2015 was 105.93, moving ahead but slightly behind the national average. The big takeaway: Florida’s employment picture has improved, but many of the newly created jobs aren’t necessarily paying very well. Can Scott take credit? There are other measures, of course, and they all can look at the picture from different angles. Florida’s poverty rate in 2010 was 16 percent, for example, but after dropping for two years, it was up to 16.7 percent in 2014, almost two points above the national average. The state’s median household income has been dropping over the years, and currently lags the national average by about $6,000. Economists told us that Florida is mirroring the United States in economic terms — the country is doing better, so Florida is doing better. The economy here also has a focus on service and hospitality jobs, which often are minimum wage and part time, so the quality of Florida’s figures can (and often do) lag behind national averages. On top of that, Scott’s claim doesn’t reflect that Florida still has a way to go to top the state’s previous historical growth. For example, the unemployment rate was as low as 3.1 percent in mid 2006. "Floridians are just recovering back to where they were before," said Tara Sinclair, chief economist at Indeed and economics professor at George Washington University. "I don’t think that’s the American Dream, to struggle to get back to how things were." Economists also noted there are issues with how to compare these indicators because of how they are calculated or the time frames they encompass. Furthermore, Scott is taking credit for things that are mostly out of his control. Experts reminded us states are often affected by factors like shifting demographics, national trends and the global economy more than the policies of any one official or the Legislature. "Like the quarterback of a football team, he gets too much credit when the economy does well and too much blame when the economy does poorly," Moody’s economist Chris Lafakis said. "Scott has benefitted from being governor at an advantageous time of the business cycle." Our ruling Scott said, "We have completely turned our economy around." Economic indicators show that some factors, like job growth and unemployment, have reversed losses from previous years. But while there is more economic activity than before, incomes are down and remain below national averages. Experts agree Scott and lawmakers can’t take much credit for changes either way. We rate the statement Half True. | null | Rick Scott | null | null | null | 2016-01-12T17:50:50 | 2016-01-12 | ['None'] |
snes-00054 | A video shows a priest aggressively dunking a baby underwater during a baptism ceremony. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/baby-dunking-video/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Is This Video of a Baby Being Violently Dunked in Water Real? | 21 September 2018 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-00904 | Unborn Baby Footprint Image in Email Forward | unsubstantiated messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/unborn-footprint.html | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Unborn Baby Footprint Image in Email Forward | October 2004 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04190 | A photograph of a 'My Daddy's Life Matters' sign included text explaining why its OK for police officers to shoot black men. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/my-daddys-life-matters-sign/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | ‘My Daddy’s Life Matters’ | 24 August 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-04189 | A United States Army training slide labeled Hillary Clinton as an insider threat. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-security-threat-slide/ | null | Politicians | null | Dan Evon | null | Hillary Clinton Listed As Threat in Army Training Slide | 24 August 2016 | null | ['United_States_Army', 'Hillary_Rodham_Clinton'] |
pomt-15351 | In a majority of states, you can now marry freely, but can still be fired for who you love. | mostly true | /wisconsin/statements/2015/jul/09/mark-pocan/mark-pocan-says-most-states-dont-have-workplace-pr/ | After the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision making same-sex marriage the law of the land, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan called for additional rights to be recognized for gay Americans. Pocan, a Democrat from Madison, has long been an advocate of government allowing same-sex marriage. Years after Pocan married his partner in Canada, he made headlines in 2013 when his husband was issued an ID given only to spouses of members of Congress. Pocan issued a statement on June 26, 2015 praising the high court’s landmark ruling, but also to argue the fight for gay rights is not over. "Today, the Supreme Court has reaffirmed what a majority of Americans already know: all couples should have the right to marry, regardless of who they love. "As we celebrate this victory, we must also recognize that we still have work to do to ensure all Americans are treated fairly under the law, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity." The next step in the gay rights movement: "In a majority of states you can now marry freely," Pocan said, "but can still be fired because of who you love." The first part of Pocan's claim refers back to the Supreme Court ruling. And after the ruling, Pocan is obviously on point -- not only is same sex marriage permitted in a majority of states, it is allowed everywhere. But what about the second half of the claim, which focuses on workplace discrimination. Can someone be legally terminated in most states because of their sexual orientation? Let’s take a look. The legal landscape The Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects workers from discrimination at the federal level. Title VII of the law prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin. Title VII's definitions of "because of sex" and "on the basis of sex" do not mention sexual orientation. So, there is no federal law that explicitly forbids employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Legislation has been proposed and failed in nearly every Congress since 1974 that would prohibit employment discrimination because of sexual orientation or gender identity. In the 1989 Supreme Court case Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, the court ruled sex stereotyping is a form of discrimination protected against under Title VII. Some extend this ruling to protect gay workers who do not conform to gender norms. Gwendolyn Leachman, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said evidence showing the employee was discriminated against for failure to conform to gender stereotypes is necessary. "If the employer can show that the harassment or other adverse action was motivated ‘purely’ by sexual orientation, then the employee is out of luck," Leachman said. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency tasked with enforcing the Title VII, has interpreted Title VII protections to include sexual orientation. Some courts follow the EEOC interpretation. In Terveer v. Billington, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in March 2014 that the discrimination based on someone's status as homosexual was based on gender stereotypes and was covered under Title VII. But not all courts agree. In fact, Terveer v. Billington is an outlier. And the Supreme Court has yet to hear a case on this matter. For a worker to have legal protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation, the worker would need to live in a state -- or a city -- that prohibits it. With protections in place, a worker could file a wrongful termination lawsuit on that basis. Nearly every state has adopted an anti-discrimination law similar to the federal Civil Rights Act. Indeed, many of the state laws provide additional protection for sexual orientation. In a June 2014 fact check of another statement made by Pocan, we learned Wisconsin was the first state to enact a law banning discrimination because of sexual orientation. So how many states followed suit? Pocan's team sent a map from the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT civil rights advocacy group, to support his claim. The map showed that 22 states have explicit laws protecting workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation. That means 28 states -- a majority -- do not have explicit laws protecting workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation. Our rating Pocan said, "in a majority of states you can now marry freely, but can still be fired for who you love." Federal law does not explicitly protect against this discrimination, though the agency tasked with enforcing the law has interpreted federal protections to include sexual orientation. Meanwhile, 28 out of 50 states do not have such laws. We rate Pocan’s claim Mostly True. | null | Mark Pocan | null | null | null | 2015-07-09T10:45:00 | 2015-06-26 | ['None'] |
pomt-12585 | House Bill 991 "could lead to the opening of as many as 2,000 new liquor stores." | true | /pennsylvania/statements/2017/apr/07/wendell-young/wait-there-could-be-how-many-new-liquor-stores-pa/ | Could a bill moving through the statehouse bring 2,000 new liquor stores to Pennsylvania? United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 President Wendell Young estimated that figure in an op-ed for PennLive, opposing two pieces of proposed legislation that would expand liquor sales outside of state stores. He noted that a bill sponsored by State Rep. Adam Harris, a Republican from Juniata County, might yield that increase. "The Harris bill (HB991) would allow some existing retailers to operate a ‘franchise store,’ which is a liquor store operating inside of an existing retail shop," Young wrote last week. "Just think of a mini liquor store next to the potato chips at your corner grocery store. The bill could lead to the opening of as many as 2,000 new liquor stores." Last summer, the state legislature passed a bill that made it legal to buy wine in (select) grocery stores for the first time since Prohibition. Pro-privatization advocates argue that loosening the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board’s grip on sales could lead to an economic boon, while providing more options for consumers, particularly rural ones. Advocates against expanding private retail, like Young, contend that a cash-strapped state can’t afford the loss in revenue. "Pennsylvania has a very successful wine and spirits system... that benefits all taxpayers whether they drink or not," said Young. "You don’t have to be a genius to figure it out, if you dilute Pennsylvania’s market, you’re going to cannibalize sales." The Liquor Control Board currently administers 608 state stores. Harris’ bill, which dropped "franchise store" for "retail store" in its current language, would indeed allow for a dramatic spike. Per the bill itself, "Licenses may be issued at a ratio of one per every 6,000 residents within a county, with a minimum of 15 licenses granted to a county." But the bill would place some limits within those margins: Stores wouldn’t be licensed in dry towns or "within 1,200 yards of a Pennsylvania Liquor Store or retail store in an urbanized area, or within two miles of a Pennsylvania Liquor Store or retail store in a rural area." The bill, which passed in committee on Monday, would require that licensed retailers purchase their stock through the Liquor Control Board. The Census estimated the state’s population to be 12,784,227 residents for 2016. Divided by 6,000, that would make way for roughly 2,130 stores before distance stipulations came into play. But since the bill notes that licenses would be granted by county, the union went further in its analysis. Chris Naylor, legislative and political director for UFCW Local 1776, provided this outline of how they devised their estimate: "Philadelphia at 1,548,647 people would be divided by 6,000, which would result in 258 potential licenses in the city of Philadelphia alone. For the surrounding counties, Montgomery would be at approx 134 potential licenses, Bucks at 104 licenses, Delco at 93 licenses and Chester at 84 licenses. Do this math over every county in the state, and you will have over 2,000 potential licenses as a result of HB 991. You also have to take into account that the legislation calls for a minimum of 15 licenses granted to a county; so the counties that fall below 90,000 residents (6,000 residents multiplied by the