chengxuphd/liar2 huggingface dataset:
Statement: Passage of a referendum on an aquarium for Clearwater means "NO future funding for our neighborhoods.
Speaker: friends of clearwater pac
About the speaker: The Friends of Clearwater political action committee opposes a new downtown aquarium in Clearwater.
Date: October 21, 2013
Location: florida
Topics: city budget;water
Context: a flier
Fact-check justification: But since the aquarium plan is to seek only half of the increment revenue, and only for 20 years, the remaining half of that revenue would theoretically remain available for projects benefitting the downtown neighborhood. And use of those dollars downtown wouldn’t hurt other neighborhoods in the city, since those dollars can’t legally be spent elsewhere. There is no proof that approval of Tuesday’s referendum — which would only authorize the city to negotiate a lease and doesn’t ensure construction of the aquarium — will mean no future funding for Clearwater neighborhoods. The opponents’ statement is based on speculation, with no foundation in fact. We rate it .
Statement: People are participating in "National Rape Day'" on April 24.
Speaker: tiktok posts
About the speaker: Posts on the video-sharing platform TikTok.
Date: April 23, 2023
Location: national
Topics: crime
Context: a post
Fact-check justification: Fact-checkers at Snopes found that claims of a National Rape Day came before 2021. Urban Dictionary, a website on which people post definitions of slang words, showed a May 26, 2018, post about the term on its site, describing April 24 as "the day when it’s legal to rape people!" Snopes reported that Urban Dictionary deleted the entry. We find no  to substantiate the  that men are coordinated in an effort to sexually assault women on April 24.   We rate this  .
Statement: Borax can be used to treat a variety of health problems, including joint pain, kidney stones, osteoporosis and chronic fatigue.
Speaker: facebook posts
About the speaker: Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
 
Date: July 18, 2023
Topics: public health;facebook fact-checks
Context: a Facebook video
Fact-check justification: Social media posts claimed borax, a household cleaning product, can be ingested to treat multiple health problems. Borax should not be used as an alternative to boron supplements or naturally occuring boron in foods, health and nutrition experts say. Consuming borax can cause adverse health effects, and in large amounts, it could lead to death. We rate this  !
Statement: Every general City of Milwaukee employee "pays toward his or her pension, but approximately 88 percent of our police officers and firefighters do not.
Speaker: tom barrett
About the speaker: Tom Barrett served as the 44th mayor of Milwaukee from 2004 until 2021. The mayoral position is non-partisan. A member of the Democratic Party, he was previously elected to the Wisconsin State Assembly (1984–1989), Wisconsin Senate (1989–1993) and U.S. House of Representatives (1993–2003).
Barrett lost bids for governor in 2002, 2010 and in the 2012 recall race against Gov. Scott Walker. He was sworn in as U.S. ambassador to Luxembourg on Dec. 23, 2021.
Date: September 22, 2015
Location: wisconsin
Topics: city budget;city government;labor;pensions;public safety;unions;taxes
Context: a speech
Fact-check justification: Because the law exempts police and firefighters, only Milwaukee police officers and firefighters hired since late 2011 make pension contributions -- the vast majority, 88 percent, do not. However, it’s worth noting that the police and firefighter unions in effect are paying toward their pension in that they made wage concessions in exchange for not making direct contributions to their pensions. We rate Barrett's statement .    More on City of Milwaukee Ald. Nik Kovac says police, fire workers routinely get 4% raises () Milwaukee Police Association says it has offered several million dollars in savings in contract negotiations with the City of Milwaukee ()
Statement: More than 80% of Republicans think we ought to at least be doing universal background checks.
Speaker: pete buttigieg
About the speaker: Pete Buttigieg is the Transportation secretary under President Joe Biden. Buttigieg was elected mayor of South Bend, Ind., in 2011 and was re-elected in 2015. He decided not to seek re-election and his term ended in January 2020. From 2009 to 2017, he served in the U.S. Navy Reserve and was a lieutenant. He received a bachelor’s degree in history and literature from Harvard College and a first-class honors bachelor’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Pembroke College as a Rhodes Scholar. He ran for president in the 2020 Democratic primaries.
Date: January 26, 2020
Location: national
Topics: guns
Context: Des Moines
Fact-check justification: Buttigieg said, "More than 80% of Republicans think we ought to at least be doing universal background checks."  Buttigieg cited two polls that showed Republican support for background checks for all sales at 83% and 90%. We found additional polls in the same ballpark.  The support in polls doesn’t necessarily translate to support for specific legislation or ballot measures, and it’s possible that some respondents are unaware of current laws. That said, there are plenty of polls to back up Buttigieg’s statistic. We rate this statement .
Statement: You've got thousands of people serving in the military who are transgender.
Speaker: ted lieu
About the speaker: U.S. Rep. Ted Lieu is a Democrat who represents parts of Los Angeles County. 