minimum of 15 retail outlets per county) would also appear to have 15 potential licenses per county. There are over 30 counties in the state that fall into this category, also increasing the potential number of outlets." (Note: Naylor’s Census population figures appear to be based on 2013 estimates. Philly, Montco and Chesco would each have a couple more stores, based on 2016 numbers.) Harris doesn’t dispute Young’s figure, but doesn’t believe that this many issued licenses would be likely. He’s also open to amendments. "This is sort of a starting point," he told PolitiFact Pennsylvania. "I’ve heard from members in Philadelphia, where there is stop-and-go problem. I’d be willing to pull that number back if that makes people more comfortable." He emphasized that the legislation is seeking to provide better options for rural shoppers. "As you venture out into the country, you either don’t have a store close, or don’t have [large] store," he said. "We want to fill those voids in rural counties. I’m from Juanita— We have one liquor store." The population of Juniata County is roughly 25,000. "We might lower the maximum per county (regardless of population) to something lower than 15. I am open to discussing this possibility with my colleagues and the Governor," Harris hinted later in an email. "The ‘fencing’ language (how far a retail outlet has to be from a current LCB store) could be amended to provide for a greater buffer area… If we expand the fencing this could impact how many retail licenses ultimately come into existence." Our ruling Wendell Young, president of Local 1776, wrote in an op-ed that HB 991 "could lead to the opening of as many as 2,000 new liquor stores." Even though the bill sponsor doesn’t think the legislation would create that many new locations, Young’s estimate was indisputably fair here. We rate the claim True. | null | Wendell Young | null | null | null | 2017-04-07T12:15:00 | 2017-03-31 | ['None'] |
snes-01937 | A jewelry company is making jewelry out of unwanted human embryos. | mostly true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-company-turning-human-embryos-into-jewelry/ | null | Uncategorized | null | Bethania Palma | null | Is an Australian Company Turning Human Embryos Into Jewelry? | 9 August 2017 | null | ['None'] |
goop-01002 | Josh Duhamel Pursuing Megan Fox? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/josh-duhamel-megan-fox-dating-movie/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Josh Duhamel Pursuing Megan Fox? | 5:54 pm, May 14, 2018 | null | ['Josh_Duhamel'] |
faly-00024 | Claim: Over 6 lakh Divyang people have benefitted from 5790 camps. | true | https://factly.in/fact-check-what-did-the-government-do-for-the-development-of-persons-with-disabilities/ | Fact: In the last 4 years, 6073 camps were organized which have benefitted 9.35 lakh people. Hence, the claim is TRUE. However, it has to be noted that the average number of beneficiaries under the ADIP scheme has not increased despite a substantial increase in the number of camps. Even under the UPA, the annual average number of beneficiaries was around 2.5 lakh. | null | null | null | null | Fact Check: What did the government do for the development of Persons with Disabilities? | null | null | ['None'] |
para-00220 | Says Australia is giving billions of dollars in taxpayer money to Russia. | pants on fire! | http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/aug/17/mike-holt/one-nation-candidate-says-australia-gives-billions/index.html | null | ['Budget'] | Mike Holt | Michael Koziol, Peter Fray | null | One Nation candidate says Australia gives billions of dollars to Russia | Saturday, August 17, 2013 at 6:26 p.m. | null | ['Russia'] |
goop-00248 | Gwen Stefani ‘Still In Love’ With Gavin Rossdale, | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/gwen-stefani-gavin-rossdale-in-love-blake-shelton-nightmare-not-true/ | null | null | null | Gossip Cop Staff | null | Gwen Stefani NOT ‘Still In Love’ With Gavin Rossdale, Despite Report | 5:33 am, September 20, 2018 | null | ['Gwen_Stefani', 'Gavin_Rossdale'] |
pomt-11535 | There’s a large number of schools in Texas that don’t even offer sex education. | half-true | /texas/statements/2018/feb/14/andrew-white/andrew-white-texas-schools-not-offer-sex-education/ | Houston businessman Andrew White, a Democratic aspirant for governor, said that when he’s elected, he’ll step up sex education in schools. White, speaking in January 2018 to David Martin Davies of Texas Public Radio, declared: "There is a large number of schools in Texas that don’t even offer sex education. Now that, to me, it’s bizarre. So we have to make these investments. If you really are serious about reducing the demand for abortion, there are some really simple ways to do that -- sex education and access to contraceptives." We wondered if a large number of Texas schools don’t offer sex education. After emailing White's campaign to ask how he reached his conclusion, we noticed that the Austin-based Texas Freedom Network, which describes itself as the state’s watchdog for monitoring far-right issues, estimated in 2017 that 25.1 percent of the state’s school districts in 2015-16 didn’t teach sex education in their secondary schools--when just 2 percent weren’t doing so in 2007-08, the group previously found. Broadly, the group’s February 2017 report states that in 2015-16, about eight in 10 Texas school districts taught abstinence alone "or nothing at all when it comes to sex education." Abstinence-plus programs, including information on contraceptives, showed up in nearly 17 percent of districts. The results were reached starting from a survey sent to 138 of 976 Texas school districts that had high schools that weren’t also charter school districts--plus the state’s 10 highest-enrollment districts. Districts were "representative of the diversity in geography, enrollment, racial demographics and district type (rural, urban or non-metropolitan/smaller cities) in Texas public schools," the report says. The report concedes that it didn’t pin down precisely what’s taught to students in each district. Rather, the group asked which textbooks, third-party programs or curricula and/or speakers that districts had obtained and/or used to teach sex education in middle and high schools. Also, the report says, "we asked specifically for materials districts had obtained from crisis pregnancy centers or other alternative-to-abortion organizations, any materials that cover sexual orientation, gender identity/expression or abortion, and copies of class schedules and district policies." To our inquiry, a network spokesman, Dan Quinn, listed the 35 sampled districts found not to be teaching sex education--nearly all of them rural. Health class in high schools Quinn also told us by email: "A key factor in the increase in the percentage of school districts not offering sex education appears to be the Legislature’s decision in 2009 to drop health class as a high school graduation requirement." The 2009 Legislature and then-Gov. Rick Perry advanced House Bill 3 into law. It directed the State Board of Education to spell out the classes students would have to pass to fulfill different kinds of graduation plans. Yet the law barred the board from specifying electives, such as health, as classes that had to be taken to graduate. Quinn wrote: "Health class is often where students get sex ed. Many school districts either continue to offer health as an elective or make it a local graduation requirement, but a substantial number of school districts appear to have dropped health classes since 2009." The network’s 2017 report states: "We found that districts with no health class were more than four times more likely to offer no sex education at all (as compared with the overall distribution of districts). Conversely, school districts with health classes were more likely to offer either abstinence-plus or abstinence-only sex education. This finding suggests that the decision to remove health education as a state graduation requirement has contributed to the rise in the percentage of districts that teach students nothing at all about human sexuality in high school," the report says. Health classes don’t necessarily cover sex education We further learned that just because a district offers a health class doesn’t mean its students take the class or that the class covers more than the state-required emphasis on abstinence alone as the best practice. The state’s curriculum guidelines for the one-semester health class call for students to analyze the "effectiveness and ineffectiveness of barrier protection and other contraceptive methods." They otherwise say each student is expected to analyze the importance of abstinence from sex as the only method that’s 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy and sexually-transmitted diseases. But Lauren Callahan, a spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency, cautioned against presuming the guidelines show what’s being taught because, she noted, that’s up to individual districts. State law requires each district board of trustees to establish a local school health advisory council to "assist the district in ensuring that local community values are reflected in the district's health education instruction." Also, the law says each board shall choose course materials related to sex education with the council’s advice. Notably too, not all students lately take health classes. Callahan pointed us to annual school health surveys undertaken by the agency. Per the latest results, nearly 52 percent of districts and charter schools in 2015-16 indicated they weren’t requiring all high school students to take "health education" to graduate--with 48 percent replying that they did require every student to take a class in health education. Study: Abstinence-plus instruction isn’t widespread The study estimated that 58 percent of districts offered abstinence-only sex education. In contrast, the study says, nearly 17 percent of districts were taking an abstinence-plus approach by having medically accurate information on condoms and other forms of contraception. Quinn noted that in 2007-08, the network previously found, about 4 percent of districts took an abstinence-plus approach. Quinn, asked to identify the districts in its 2017 sample that were found to have abstinence-plus teaching materials, listed 30 districts, including eight of the state’s 10 highest-enrollment districts--such as the Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin districts. But, Quinn wrote, determining "how those ab-plus materials are used in classrooms — whether teachers use them as suggested, skip portions, or whatever — was beyond the scope of this project." Similarly, David C. Wiley, a Texas State University education professor who worked on the study, told us by phone: "There’s no guarantee that teachers are actually teaching that information." Upshot: "Texas kids don’t get much information about contraception," Wiley said. As we completed this research, Desi Canela of White's campaign said by email that White reached his conclusion about schools not offering sex education based on the network's 2017 study. Our ruling White said a "large number" of Texas schools don’t offer sex education. In fact, most districts offered sex education in high school in 2015-16, according to a statewide analysis, though nearly 60 percent were teaching abstinence alone. The study estimated that 25 percent of districts didn't offer sex education. On balance, we rate this claim 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. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Andrew White | null | null | null | 2018-02-14T16:50:55 | 2018-01-26 | ['Texas'] |