Date: July 26, 2017
Location: national
Topics: military
Context: comments on CNN
Fact-check justification: Lieu said, "You've got thousands of people serving in the military who are transgender and they're doing a fantastic job." There are no solid numbers from the Defense Department, but two sources have provided recent estimates extrapolated from survey and insurance data. One 2014 UCLA brief estimated as many as 15,500 active duty and reserve service members may identify as transgender. A 2016 RAND Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon suggested between 2,150 and 10,790 active and reserve duty troops. While both estimates said there are likely thousands of transgender people in the military, those are still estimates. Lieu should note that in his talking point. We rate the statement .
Statement: Whoopi Goldberg humiliated, handcuffed and dragged out of the TV studio.
Speaker: bloggers
About the speaker: Blog posting on the Internet
Date: August 14, 2017
Topics: fake news;punditfact
Context: an Internet post
Fact-check justification: Goldberg has been a target of the site before. TheLastLineOfDefense.org has said Goldberg has been charged by the Secret Service , hired by Fox News Channel and faced the ire of President Donald Trump’s administration . And that’s just since March. This is another  charge leveled by a website that makes up all its content, which is reshared online with no indication of its origins. We rate this  !
Statement: Says "Monica Lewinsky Found Dead" in a burglary.
Speaker: bloggers
About the speaker: Blog posting on the Internet
Date: June 3, 2017
Topics: fake news;crime;punditfact
Context: Internet posts
Fact-check justification: A number of  news writers said former White House intern Monica Lewinsky had been tragically killed in a burglary and named the Clintons as possible suspects. The item is circulating on websites that make no secret of their irreverent mission to confuse readers, especially conservatives, into mistaking their satire for . Days after publication, Lewinsky herself removed any possible doubt by Tweeting out an article debunking the . We rate this statement .
Statement: It makes no sense to require vaccinations for the previously infected.
Speaker: facebook posts
About the speaker: Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
 
Date: July 14, 2021
Topics: facebook fact-checks;coronavirus
Context: a Facebook post
Fact-check justification: Experts are unsure exactly how long someone is protected against COVID-19 after they have been infected. The CDC says vaccination is a more effective way of building protection against the virus, including variants. The authors of the studies Mercola cited recommended that people who were previously infected with COVID-19 still get vaccinated. They say vaccination does make sense, because everyone can have varying degrees of immunity and it is unclear how long natural immunity lasts. We rate Mercola’s  .
Statement: Says the impeachment of President Donald Trump would be the first in U.S. history "without a specific criminal statute or crime that the president who is impeached would have allegedly committed.
Speaker: paul gigot
About the speaker: Paul Gigot is editorial page editor of the Wall Street Journal and host of "Journal Editorial Report" on Fox News Channel.
Date: December 7, 2019
Topics: impeachment;crime;punditfact
Context: an interview
Fact-check justification: Gigot said if Trump is impeached, this would be the first impeachment in U.S. history "without a specific criminal statute or crime that the president who is impeached would have allegedly committed." The two presidents who have been impeached, Johnson and Clinton, were not charged with violating any criminal code. But that is only part of the story: Johnson was accused of breaking a law that carried a possible prison sentence, and Clinton was accused of the crime of perjury.  The  is partially accurate but takes things out of context. We rate the  .
Statement: In 2009, Jim Doyle and the Democrats rushed through a budget repair bill with billions in tax increases and held no public hearings.
Speaker: jeff fitzgerald
About the speaker: Wisconsin Rep. Jeff Fitzgerald, R-Horicon, is the speaker of the state Assembly. He was elected to the Assembly in 2000. His brother is Wisconsin state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald. In October 2011, Jeff Fitzgerald ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate in 2012.
Date: November 29, 2010
Location: wisconsin
Topics: state budget;taxes
Context: a news release
Fact-check justification: On the question of public hearings, Fitzgerald is right there were none -- but his rhetoric skipped past the fact such hearings have not always been held. Indeed, both parties have had a hand in that fact.   We rate his  . Editor's note: This statement was rated  when it was published. On July 27, 2011, we changed the name for the rating to .
Statement: Says "the acting chief of the IRS said he – and the majority of IRS employees – would rather stay with his current" health "plan than switch to Obamacare.
Speaker: jeb hensarling
About the speaker: Jeb Hensarling is a U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Republican Conference.
Date: August 2, 2013
Location: texas
Topics: health care
Context: a press release
Fact-check justification: Hensarling said that "the acting chief of the IRS said he – and the majority of IRS employees – would rather stay with his current plan than switch to Obamacare." Werfel did say that he and other IRS workers would prefer no change in their insurance coverage. But the context for that statement is not as Hensarling suggested. IRS and other federal workers are not objecting to the law known as Obamacare but to proposed legislation designed to take away their current employer-provided insurance and make them buy coverage through exchanges created by Obamacare. We rate Hensarling’s partly accurate , which leaves the misimpression that IRS workers are scrambling to get out from under a law that actually applies to the nation’s uninsured, as .