pomt-14244 | Hedge fund managers and others in private equity pay much lower (tax) rates on their income than do truck drivers and teachers and nurses. | false | /wisconsin/statements/2016/apr/13/tammy-baldwin/testing-tammy-baldwin-claim-taxes-hedge-fund-manag/ | In a recent interview on WISN’s UpFront with Mike Gousha, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin talked about how the burden of college debt requires bipartisan action from Congress. "But we’re not going to wait around to start talking about the solutions," she said. Baldwin then cited legislation she has introduced to close the so-called "carried interest" loophole, which allows the primary source of income for hedge fund managers to be taxed differently than others earning a similar amount. "Hedge fund managers and others in private equity pay much lower (tax) rates on their income than do truck drivers and teachers and nurses," Baldwin said in the Feb. 14, 2016 interview. "Outrageous." Last May, PolitiFact National checked a similar claim from Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton: Hedge fund managers "pay less in taxes than nurses and truck drivers." The claim was rated False, since the raw amount paid in taxes by hedge fund managers far exceeds that paid by nurses and truck drivers. Similarly, the tax rates paid would typically be higher as well. Baldwin’s claim is very similar to the one from Clinton. Does Baldwin fare any better? Carried interest The carried interest provision Baldwin referred to concerns the compensation of investment managers. Hedge fund managers oversee money from investors and are compensated with a cut of the profits. Their paycheck is typically determined according to a "two and twenty" formula -- that is, a 2 percent fee for all assets invested and 20 percent of profits earned. The fee on profits, called carried interest, serves as investment manager’s main source of income. The 20 percent cut is taxed as capital gains, rather than normal earnings, so those funds are subject to a lower rate -- 20 percent with surtaxes of 3.8 and 1.2 percent. Carried interest also isn’t subject to payroll taxes. Meanwhile, the income of the wealthiest Americans is taxed at the highest rate -- nearly 40 percent. The issue: Many hedge fund managers would otherwise fall into this group. Baldwin’s legislation, termed the Carried Interest Fairness Act of 2015, would tax these earnings at ordinary income tax rates. For all the talk, carried interest represents a very small portion of all employee compensation in the United States. Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that ending the tax break would raise $1.32 billion this year and $15.64 billion over 10 years. This is just a drop in the bucket for the federal government, which collected about $1.5 trillion in income taxes in 2015. Baldwin’s claim We have checked a Baldwin claim about the tax break before. In September 2015, she said "the pope and Donald Trump and Tammy Baldwin all agree" on eliminating the "carried-interest" tax break. We rated the claim Half True. Trump, the Republican presidential front runner, does agree with Baldwin, but we could find no evidence of Pope Francis making a statement on ending the tax break. When we asked for backup for the claim that hedge fund managers pay "much lower" income tax rates than "truck drivers and teachers and nurses," Baldwin’s staff simply pointed to the "carried interest" tax break. So that’s our starting point. As noted, the hedge fund manager’s cut of profits is taxed at around 25 percent when surtaxes are included. The average truck driver, meanwhile, would fall into the 15 percent tax bracket, while a well-compensated one may be taxed at 25 percent. Based on IRS salary figures, most nurses and teachers would be taxed at 25 percent of their income. However, thanks to various exemptions, deductions and credits, nearly all people pay a lower average tax than their tax bracket suggests. So what’s the average tax rate for truck drivers, teachers and nurses? According to 2015 figures from the Joint Committee on Taxation, an individual making between $75,000 and $100,000 -- which would typically be a high-end salary for the cited occupations -- would pay an average tax rate of 6 percent. To be sure, a lot of variation exists in the taxes paid, so it is possible that some truck drivers (or teachers or nurses) may pay a higher average tax rate than a hedge fund manager. But Baldwin was speaking in a broad sense, and our analysis looks at it that way, too. "The truck driver will pay a lower percentage of income than will the hedge fund manager," said Roberton Williams of the Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center. "But the hedge fund manager pays a lot less tax than he or she would if the carried interest were considered income rather than capital gains." Indeed, the same Joint Committee on Taxation analysis found the highest earners -- people who make more than $500,000 a year and are taxed at nearly 40 percent on their last dollar earned -- typically face an average tax rate of 27.4 percent Of course, the hedge fund managers pay less, as previously noted, based on the nature of their income. Our rating Baldwin said "hedge fund managers and others in private equity pay much lower (tax) rates on their income than do truck drivers and teachers and nurses." Based on the carried interest provisions, there could be some individual scenarios in which a truck driver would pay a larger portion of income than a hedge fund manager. But when looking at average tax rates -- the amount typically paid after deductions and exemptions -- a typical truck driver, teacher or nurse would pay a far smaller percentage of their income in taxes. We rate the claim False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/b299b6dd-d2b1-42dd-8a77-b502b5c6a581 | null | Tammy Baldwin | null | null | null | 2016-04-13T05:00:00 | 2016-02-14 | ['None'] |
tron-01109 | Asha Degree, a ten-year-old is missing from North Carolina | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/asha/ | null | crime-police | null | null | null | Asha Degree, a ten-year-old is missing from North Carolina | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
faan-00044 | Photo caption “Justin Trudeau meets with Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon.” | factscan score: false | http://factscan.ca/prime-ministers-office-photo-caption/ | That’s not Ban Ki-moon, it’s Jim Kim of the World Bank. | null | Prime Minister’s Office | null | null | null | 2015-11-17 | mber 15, 2015 | ['Justin_Trudeau'] |
hoer-00808 | Ron Mueck Sculpture Photographs | true messages | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/ron-mueck-sculptures.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Ron Mueck Sculpture Photographs | December 2007 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-10728 | Well, you know, the Teamsters wanted to drill in Alaska. I voted against drilling in Alaska. So it's not like I'm a slam dunk on every issue. | true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2007/nov/15/dennis-kucinich/not-quite-lockstep-with-unions/ | During the Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Nov. 15, 2007, CNN host Wolf Blitzer tried to probe the limits of Rep. Dennis Kucinich's longstanding support of union positions. Blitzer said: "I take it that ... there's nothing — there's no issues, no major issues you disagree with America's unions." Kucinich, a House member from Ohio, responded with this statement, which we find to be True. In 2001, Teamsters officials lobbied Capitol Hill in favor of oil exploration in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. "It's time for America to have what it has lacked for too long: a responsible, realistic energy plan that meets our needs and protects our future," Jerry Hood, a Teamsters leader from Alaska, said at a news conference on July 31, 2001. One day later, Kucinich voted against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge when he voted "yes" for an amendment that would have removed proexploration provisions from an energy bill. He cites threats to the environment and human rights in his opposition to exploration. Kucinich calls himself "the candidate of workers ... the one candidate in the race who comes right from the working class and can address those needs directly because I remember where I came from." On this issue, he's correct in saying he wasn't with the unions. | null | Dennis Kucinich | null | null | null | 2007-11-15T00:00:00 | 2007-11-15 | ['Alaska', 'International_Brotherhood_of_Teamsters'] |
snes-04043 | A zoo in China named a baby gorilla Harambe McHarambeface. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/baby-gorilla-harambe-mcharambeface/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | China’s Jinhua Zoo Names Baby Gorilla Harambe McHarambeface? | 13 September 2016 | null | ['China'] |
pomt-14526 | The richest 80 people in the world own more wealth than the bottom half of the global population. | mostly true | /global-news/statements/2016/feb/17/bernie-sanders/pretty-much-money-sanders-says-80-richest-own-more/ | Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ campaign against economic inequality went global in a video for the One Campaign, a global AIDS and poverty advocacy group,. "The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time," Sanders said. "It is the great economic issue of our time and the great political issue of our time. Truthfully, there is something profoundly wrong when the richest 80 people in the world own more wealth than the bottom half of the global population, 3.5 billion people." That’s an astounding fact, if true, that 80 people own as much wealth as 3.5 billion. We decided to see if Sanders was right. He largely is. Sanders relied on a 2014 analysis from Oxfam, which came up with the comparison from two different reports. The first, from Credit Suisse, estimated the distribution of household wealth worldwide. The second was Forbes’ list of billionaires. We'll walk you through the calculations and a couple of caveats. The Credit Suisse report Analysts hired by Credit Suisse estimated total personal wealth at $263 trillion. From there, analysts estimated that the bottom half of the world’s population (approximately 3.5 billion people) owned less than 1 percent of all wealth. To be precise, (and you can find this on page 110 of the full Credit Suisse databook) the bottom half of the world’s population own .72 percent of world household wealth, which comes out to about $1.7 trillion. James Davies, one of the report’s lead authors and an economist at the University of Western Ontario, said no one else has done this exact study. That’s true, but the Allianz Group, another global financial corporation, and the Boston Consulting Group, a financial and management consulting firm, have estimates of total household financial wealth that are pretty close to what Credit Suisse reported. Brent Beardsley, managing director at the Boston Consulting Group, told us both his firm and Credit Suisse used much of the same data, but Credit Suisse included more countries. Beardsley said that difference wouldn’t be significant. Raul Santaeulalia-Llopis, an economist at Washington University in St. Louis, said the Credit Suisse may have underestimated wealth in low-income countries. But even if true, it wouldn’t throw off Sanders’ comparison much. Santaeulalia-Llopis said Sanders and Oxfam might need to add a few more billionaires to their tally to make it more accurate. The strongest criticism of the Credit Suisse report is that it includes a significant number of people in wealthy countries who are not poor but have large debts. That produces misleading results, Beardsley said. "(They) are not actually living in poverty but simply have very low or even negative net worth due to amassment of debt to finance housing, education and consumption beyond current income," Beardsley said. "In this case, wealth -- or rather net worth -- is not an adequate measure of what is commonly understood as poverty." However, this doesn’t challenge the underlying numbers. Instead, it raises a question about interpreting them. Economist Branko Milanovic, formerly with the World Bank and now at City University of New York Graduate Center, countered in a blog post that sometimes, a negative net worth is a very big deal. "Even for those people in the rich world who are ‘anomalously’ placed among the wealth-poor and who may lead nice lives despite owning nothing, a shock in the form of a medical emergency -- unless there is public health care -- or loss of job may have catastrophic consequences," Milanovic wrote. "There is just no wealth to fall back on to tide you over the bad times." Forbes billionaire estimates The second half of the comparison is relatively straightforward. Oxfam used Forbes' list of billionaires and counted how many people it would take to reach $1.7 trillion -- the figure representing the wealth of the bottom half of the global population. Forbes' calculations aren't perfect, but they are the best estimate publicly available. Forbes tracks changes in real time, but the base comparisons depend on estimates generated by members of the Forbes team. Sometimes the billionaires themselves say the numbers are off because far from all the necessary information is public knowledge. Then there are fluctuations due to changing currency exchange rates and the ups and downs of the stock market. The list can’t deliver pinpoint accuracy, but it does represent a good faith effort to assess the net worth of the world’s wealthiest people. Like the wealth calculations in the Credit Suisse report, it should be seen as a reasonable estimate. One final note The divide between the super rich and the bottom of the global population appears to be getting worse. Credit Suisse, Forbes and Oxfam update their numbers at least every year and for 2015, Oxfam said just 62 billionaires own as much as half the world’s people combined. The Sanders campaign, however, told us the video was shot before the latest Oxfam report. So we won't hold it against Sanders in our rating. Our ruling Sanders said that 80 people own as much as half the world’s population. The statement was in line with the latest Oxfam report available at the time Sanders spoke. The Oxfam analysis was based on a report from Credit Suisse and the Forbes list of billionaires. The exact number of billionaires might well be different from the 80 that Sanders said, or the 62 that Oxfam said more recently. But out of world population of 7 billion, it makes little difference if the tally were 160. It still represents a tiny sliver of a percentage of the people in the world. The statement is accurate but needs additional information. We rate it Mostly True. | null | Bernie Sanders | null | null | null | 2016-02-17T16:29:38 | 2016-02-07 | ['None'] |
goop-00680 | Ben Affleck Asked Jennifer Garner To Get Back Together? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/ben-affleck-jennifer-garner-back-together-wrong/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Ben Affleck Asked Jennifer Garner To Get Back Together? | 12:00 am, July 7, 2018 | null | ['Ben_Affleck'] |
tron-01692 | 923 Executive Orders Enacted by President Obama | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/obama-executive-orders-number/ | null | government | null | null | null | 923 Executive Orders Enacted by President Obama | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
tron-03204 | Michael Reagan’s Article Saying “Welcome Back Dad!” | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/welcome-back-dad/ | null | politics | null | null | null | Michael Reagan’s Article Saying “Welcome Back Dad!” | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
goop-02491 | David, Victoria Beckham “Headed For Divorce,” | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/david-beckham-divorce-victoria-split-september-2017/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | David, Victoria Beckham NOT “Headed For Divorce,” Despite Report | 3:22 pm, September 6, 2017 | null | ['Victoria_Beckham'] |
snes-02168 | Complaints about the lack of transparency behind the creation of a bill to repeal Obamacare were hypocritical because the Democrats were just as bad when they passed Obamacare. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/aca-versus-ahca/ | null | Politics | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Was the Passage of Obamacare Just as Secretive as GOP Efforts to Repeal It? | 20 June 2017 | null | ['Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act'] |
goop-01519 | Jennifer Lawrence Dating Joel Edgerton? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-lawrence-dating-joel-edgerton/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Jennifer Lawrence Dating Joel Edgerton? | 6:07 pm, February 21, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pose-00867 | Make the court system “more accessible to Texans with legitimate claims without the incurred costs associated with drawn out trials. Lawsuits with claims between $10,000 and $100,000 should have expedited trial settings and limited discovery in order to get litigants in and out of court quickly and allow swifter recovery for damages.” | promise kept | https://www.politifact.com/texas/promises/perry-o-meter/promise/899/increase-access-courts-legitimate-claims/ | null | perry-o-meter | Rick Perry | null | null | Increase access to courts for legitimate claims | 2012-08-23T12:59:29 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01400 | Authorities in Kenya warned of a new outbreak of HPV that spreads through kissing and is deadlier than HIV/Aids. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hpv-kissing-aids/ | null | Medical | null | Dan MacGuill | null | Is There a ‘New Outbreak’ of HPV That ‘Kills Faster than AIDS’? | 27 November 2017 | null | ['Kenya', 'HIV/AIDS'] |
goop-01504 | Margot Robbie’s Husband Walked Out On Her? | 0 | https://www.gossipcop.com/margot-robbie-husband-tom-ackerley-walked-out/ | null | null | null | Andrew Shuster | null | Margot Robbie’s Husband Walked Out On Her? | 2:37 pm, February 23, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
tron-00747 | Obama Ordered Half Staff Flag for Whitney Houston but not for Shirley Temple | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/whitney-houston-shirley-temple/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | Obama Ordered Half Staff Flag for Whitney Houston but not for Shirley Temple | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-02840 | Says Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has "blocked the Senate over 400 times." | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2013/nov/20/alison-lundergan-grimes/alison-lundergan-grimes-says-mitch-mcconnell-block/ | Is Mitch McConnell the "guardian of gridlock"? One of the marquee races in the 2014 midterm elections is McConnell’s bid to win a sixth term representing Kentucky. And one of the issues likely to get significant attention in the campaign is whether McConnell, as the Senate’s minority leader, has unduly obstructed the Senate majority’s work. The allegation of obstructionism is at the center of an ad released in October by his Democratic challenger, Alison Lundergan Grimes. The ad shows a house slowly catching fire, as the narrator says, "He calls himself a proud guardian of gridlock. He’s blocked the Senate over 400 times, then voted to shut down the government, hurting Kentucky’s economy. Mitch McConnell can’t light the house on fire, then claim credit for putting it out, especially while it’s still burning." As evidence, the Grimes campaign cited a report by WFPL, the Louisville NPR affiliate, in July 2013. The radio report noted that "since 2007, Senate statistics show McConnell has used the filibuster 413 times as minority leader. That is almost twice as much as when Democrats held the minority from 1995 to 2001." The rules behind filibusters can get pretty wonky, but Grimes’ claim has sparked intense discussion concerning some highly technical rules of Senate debate. Our fact-checking colleagues at FactCheck.org and the Washington Post Fact Checker have looked into the claim, with FactCheck.org concluding that "Grimes uses inflated figures," and the Fact Checker giving the claim three Pinocchios out of a possible four. Meanwhile, political scientists pushed back, saying Grimes’ claim had merit. We decided to take a fresh look at the evidence. The finer points of Senate procedure Under the Senate’s rules, action on legislation can proceed one of two ways. The smoother path, if it can be achieved, is through unanimous consent of all senators on the terms of a debate. But, as the term "unanimous" indicates, this standard means that any senator who wishes to can block consent. The alternative is to file a "cloture motion." If it passes, then debate on the underlying legislation can proceed. If it fails, Senate action remains stalled. A cloture motion must secure a supermajority -- 60 votes. Because rounding up 60 votes is no easy task, the Senate’s minority party -- and indeed any individual senator in either party -- can wield significant influence by slowing or stopping action, simply by objecting, either publicly or behind the scenes. The claim in Grimes’ ad, that McConnell blocked the Senate 400 times, counts almost every time a cloture motion was filed between 2007 and 2013. But skeptics have pointed out that, in some of those cases, cloture was approved, meaning that the blockage was ultimately overcome. In other cases, cloture requests were withdrawn, meaning the parties managed to work out an agreement to proceed. And in some cases, it was McConnell who filed cloture to end a Democratic blockage, a move that shouldn’t be considered part of McConnell’s efforts to block action. After weeding out these instances, both Factcheck.org and the Fact Checker settled on 120 cases in which the chamber voted on cloture but failed to approve it. That’s a lot less than 400. McConnell’s office agrees with this interpretation. "As a matter of a fact check, your job is simple," McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told PolitiFact. "Did McConnell block the Senate ‘over 400 times’ or not? That’s an easy one: No." The Grimes campaign acknowledged that there are other reasonable interpretations of the data, but said it stands by the ad. Other ways to define obstructionism Experts on congressional procedure told PolitiFact that counting only 120 cloture votes doesn't fully encapsulate the extent of blocking undertaken by McConnell or the conference he leads. Part of the uncertainty stems from the definition of the word Grimes used: "block." If blocking means a maneuver that permanently prevents something from happening, then 120 examples would seem to be the right call. But if blocking means a delaying action, sometimes for months or years at a time, then the number of cloture motions filed -- roughly 400 -- begins to look much more defensible. When counting the number of cloture motions filed, rather than just those voted down, "the sequence of events suggests that the majority tried to move forward but couldn't because they were blocked by the minority," said Sarah Binder, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution. "So the majority filed for cloture, and then the minority came to the table. You just can't drop those from the count. McConnell, with support of his party, effectively blocked the Senate, at least temporarily." Binder offered two examples to illustrate the larger phenomenon. In the first case, Barbara Keenan, a judicial nominee, had to wait four months for a confirmation vote due to GOP opposition. After Reid filed for cloture, the Senate approved cloture by a 98-0 margin. "Yes, cloture was invoked, but GOP obstruction delayed seating a judge for four months," Binder said. Binder’s second example is Richard Cordray, President Barack Obama’s nominee to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Cordray waited almost two years for a vote; one finally came in July 2013, when cloture was approved, 71-29. "How can you say there was no effort to block the Senate from confirming Corday?" Binder said. "The minority tried to block him and they failed." Binder sees the Keenan and Cordray cases as "examples of a more general phenomenon." Other congressional scholars agreed. "Looking only at things actually killed by failed cloture motions is the narrowest way to look at the impact of filibusters and threatened filibusters," said Norm Ornstein, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. "Instances of filibusters invoked on bills and nominations that passed unanimously or nearly so are done to soak up huge amounts of the Senate's most precious commodity, time. I view those actions as blockage." Steven Smith, a congressional scholar at Washington University in St. Louis, thinks the more expansive definition of what counts as "blocking" has merit, because delays aren’t cost-free. "Agencies that go without leadership, courts struggling with large workloads, departments without regular appropriations, and many, many other consequences of delay cannot be dismissed as inconsequential," he said. In fact, if you use the broader definition of "block" -- and throw in examples of the minority using amendments, motions, extraneous debate and roll-call vote demands -- then the number 400 could actually underestimate the amount of blocking going on. How much is McConnell to blame? Another tricky issue is whether the obstruction can be pinned on McConnell personally. Most experts we checked with said both parties bear some responsibility for the current paralysis in the Senate -- both due to Democratic actions prior to 2007 (when their party was in the minority) and current actions by the Democratic majority that have minimized the GOP’s ability to offer amendments. In