Statement: Due to the sequester, "people are going to be unsafe. Homes are going to burn.
Speaker: ami bera
About the speaker: Ami Bera is a Democrat who represents a California district that includes Sacramento in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Date: February 26, 2013
Location: national
Topics: federal budget
Context: a House floor speech
Fact-check justification: Bera said that due to the sequester, "people are going to be unsafe. Homes are going to burn." The precise impact of sequester cuts on firefighting is speculative, but it’s safe to assume there will be some impact on the margins, at least in places that receive federal firefighting grants. Still, Bera’s language is overheated, both on Sacramento’s case in particular and in the overall picture. In the communities lucky enough to receive SAFER grants, such funds typically account for a small portion of the total departmental budget. In addition, firehouse woes do not begin and end with the sequester; local budgets and policies also deserve some blame. Finally, blaming the sequester obscures even larger cuts the administration itself proposed prior to the sequester. On balance, we rate Bera’s  .
Statement: Says "Your kid just ate 16 packs of sugar.
Speaker: multnomah county
About the speaker: Multnomah County is Oregon's most populous county. The City of Portland is in Multnomah.
Date: July 10, 2012
Location: oregon
Topics: county government;public health
Context: a public health campaign
Fact-check justification: We figure parents are smart enough to figure out the sugar-gram-to-cola-ounce ratio themselves. The smaller the drink, the fewer the sugar packets. All this really means is that we find the county’s statement accurate. We rate it . And that’s the unsugar-coated .
Statement: Prayer rugs have recently been found on the Texas side of the border in the brush.
Speaker: david dewhurst
About the speaker: David Dewhurst, the former state land commissioner, was initially elected lieutenant governor of Texas in 2002. He lost his 2012 bid for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate and lost his bid for re-nomination in 2014.
Date: September 26, 2014
Location: texas
Topics: immigration;religion;terrorism
Context: Washington, D.C
Fact-check justification: Dewhurst said "prayer rugs have recently been found" in brush on the Texas side of the U.S.-Mexico border. This  is weakened because it’s not backed up by sourced-by-name witnesses nor did any authority confirm such a find when we inquired. If prayer rugs were showing up to someone’s alarm, we think there'd be legitimate photographs and the rugs themselves available for inspection. Another hole: While people of the Muslim faith surely cross the Mexico-Texas border – that’s not at issue in this fact check – it’s unreasonable to presume the presence of prayer rugs means individuals carrying them intend to commit violent acts on U.S.soil, an implication of Dewhurst’s declaration. In the end, we find his statement  and . Rugs (we mean Pants) on Fire!
Statement: Queens voters received pre-marked ballots for Joe Biden.
Speaker: tweets
About the speaker: Twitter is a messaging service where people often discuss politics. Individual messages are called Tweets.
Date: October 29, 2020
Location: new york
Topics: elections;facebook fact-checks
Context: a tweet
Fact-check justification: A tweet claimed that several Queens residents received ballots that were already marked with votes for Biden and other Democratic candidates.  No  supports this .  One voter Novak interviewed said he’d received a ballot with his daughter’s name on it that was already filled out. The New York City Board of Elections spokesperson told PolitiFact the voter in question had filled out the ballot and tried to mail it to the Board of Elections, but someone accidentally opened it.  The Associated Press reported that the voter had used the  envelope and mailed it to her previous address. We rate this  . This fact check is available at IFCN’s 2020 US Elections FactChat #Chatbot on WhatsApp. Click here , for more.
Statement: Says Mitt Romney had millions in the Cayman Islands, a tax haven.
Speaker: barack obama
About the speaker: Barack Obama is the former president of the United States. Obama also served as a U.S. senator from Illinois. He was born in 1961 in Hawaii, where his parents met as students at the University of Hawaii. Obama's father is from Kenya and his mother is from Kansas. He graduated from Columbia University and received his law degree from Harvard Law School. Obama previously served in the Illinois state Senate and was an instructor at the University of Chicago Law School. He and his wife, Michelle, have two daughters, Malia and Sasha.
Date: July 14, 2012
Location: national
Topics: message machine 2012;taxes
Context: a TV ad
Fact-check justification: Obama’s ad says Romney had millions of dollars in the tax-friendly Cayman Islands. Romney’s trustee acknowledged investing Romney’s money in funds located there, and several are listed on his financial disclosures. Those forms indicate the value of those investments is in the millions. There's no  of anything illegal or improper, but it's clear that Romney had millions in the Caymans. We rate the  from the Obama ad .