addition, each senator is individually empowered to block whatever legislation they wish, so some of the blocking is being driven by individual senators rather than McConnell specifically. Still, the experts agreed that just because McConnell shares the responsibility doesn’t mean he’s absolved of all responsibility. After all, he’s been the GOP leader since 2007 and once said, "The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president." Binder believes that as the party’s leader and chief Senate strategist, "it’s reasonable to hold him accountable for party-backed filibusters." "If an observer can't see that this is central to McConnell's style of leadership, then it's time to find another line of work," said Roy T. Meyers, a political scientist at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County who specializes in Congress. Our ruling In her ad, Grimes said that McConnell has "blocked the Senate over 400 times." If you look at cases of permanent blockage -- which you can do by counting failed cloture votes -- then Grimes’ number significantly exaggerates the scale of McConnell’s obstructionism. But her 400 figure sounds much more reasonable if one uses a broader definition of "block" that counts delays, many of which have gone on for months and even years. In fact, there are enough ways for a minority to gum up the works that aren’t counted in the statistics that the actual number of blockages -- if it could be divined -- could well push the number higher than 400. And that’s a key problem for Grimes -- the number can’t be divined, meaning that Grimes’ figure, even if it is actually a low estimate, communicates a false sense of statistical specificity. It’s also debatable how much McConnell deserves blame for the Senate’s current gridlock, though most experts say he at least deserves some. On balance, we rate Grimes’ claim Half True. | null | Alison Lundergan Grimes | null | null | null | 2013-11-20T16:20:35 | 2013-10-28 | ['Mitch_McConnell'] |
pomt-10203 | I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2008/sep/15/sarah-palin/not-quite-the-largest-and-not-quite-brought-about/ | Since Sen. John McCain named Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin his vice-presidential running mate, she has repeatedly touted her push for a new pipeline in Alaska as evidence of her executive experience and energy expertise. But she has often fudged the truth in the process, as we explain in this article . Here we'll look at a claim Palin made both in her speech at the Republican National Convention on Sept. 3, 2008, and in a radio address three days later. Here's the full context, from the radio address: "Despite fierce opposition from oil company lobbyists, we broke their monopoly on power and resources," Palin said. "As governor, I insisted on competition and basic fairness to end their control of our state and return it to the people. I fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history. And when that deal was struck, we began a nearly $40-billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence." The pipeline, which has been a pipe dream (pardon us) of officials and oilmen in Alaska for three decades, would carry to market natural gas currently stranded under the state's remote and rugged North Slope. Palin's plan is for the Canadian company TransCanada Corp. to build a 1,715-mile line southeast along the Alaska Highway, through the Canadian province of British Columbia to a hub in Alberta. Before her election as governor, Palin opposed the idea of routing the pipeline through Canada, a version of which her predecessor, Frank Murkowski, had advocated. But after she was elected governor she decided to consider all options. She pushed the Legislature to pass a law providing $500-million in state funds to whatever company presented the best proposal for the project. The Legislature accepted TransCanada's proposal in August 2008, and the company now faces the multiyear process of seeking federal approval. So yes, Palin "fought to bring about" a new plan for the pipeline. (Though she also fought to put the kibosh on Murkowski's plan.) Her phrasing — "fought to bring about" — could suggest that she did bring about the pipeline — that is, that it has been built, or is at least under construction. That's not true — TransCanada does not plan to begin construction until 2015, if at all. Now, would the pipeline be "the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history"? Palin didn't specify what she meant by "largest," but according to engineering experts, cost is the most common measure of the size of large-scale projects. "Generally when people talk about the size of an infrastructure project they're talking about the cost," said Jay McCauley, vice president of the Society for Industrial Archeology. We talked to several experts in pipelines and large-scale engineering projects, who said the only private infrastructure project on the scale of Palin's proposed pipeline that they could come up with was the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System, an oil pipeline also from the North Slope that is often referred to as the Alaska Pipeline. (Most large infrastructure projects are publicly funded, whether directly, like the Interstate Highway System, or indirectly, like the Transcontinental Railroad.) The Alaska Pipeline was completed in 1977 at a cost of $8-billion. At 800 miles, it is physically shorter than TransCanada's proposed pipeline, but its $8-billion price tag would be at least $27-billion in 2007 dollars, according to the three online inflation calculators we consulted. Palin has claimed repeatedly that TransCanada's pipeline would cost "nearly $40-billion." But we could not determine where that estimate came from, and neither Palin's office in Alaska nor the McCain campaign returned our calls to tell us. Alaska's Web site says TransCanada's project would cost about $26-billion, and TransCanada spokeswoman Cecily Dobson confirmed the cost estimate remains "approximately US$26-billion in 2007 dollars." That's less than the $27-billion inflation-adjusted cost of the Alaska Pipeline. Not by much — but it's less. Palin was right to say she "fought to bring about" the pipeline. But she implies that it's further along than it really is. And she was wrong — though not egregiously so — to say it would be the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history. We judge her claim to be Half True. | null | Sarah Palin | null | null | null | 2008-09-15T00:00:00 | 2008-09-06 | ['None'] |
snes-03495 | Jellyfish and lobsters are considered biologically immortal, meaning they don’t age and will never die unless they are killed. | mixture | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/are-jellyfish-and-lobsters-biologically-immortal/ | null | Science | null | Alex Kasprak | null | Are Jellyfish and Lobsters Biologically Immortal? | 21 November 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-05928 | Video shows a man jumping from an airplane without a parachute and surviving by landing on a trampoline. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/scared-chuteless/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Man Jumps Out of Airplane without Parachute onto Trampoline | 4 December 2014 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-07802 | One of the biggest causes of our soaring debt and economic insecurity ends up being Pentagon spending. The budget for the Pentagon consumes more than half of our discretionary spending. | true | /ohio/statements/2011/feb/18/dennis-kucinich/rep-dennis-kucinich-says-defense-spending-consumes/ | President Obama submitted his 2012 budget proposal to Congress on Valentine's Day, but the debate on efforts to cut spending started weeks earlier. Rep. Dennis Kucinich opened it with a call to question the cost of wars. "We can have a strong defense, but we are spending so much money that we are undermining our ability to be able to provide for the American people here at home," he said. "One of the biggest causes of our soaring debt and economic insecurity ends up being Pentagon spending. The budget for the Pentagon consumes more than half of our discretionary spending." PolitiFact Ohio wondered about that and took a closer look. We turned to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and to the National Priorities Project, a nonpartisan, liberal-leaning think tank that analyzes data to show how tax dollars are spent. The federal budget has two types of spending, discretionary and mandatory. Mandatory spending, also called direct spending, refers to outlays required by law. It includes such entitlement programs as Social Security and Medicare, veterans' benefits, food stamps, education and health programs. Mandatory spending is about two-thirds of the total budget. The problem of dealing with the politically charged entitlements is why balancing the budget is so difficult. Discretionary spending is the part of the budget governed by the annual appropriation process and debated by Congress. That category includes "defense" (which does not include all military-related spending), security, agricultural subsidies, education, health programs, highway construction and housing assistance. Discretionary defense outlays in fiscal 2010, which ended in October, were $689 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Non-defense outlays were $677 billion, or less than half the total. For fiscal 2011, the CBO projects an even larger percentage of the discretionary budget -- 58 percent -- is military. Discretionary spending on the military has been trending up for more than a decade. From 2001 to 2010, it increased by 71 percent -- almost three times the rate of increase in domestic discretionary spending, which rose about 24 percent. Nonsecurity-related discretionary spending accounts for only about 15 percent of the $3.5 trillion total budget. We leave the question of whether that’s good policy for others to debate. But as to Kucinich’s statement, we rate his claim as True. | null | Dennis Kucinich | null | null | null | 2011-02-18T06:00:00 | 2011-01-24 | ['The_Pentagon'] |
snes-02277 | The soft drink Mountain Dew is being discontinued by Pepsico. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mountain-dew-discontinued/ | null | Junk News | null | Dan Evon | null | Mountain Dew to Be Discontinued? | 4 August 2015 | null | ['PepsiCo', 'Mountain_Dew'] |
hoer-00217 | Facebook Non Secure Browsing Warning | misleading recommendations | https://www.hoax-slayer.com/facebook-non-secure-browsing.shtml | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | Facebook Non Secure Browsing Warning | April 13, 2011 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01791 | During a speech in which he declared Jesus Christ his "redeemer," Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan gave indications that he was breaking with Islam in favor of following Christianity. | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/louis-farrakhan-jesus-redeemer/ | null | Religion | null | David Emery | null | Did Louis Farrakhan Renounce Islam and Convert to Christianity? | 4 September 2017 | null | ['Islam', 'Jesus', 'Christianity', 'Louis_Farrakhan'] |
pomt-00162 | John Adcock and Republicans’ plan for health care "would get rid of coverage altogether for thousands of families and raise premiums on the rest of us." | false | /north-carolina/statements/2018/oct/23/sydney-batch/democrat-falsely-links-newly-appointed-republican-/ | Democrats in North Carolina are campaigning on the idea that the GOP-controlled legislature should do more to improve health care in North Carolina. A recent video ad by Sydney Batch, a Democrat running for NC House District 37 in southern Wake County, tries to build off that idea. She’s running against Republican John Adcock, who was appointed to the seat in September. "John Adcock wants to join politicians who took thousands from insurance companies and support letting them deny health care coverage," a narrator in the ad says. "Their plan would get rid of coverage altogether for thousands of families and raise premiums on the rest of us." The claims are vague, leaving PolitiFact to wonder which plan by legislative Republicans would eliminate coverage for North Carolina families. The first quote is a reference to Republicans refusing to expand Medicaid, said Benjamin Woods, Batch’s campaign manager. It’s been well-documented that expanding Medicaid in North Carolina could provide coverage for up to 500,000 people. So let’s move on to the second quote. Woods said it refers to legislative Republicans’ "work to undermine the positive impact of the Affordable Care Act in North Carolina." Woods referenced a Charlotte Observer editorial about a Republican proposal this summer that would allow nonprofit organizations to offer health benefits to their members. An alternative to the ACA Health benefit plans, which exist in other states but aren’t available in North Carolina, can be cheaper than typical health insurance because they’re not regulated and don’t have to meet financial solvency requirements for sufficient funds to pay customers’ medical bills, The News & Observer reported in June. The plans don’t cover mental health benefits or preventive health services, unlike health insurance regulated under the ACA. (Although, in some cases, customers can pay extra for that coverage.) Critics, including The Charlotte Observer editorial board, fear the nonprofit benefit plans would lure healthy customers away from ACA plans, "which in turn would force insurers to raise premiums even more to cover the costs of the less healthy folks and elderly who remain on Obamacare." The Observer’s editorial continued: "The result: Obamacare will be gutted. So will its preexisting conditions benefit." The bill’s intention is indeed to provide healthy North Carolinians an alternative to subsidizing insurance for unhealthy people, said David Anderson, a research associate for Duke University’s Margolis Center for Health Policy. "It’s a cynical dodge, but a legal one," Anderson said. And it "would harm a small group of families who have significant medical conditions." The plan and Adcock The bill wouldn’t directly eliminate coverage, as the ad suggests. But it could drive up prices for ACA customers, prompting customers with the highest premiums to leave the marketplace altogether. "You’d probably start seeing price changes if 10,000 to 20,000 (healthy ACA customers) leave the risk pool," Anderson said. Eventually, he said, people with pre-existing conditions and the poor "will have to make the decision between paying the mortgage and paying for insurance." The bill, however, never became law. And Adcock hasn’t expressed support for it. In an email to PolitiFact, Adcock said he doesn’t know the specifics of the bill. But, "I know that many Republicans in the State House had many concerns with this bill as written, and I agree with them that the bill in its current form should not pass. "I think that if non-profit organizations want to offer health insurance to their members, they should be bound by consumer protections and have to cover all of their members, regardless of pre-existing conditions," Adcock continued. "While I’m open to considering a bill authorizing self-funded health benefit plans for non-profit organizations, I would need to review an extensive and objective analysis of its impacts before I could determine if such a bill is in the best interest of my constituents." Our ruling Batch’s commercial suggests a plan supported by John Adcock and legislative Republicans "would get rid of coverage altogether for thousands of families and raise premiums on the rest of us." Her campaign manager cited a bill that would have provided an alternative option to the Affordable Care Act. While that bill could ultimately destabilize the ACA marketplace, causing premiums to rise, it doesn’t directly eliminate coverage. It didn’t have enough support to pass and Adcock says he opposes it. We rate this claim False. This story was produced by the North Carolina Fact-Checking Project, a partnership of McClatchy Carolinas, the Duke University Reporters’ Lab and PolitiFact. The NC Local News Lab Fund and the International Center for Journalists provide support for the project, which shares fact-checks with newsrooms statewide. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Sydney Batch | null | null | null | 2018-10-23T14:10:54 | 2018-10-23 | ['None'] |
pomt-11430 | In Japan, "they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify...It's horrible, the way we're treated." | false | /truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/15/donald-trump/trump-botches-japanese-bowling-ball-test/ | President Donald Trump often speaks of how other countries treat American products unfairly. At a private fundraising event in Missouri, Trump singled out a particular practice in Japan. "It's called the bowling ball test. Do you know what that is?" Trump said, according to a recording obtained by the Washington Post. "That's where they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air, and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify. Well, guess what, the roof dented a little bit, and they said, nope, this car doesn't qualify. It's horrible, the way we're treated. It's horrible." The Washington Post noted, "It was unclear what he was talking about." So we wanted to look into it. We asked the White House press office what Trump had in mind and got no comment. In her regular press briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump was just joking. However, we found something that loosely fits what he described. There are no bowling balls, and no 20-foot drop. But Japan’s National Agency for Automotive Safety and Victim Aid does what’s called a pedestrian head protection performance test. It’s designed to measure the force someone’s head would absorb if a car hit them. This involves firing a carefully calibrated hemisphere-shaped device (so, more like half of a bowling ball) at the hood and windshield. The device records the force. Here’s a graphic from the agency’s website: Note that the largest head impactor is 4.5 kilograms, or about 10 pounds. So, the details about a bowling ball, the weight and the height of the drop are all wrong. But those details aside, Trump also got the purpose and nature of the test totally wrong. When he said, "If the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify," that would be a test of the strength of the hood. In contrast, the test is all about a person’s head and the force it has to absorb in an accident. "It’s the complete opposite," said Sean Kane, president of Safety Research and Strategy, a private firm that studies vehicle and consumer product safety. In fact, the more a hood dents or flexes, the better it is for the head of the unlucky pedestrian. "It’s akin to any other type of crash," Kane said. "You look at cars today, and the impact damage to cars is much greater. There’s a lot of crush, but that’s to absorb the energy and keep it away from people." A biomedical engineering dissertation from Wayne State University made the same point: "To lower head injury criterion, two main principles are necessary: provision of sufficient deformation space and provision of a low stiffness of the impacted vehicle body parts." However, Trump got one element correct. American cars sold in Japan, at least all models made this decade, have to meet the Japanese safety standard. So Trump was correct that this is a hurdle for American car makers. It’s worth noting that Europe has a similar standard. In the early 2000s, the problem of cars hitting pedestrians was worse in Europe and Japan than in the United States. In Japan, for example, 27 percent of all traffic fatalities were pedestrians hit by cars. In the United States, it was 13 percent. "The head impact test is a standardized test and has been there for many years," said Pankaj Mallick, professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. "Our car companies are very much aware of this, but at this time, there are no National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requirements to do this test for qualification of a car hood." Kane noted that the United States stands out for having lower safety standards than Europe and Japan. "If U.S. car makers wanted to make safer cars, they could sell them in both markets," he said. "If they don’t, that’s a business decision." Our ruling Trump said that in Japan, "they take a bowling ball from 20 feet up in the air and they drop it on the hood of the car. And if the hood dents, then the car doesn't qualify." American cars must meet a Japanese standard. But Trump mangled the highly controlled process, which does not involve a bowling ball dropped from 20 feet. Where Trump really goes astray is on the purpose of the test; he has it backward. It’s not about seeing if the hood is strong. The more a hood gives way, the better it is for the head of a pedestrian. Trump’s understanding of the test is so far off the mark, we rate this claim False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com | null | Donald Trump | null | null | null | 2018-03-15T17:41:13 | 2018-03-14 | ['Japan'] |
pomt-00438 | JUST IN: Actor ‘Vin Deisel’ dies after a Failed Attempt to Perfect a Stunt on set. | pants on fire! | /punditfact/statements/2018/aug/23/blog-posting/not-so-fast-vin-diesel-didnt-die-failed-stunt-atte/ | A rumor making the rounds on social media regarding the untimely death of actor Vin Diesel may be leaving readers feeling quite aghast and furious. "Just in: actor ‘Vin Deisel’ (sic) dies after a failed attempt to perfect a stunt on set," reads a headline of an article on the website thth.mayatmenen.info. That sounds sadder than the death of Groot. But did it really happen? The article is a pitch-black void of evidence to suggest that Diesel died. This story was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.) Figuring out the facts of this story was less complicated than the plot of XXX. For starters, Diesel’s name is spelled incorrectly in the headline. It’s also notable that there’s no byline for the article. Reputable news stories usually come with a byline to keep writers accountable and allow readers to contact the author if necessary. Below the headline, there are two paragraphs lifted, word-for-word, from Vin Diesel’s Wikipedia page. The page also contains a video clip featuring a Fox News logo and a newscaster. Clicking on it, you’d expect to hear a news anchor reporting on the news of Vin Diesel’s death. But if you click on the video, you’ll actually hear the anchor say, "Finally, I have some very sad news," before the clip freezes and is replaced by the words "Share to Uncover This Video." Clicking on those words opens up a pop-up window that allows you to share a link to the article on Facebook. We found after we shared the story, the video still would not load. A Nexis search revealed that no major news outlets have reported on Diesel’s death, and no obituaries have been written for him. This isn’t the first time that incorrect rumors of Diesel’s death have spread like the Necromongers across the galaxy. The hoax occurred at least one other time, in 2014. We were unable to get in touch with the website where the article was posted, as we could not find any contact information for them. Our ruling A story on a website, thth.mayatmenen.info, claims that actor Vin Diesel died "after a failed attempt to perfect a stunt on set." The article provides no evidence to support this claim, and no major news outlets are reporting that Diesel died. This is an iron giant of a hoax. We rate it Pants on Fire! | null | Bloggers | null | null | null | 2018-08-23T09:00:00 | 2018-08-22 | ['None'] |
faan-00060 | “We take one in ten resettled refugees annually.” | factscan score: true | http://factscan.ca/chris-alexander-one-in-ten-resettled-refugees/ | One in ten refugees who go through formal resettlement programs arrived in Canada in 2014. Alexander’s claim is true only for this subset of refugees. People who were resettled last year accounted for less than one per cent of all refugees (0.54 per cent, to be more precise). | null | Chris Alexander | null | null | null | 2015-09-09 | ember 2, 2015 | ['None'] |
faan-00023 | The national security watchdog committee can go “wherever the evidence takes them.” | factscan score: misleading | http://factscan.ca/ralph-goodale-wherever-the-evidence-takes-them/ | The new committee can track evidence across different departments and agencies. But there are limits on the type of information the committee can access. | null | Ralph Goodale | null | null | null | 2016-11-07 | tober 3, 2016 | ['None'] |
bove-00154 | Over 65% Of Crimes Against Foreign Tourists Are Theft: A Data Fact File | none | https://www.boomlive.in/over-65-of-crimes-against-foreign-tourists-are-theft-a-data-fact-file/ | null | null | null | null | null | Over 65% Of Crimes Against Foreign Tourists Are Theft: A Data Fact File | Oct 31 2017 7:43 pm, Last Updated: Nov 01 2017 10:45 am | null | ['None'] |
goop-00766 | Britney Spears “Falling Apart” Over Kevin Federline Child Support Battle? | 1 | https://www.gossipcop.com/britney-spears-falling-apart-breakdown-kevin-federline-child-support/ | null | null | null | Shari Weiss | null | Britney Spears “Falling Apart” Over Kevin Federline Child Support Battle? | 12:08 pm, June 23, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
snes-01465 | The family of a terminally ill boy is asking people to send him Christmas cards. | outdated | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jacob-thompson-xmas-cards/ | null | Viral Phenomena | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Terminally Ill Nine-Year-Old Hopes for Christmas Cards? | 8 November 2017 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-03438 | Says Georgia Power customers pay 10 percent to 15 percent below the national average for electricity. | mostly true | /georgia/statements/2013/jun/24/ron-shipman/georgia-power-customers-pay-lower-rates-most-offic/ | So, do Georgia Power customers pay less for their services than people in other parts of the country? The answer is yes, a company official said at a June 10 community meeting. How much less? Ten percent to 15 percent below the national average, said Ron Shipman, the company’s vice president of environmental affairs. PolitiFact Georgia heard about the claim and decided to do some research. Georgia Power has nearly 2.4 million customers. That’s about one out of every three adults in this state. The Partnership for Southern Equity, an organization that tries to help the working poor in metro Atlanta, put together the meeting. The crux of the meeting was that there ends up being a lot of inequity in the communities when it comes to utility bills. Some low-income Atlanta-area residents live in older homes that are not energy-efficient, thus, their utility bills are super high. Company officials at the meeting stressed that there are programs to help those people. In general, the company contended at the meeting, their service is less expensive in comparison to other parts of the country. We found the company has been below the national average, but by how much? Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Atlanta-based Southern Co., is regulated by the state’s Public Service Commission. It gets 47 percent of its fuel from natural gas; 35 percent from coal; 18 percent from nuclear; and a small amount from hydropower and other renewable sources. As a regulated monopoly, Georgia Power must provide electricity to all customers in its territory. It is allowed to recoup the costs of providing that power plus a profit. The average bill was expected to increase by 44 cents a month in January. Georgia Power credits programs such as free in-home energy audits for residential customers plus others that assist commercial customers in installing energy-efficient equipment in their facilities for lower costs than most utilities. The company also recently introduced My Power Usage – an online program that allows residential customers to track their daily energy costs, view their projected bill, set up email notifications about their usage and more, company spokesman Jacob Hawkins said. Georgia Power bases its claim on how much it charges customers for its services, Hawkins said. In 2012, Georgia Power customers paid about 9 cents per kilowatt hour. The national average, he said, was 10.13 cents per kilowatt hours. The difference was about 11 percent. The federal government has an agency that keeps track of how much money Americans pay for energy use, the U.S. Energy Information Administration. EIA data are used by other organizations, such as the Edison Electric Institute, an 80-year-old organization of U.S. shareholder-owned electric companies. The EIA figures we found for Georgia Power customers in 2012 were nearly identical to what the company sent us. The national average in 2012 was slightly lower, 9.865 cents per kilowatt hour. Thus, Georgia Power customers paid 8.7 percent less than the national average, according to our analysis of 2012 data. In 2011, we found Georgia Power customers paid 2.9 percent below the national average. Before 2011, Georgia Power customers paid 10 percent less than the national average eight consecutive years. They paid more than 15 percent below the national average in five of those years. Georgia Power officials sent us their own figures, saying it’s not an "apples to apples" comparison to include every utility company in the nation. The company shared a comparison that focused solely on investor-owned utilities. Georgia Power’s numbers showed its customers paid 10 percent or more below the national average in nine of the past 10 years. In 2011, Georgia Power customers paid 5.1 percent below the national average. To sum up, Georgia Power official Ron Shipman said the company’s customers pay 10 percent to 15 percent below the national average. Our findings showed Shipman’s numbers were off the past two years but on point for the prior eight years. Georgia Power’s research was fairly similar. Since he was slightly off for 2012, but right for eight of the nine years before that, we rate Shipman’s claim as Mostly True. | null | Ron Shipman | null | null | null | 2013-06-24T00:00:00 | 2013-06-10 | ['None'] |
snes-04447 | Facebook users can receive a $100 coupon for Kroger by "liking" and "sharing" a status. | scam | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kroger-40-off-coupon-scam/ | null | Inboxer Rebellion | null | David Mikkelson | null | Kroger $100 Coupon Scam | 15 July 2016 | null | ['None'] |
snes-00594 | Was a Lottery Winner Arrested for Dumping $200,000 of Manure on the Lawn of His Former Boss? | false | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lottery-winner-arrested-dumping-200000-manure-lawn-former-boss/ | null | Junk News | null | Kim LaCapria | null | Was a Lottery Winner Arrested for Dumping $200,000 of Manure on the Lawn of His Former Boss? | 15 May 2018 | null | ['None'] |
vees-00014 | VERA FILES FACT: Report about Austrian firm hailing Duterte as 'world's best president' | fake | http://verafiles.org/articles/vera-files-fact-report-about-austrian-firm-hailing-duterte-w | null | null | null | null | fake news,world's best president | VERA FILES FACT: Report about Austrian firm hailing Duterte as 'world's best president' FAKE NEWS | October 23, 2018 | null | ['Austria'] |
tron-00753 | The Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, became a Christian 2 weeks before his death? | fiction! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/steve-irwin/ | null | celebrities | null | null | null | The Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, became a Christian 2 weeks before his death? | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['Steve_Irwin'] |
pomt-03913 | This is a test of the fact-checking widget. | false | /oregon/statements/2013/feb/26/my-city-bikes/yes-really-test/ | Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean tristique mauris ut risus congue, eget elementum dui placerat. Suspendisse placerat a nibh vel placerat. Donec libero sem, rhoncus commodo enim non, posuere vestibulum lorem. Vivamus sit amet odio fringilla, cursus velit non, pharetra ligula. Phasellus dictum nulla non semper tincidunt. Nullam iaculis tempor elit et sollicitudin. Fusce nec sapien nibh. Sed ut vehicula libero, et tristique libero. Vestibulum porttitor magna ac placerat luctus. In elementum non dui vitae rhoncus. Aliquam rhoncus dui quis diam cursus, vel iaculis enim varius. Nunc porttitor felis magna. Sed vulputate ac odio eget egestas. Proin a blandit massa. Ut interdum elit pharetra malesuada fermentum. Ut non ultrices augue, sit amet maximus mauris. Aliquam enim ex, tincidunt quis tortor vel, vulputate placerat leo. Donec vel orci non libero condimentum fermentum. Praesent vel arcu erat. Quisque eu posuere massa, et hendrerit tortor. Sed commodo leo ut cursus luctus. Nulla aliquet felis et erat imperdiet, in mollis ligula laoreet. Fusce magna dolor, consectetur vitae leo ut, viverra sagittis nulla. Mauris dictum laoreet ipsum sit amet hendrerit. Sed sed pretium mauris. Nulla elementum euismod quam, pretium eleifend ipsum varius tincidunt. Proin tempus accumsan nibh a lobortis. Vestibulum feugiat diam sed imperdiet vulputate. Duis convallis sem eros, porttitor vehicula augue luctus non. Mauris dui lacus, vulputate id est ac, tempus vehicula quam. Nullam cursus mi augue, non ultricies diam posuere vel. Maecenas lobortis urna non diam tempus varius a eu tellus. Suspendisse luctus, lorem ut dapibus sollicitudin, ante diam ullamcorper erat, quis sagittis tellus turpis quis ex. Praesent id velit nunc. Nullam diam est, iaculis eu dignissim vitae, efficitur sed sapien. Donec interdum ex ipsum, sit amet gravida nibh eleifend nec. Donec aliquam lacus quis lectus tempor elementum. Quisque pretium justo quis nisi aliquet vulputate. Aliquam vel tellus neque. Nullam nisl massa, scelerisque et dolor sit amet, molestie dignissim justo. Aliquam eleifend, augue at pulvinar varius, urna nisi hendrerit est, aliquet lobortis risus erat eu orci. Curabitur lobortis nunc a erat malesuada lobortis. Cras eget tortor risus. Etiam lorem magna, molestie quis pulvinar sed, aliquam vitae eros. Curabitur varius tellus magna, ut tincidunt risus eleifend eu. Suspendisse sodales ante eget nulla imperdiet scelerisque. Curabitur varius nunc nec elit mollis, vitae consequat sapien ultricies. Proin venenatis est felis, eu rutrum mauris tempor at. Maecenas efficitur pretium massa pellentesque placerat. Aenean imperdiet, nunc non porttitor lacinia, massa mauris gravida dolor, a hendrerit ex odio vel lacus. Vestibulum pharetra aliquam nulla. Duis nec pulvinar turpis. Sed pulvinar metus bibendum massa feugiat, sed maximus nisl sodales. Aenean consectetur vel libero tempor sollicitudin. Donec dictum orci eu purus fermentum, quis varius nisi porta. Fusce pretium dignissim felis non venenatis. In quam lacus, venenatis non volutpat vitae, fringilla a nulla. Proin et leo quis nulla mattis auctor. Morbi sed vehicula erat, ac pharetra mi. Vivamus vehicula lobortis quam sit amet viverra. Sed finibus odio interdum ex ultricies finibus. Aliquam eu elementum nunc. Donec blandit lacinia purus, aliquet euismod mauris blandit sit amet. In hendrerit dui leo, vitae luctus urna cursus quis. Etiam ac posuere neque. Donec sodales lorem quis vehicula scelerisque. In hac habitasse platea dictumst. Donec vitae facilisis dui. Nulla facilisi. Nunc a leo tempus, sollicitudin mi quis, pellentesque tellus. Vestibulum tellus eros, tristique et orci id, consectetur finibus quam. Sed hendrerit arcu tellus, vitae faucibus quam tempus a. Cras venenatis nulla mi. Etiam accumsan gravida ante, a rutrum velit tincidunt et. Donec imperdiet pulvinar nunc, id viverra orci tristique eleifend. Phasellus ullamcorper feugiat purus at vestibulum. Sed rutrum non nisl sed porttitor. Pellentesque vulputate at felis et vestibulum. Sed eget quam ac ipsum consequat consequat. Donec tempor eget nisi et suscipit. Nam ipsum arcu, dictum sed diam sed, ultrices tristique orci. Nullam in nulla risus. Cras ultrices in risus fermentum porta. Quisque in dictum odio. Nullam sed fermentum nisl, ut bibendum lacus. Aliquam dictum, tellus nec varius mollis, mauris lectus iaculis nisi, nec varius sapien neque ac felis. Nunc ornare cursus elit, at pulvinar sapien. Phasellus interdum ligula eget justo porttitor, a tempus lectus suscipit. Morbi sed semper lacus. Morbi posuere est at leo rutrum condimentum. Nullam et dolor nec nulla facilisis mattis nec non orci. Nulla sit amet nisl ultricies, sodales sem sed, venenatis dui. Phasellus ac tristique diam. Quisque in tincidunt nunc, nec consequat felis. In dictum lorem velit, at elementum tellus pellentesque ac. Nam dignissim convallis tortor, eget scelerisque libero convallis quis. Vivamus non ante quis massa viverra viverra. Suspendisse cursus leo eu lorem vehicula, quis iaculis sapien ultrices. Morbi cursus vehicula finibus. Maecenas bibendum condimentum luctus. Maecenas id sem vitae ligula lacinia sollicitudin a non justo. Praesent ac ex ornare, suscipit tellus ac, consectetur nibh. Vivamus laoreet, nulla euismod placerat egestas, diam arcu fermentum turpis, id dapibus diam arcu at lectus. Mauris porta nulla ut sodales dignissim. Phasellus sed sodales nisi. Nullam eget porta nulla. Duis ac dui non augue gravida aliquet. Suspendisse eleifend augue at nisi auctor, eu congue orci suscipit. Morbi sit amet elit mi. Pellentesque id nisi ipsum. Vestibulum eu tincidunt nisi. Etiam faucibus magna id ante ullamcorper, euismod posuere lorem fermentum. Donec luctus, dui at sodales porta, elit metus congue est, et venenatis neque nunc vel metus. Vivamus rutrum et felis vel blandit. Nam interdum egestas nunc non tempor. Share The Facts My City Bikes An advocacy organization ""This is a test of the fact-checking widget." A remark to the widget maker – Friday, February 26, 2016 Embed Share Read more | null | My City Bikes | null | null | null | 2013-02-26T14:32:50 | 2016-02-26 | ['None'] |
pomt-01624 | Cory Gardner is sponsoring a bill to ban all abortions right now. | half-true | /truth-o-meter/statements/2014/aug/28/democratic-senatorial-campaign-committee/democratic-group-claims-cory-gardner-backs-bill-ba/ | Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who’s running to unseat Democratic Sen. Mark Udall, is finding his stance on abortion targeted by another Democratic attack ad. We previously rated a Udall claim that Gardner "championed" an effort to ban birth control in Colorado as Half True. The latest 30-second spot, aired by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, features a handful of women criticizing the Colorado Republican’s pro-life stance. "Why do guys like Cory Gardner think it’s any of their business to tell women what do?" one woman asks. Another calls Gardner’s positions "extreme," after a narrator says Gardner would "ban abortions even in cases of rape and incest." Later, the narrator adds: "Gardner is sponsoring a bill to ban all abortions right now." We decided to take a look at this last claim. The DSCC points to H.R. 1091, known formally as the Life At Conception Act and informally as a "personhood" bill. Gardner is listed as a cosponsor on the bill. The bill was introduced April 8, 2013, by Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. According to the bill text, it would "implement equal protection for the right to life of each born and preborn human person" and "declares that the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution is vested in each human being." It goes on to say that "‘human person’ and ‘human being’ include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being." If this sounds confusing to you, that’s because it is. None of the above mentions abortion, even though it’s quite clearly an anti-abortion measure. In fact, the only part of the bill that seems to directly reference abortion only further muddies the waters: "Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize the prosecution of any woman for the death of her unborn child." It’s difficult to weigh the impact of such a perplexing bill. On the one hand, the bill doesn’t explicitly carve out exemptions for cases that involve rape or incest or instances when the woman’s life or health is in danger. On the other hand, the bill doesn’t explicitly mention abortion in the first place. This means that judicial interpretation will play a big role in how any such law is implemented. But because no state has passed a personhood bill, courts have not established a track record about how they would interpret such a measure and how the measure would affect abortions. By suggesting that a fetus has the "right to life," the bill challenges the Supreme Court’s past support for a constitutional right to abortion. An act of Congress cannot overrule the constitution, meaning the Supreme Court would have to change its past positions on abortion. That’s possible, but even if the bill is a vehicle to challenge Roe vs. Wade and subsequent decisions, it’s not clear that the outcome would "ban all abortions." Glenn Cohen, codirector of the Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics at Harvard University, said claiming that the personhood bill would ban all abortions "might be a bit strong." Depending on how courts rule, it might still be possible that exceptions could be made in cases where the mother’s life or health was at risk, he said. "One could believe that fetuses are persons but still have those exceptions on a theory like self defense," Cohen said. Further complicating matters is that Gardner is straddling both sides of the issue. He has publicly stated that he no longer supports the personhood movement because of its potential affect on some FDA-approved birth control -- yet he has not taken his name off the bill as a cosponsor. Gardner’s campaign said his cosponsorship of the legislation is to "reflect his belief that life begins at conception." The campaign said Gardner is on record supporting exemptions for "rape, incest, and life of the mother," and the campaign disagrees that the personhood bill amounts to a ban on all abortion. The bill is not expected to come up for a vote. Gardner is cosponsor of a different bill filed in 2013 that would take away federal funding for abortion providers except when the pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or a physician certifies that the woman's life is in danger if she carries the baby to birth. Our ruling The DSCC said Gardner "is sponsoring a bill to ban all abortions right now." The claim is based on Gardner’s cosponsorship of a bill that grants a fetus the same rights as a person from the moment of fertilization. It’s clear that such personhood bills are anti-abortion measures, but there’s a lot of uncertainty in the bill’s language that would have to be sorted through, over time, by the court system, and it’s not clear that it would ban all abortions. The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details, so we rate it Half True. | null | Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee | null | null | null | 2014-08-28T13:43:55 | 2014-08-21 | ['None'] |
goop-00200 | Scarlett Johansson Pressuring Colin Jost To Get Married? | 2 | https://www.gossipcop.com/scarlett-johansson-colin-jost-married-engaged/ | null | null | null | Gossip Cop Staff | null | Scarlett Johansson Pressuring Colin Jost To Get Married? | 4:13 pm, September 30, 2018 | null | ['None'] |
pomt-01228 | Austin mayoral candidate Steve Adler has "never been active in anything that has to do with City Hall." | pants on fire! | /texas/statements/2014/nov/20/mike-martinez/martinez-says-steve-adler-hasnt-been-active-anythi/ | Austin mayoral candidate Mike Martinez says his opponent, Steve Adler, lacks experience in municipal matters. Martinez, an Austin City Council member since 2006, told Austin’s KVUE-TV for a news story aired Nov. 11, 2014: "He’s never been active in anything that has to do with City Hall," stressing "anything." Adler and Martinez are vying in a Dec. 16, 2014, runoff. Adler’s campaign manager, Jim Wick, asked us to look into Martinez’s claim. Asked how Martinez reached his conclusion, Martinez spokesman Nick Hudson emailed: "Mike meant something specific when he made this statement. While Mike Martinez has been on the Austin City Council for nearly eight years and has a near-perfect attendance record, Steve Adler has not, to our knowledge, ever taken an active role in our local government by appearing before Council on an item." That’s a way to get to "never." To be sure, Adler has been running as a City Hall outsider eager to get city government moving in a fresh direction. Wick told us Adler never has been on a council-appointed board or commission. But Wick said by email the eminent-domain lawyer has built familiarity with city affairs, in part by representing clients whose land was being condemned by the city. In 2004, Adler represented Lowe’s when the store and city of Austin tried to keep construction of a store continuing in Southwest Austin. The project ultimately proceeded after a 2005 legal settlement involving the city of Sunset Valley and environmental groups. Adler also has volunteered in causes that connected with city government, Wick wrote. According to an October 2014 Austin American-Statesman profile, Adler led the board of the Austin-area Anti-Defamation League from 2009 to 2012. In that role, Wick told us, Adler "helped conceive of and serves on the city-led Hate Crimes Task Force." The Austin ADL says on a web page that when the task force was launched in December 2010, its "convenors" included the ADL, several council members and more than 70 individuals representing 40 organizations or departments. A May 2011 Austin Chronicle news story, pointed out by Wick, listed the ADL among groups having a hand in starting the task force. The story described Laura Morrison as one of three council members behind the task force’s creation in the wake of the beatings of two men outside City Hall in 2010. "The attack prompted Morrison and colleagues Sheryl Cole and Randi Shade to ask the Austin chapter of the Anti-Defamation League to put together a proposal for what a city-led task force might look like," the Chronicle said. The story said: "The idea is for the group – which includes" Travis County’s district and county attorneys, the Austin Police Department, "University of Texas and Austin Independent School District police, members of the Anti-Defamation League, Out Youth, and other civil rights groups, among others – to identify and develop an approach to dealing with hate-motivated violence ‘before, during, and after’ it happens." That story didn’t mention Adler. But in May 2014, an Adler profile in the Austin Bulldog quoted Austin ADL board member Kirk Rudy saying Adler "was instrumental" in creating the task force. By phone, attorney Karen Gross, a former ADL staff member, told us she and Adler helped launch the task force by reaching out to any group with a possible stake in the collaboration of city, county and non-governmental entities. Wick said Adler also had a hand in writing the city’s cultural master plan. An April 2008 consultant’s report lists Adler among 71 members of the CreateAustin Leadership Council, an appointed group of "civic, business and cultural leaders who agreed to provide the visible leadership in reaching out to engage the community, to assist in crafting the CreateAustin Cultural Master Plan and to galvanize the effort to implement the plan’s recommendations." By telephone, Janet Seibert, the city’s civic arts program consultant, said the members were chosen by city staff. The report says the city’s Cultural Arts Division launched the CreateAustin "strategic planning process" in September 2006 because the city "wanted to review and refine municipal roles and responsibilities for cultural support, but that was only half of it. The City recognized they couldn’t support arts, culture and creative industries alone. They sought to trigger and develop community leadership to explore major issues and develop strategies to sustain the creative culture of Austin." The leadership council, the report said, "met regularly to review research, findings and community input in order to help shape the cultural plan." Adler, the report says, was on the body’s Cultural Infrastructure task force. Adler co-chaired that task force, Seiberg said to our query. She said the Austin City Council accepted the master plan in June 2010. Our ruling Martinez said Adler has "never been active in anything that has to do with City Hall." Adler hasn’t been a member of city boards or commissions and we accept Martinez’s assertion Adler hasn’t addressed the council. Then again, Adler had a leadership hand in developing the hate crimes task force and the city’s cultural master plan. All told, this never/anything statement strikes us as incorrect and ridiculous. 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 | Mike Martinez | null | null | null | 2014-11-20T10:00:00 | 2014-11-11 | ['Steven_Adler', 'Austin,_Texas'] |
snes-01008 | Did the Florida Shooter's Instagram Profile Picture Feature a MAGA Hat? | true | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-shooters-instagram-picture-maga-hat/ | null | Fauxtography | null | Dan Evon | null | Did the Florida Shooter’s Instagram Profile Picture Feature a ‘MAGA’ Hat? | 15 February 2018 | null | ['None'] |
hoer-01028 | The Baby Facebook Page is Giving Away 20 Luxury RV | facebook scams | https://www.hoax-slayer.net/no-the-baby-facebook-page-is-not-giving-away-20-luxury-rv/ | null | null | null | Brett M. Christensen | null | No, The Baby Facebook Page is NOT Giving Away 20 Luxury RV | March 10, 2017 | null | ['None'] |
tron-02365 | West Point Report: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right | truth! | https://www.truthorfiction.com/west-point-far-right-report/ | null | military | null | null | null | West Point Report: Understanding America’s Violent Far-Right | Mar 17, 2015 | null | ['None'] |
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