Statement: An election worker in Georgia threw away a ballot.
Speaker: facebook posts
About the speaker: Posters on Facebook and other social media networks.
 
Date: November 5, 2020
Location: georgia
Topics: elections;facebook fact-checks
Context: an Instagram post
Fact-check justification: The post claimed to show in a video that a poll worker committed voter fraud by throwing away a ballot. The man was throwing away a paper with voter instructions, elections officials said.  We rate this  .
Statement: A Florida millionaire was arrested after admitting to burying more than 700 bodies on his property.
Speaker: viral image
About the speaker: Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine.
Date: June 4, 2019
Topics: crime;facebook fact-checks
Context: a Facebook post
Fact-check justification: On Facebook, many users posted comments calling out the post’s credibility. But others seemed convinced, and the image that appeared on the social media platform included the words "now this is crazy" with frowning emojis. That seems designed to lead people to believe the story is authentic. Fortunately for Florida Men everywhere, it’s not.   We rate this post !
Statement: Antifa "are killing our police. Looting our businesses. Assaulting the elderly and burning our churches.
Speaker: dane eagle
About the speaker: Dane Eagle was elected to the Florida House of Representatives in 2012 and reelected subsequently. He was the Majority Whip 2016-2018 and the Majority Leader 2018-2020. He lives in Cape Coral and is a commercial real estate broker.
Date: June 22, 2020
Location: florida
Context: a social media ad
Fact-check justification: Eagle said in a social media ad that antifa "are killing our police, looting our businesses, assaulting the elderly and burning our churches." Eagle’s campaign broadly blames antifa for violence and property destruction, echoing a statement by U.S. Attorney General William Barr. But the campaign didn’t point to proof that antifa was behind any specific act of violence or criminal behavior.  We found no  that antifa has played any significant role in any of the violence that broke out amid recent peaceful protests against police brutality. We rate this  .
Statement: Says Rep. Martha McSally "is a #FlipFlopBorderHawk.
Speaker: kelli ward
About the speaker: Kelli Ward, a former state senator, is running for John McCain's U.S. Senate seat in the 2016 election cycle.
Date: March 16, 2018
Location: arizona
Topics: immigration;homeland security
Context: a Facebook post
Fact-check justification: Ward in a Facebook post called McSally a #FlipFlopBorderHawk. In 2017, McSally publicly questioned a funding request for border barriers — due to limited details — but ultimately voted in favor of it. McSally has said a border wall alone will not stop illegal immigration or criminal organizations, but can work in certain areas. In 2018, McSally has offered a strong embrace, saying she has "always supported building a wall." Ward’s statement is partially accurate but leaves out important details. We rate it .
Statement: Says more than 2 million Oregonians have received important medical services because of his health plan.
Speaker: john kitzhaber
About the speaker: John Kitzhaber, a Democrat, was governor of Oregon for two terms, starting in 1995. He was inaugurated in 2011 for an unprecedented third term.
He was elected to the Oregon Legislature in 1978, rising to the position of Senate President. He spearheaded the Oregon Health Plan as a legislator and as governor. Kitzhaber graduated from Dartmouth College and the University of Oregon Medical School (now Oregon Health & Science University). He worked as an emergency room physician in Roseburg from 1974 to 1988.
Date: August 15, 2010
Location: oregon
Topics: health care
Context: a radio interview
Fact-check justification: That means 41 percent got coverage because of Kitzhaber’s health plan. Kitzhaber is indeed the creator of the Oregon Health Plan and -- as the records shows -- he can legitimately  credit for expanding health coverage to about 820,000 people. Taking credit for the entire 2 million is a stretch. We find his  .    Comment on this item.
Statement: Says Doug Jones "is for full-term abortion.
Speaker: kayla moore
About the speaker: Kayla Moore is the wife of Judge Roy Moore, the special election Republican nominee for U. S. Senate in Alabama.
Date: November 17, 2017
Location: national
Topics: abortion;elections;women
Context: a women for Moore rally
Fact-check justification: Kayla Moore said Jones is for full-term abortion. The language of the abortion debate is imprecise, but the phrase "full-term abortion" had virtually no track-record before Moore said it. Jones said he supports laws that allow abortions after 20 weeks or so of gestation, commonly known as late-term abortions, to protect a mother’s life or health. He hasn’t addressed a situation that, in the view of a leading medical researcher, doesn’t exist in practice. Moore measured Jones against a term that is disconnected from reality. We rate this  .
Statement: The sun is not 93 million miles away … it is local and under a firmament dome.
Speaker: viral image
About the speaker: Graphics, pictures and charts shared on social media give chain emails a run for their money when it comes to spreading too-good-to-be-true claims all over the Internet. A common form is is the "Internet macro," which uses an easily recognized and repurposed image (called a meme) wth superimposed text to make a funny but political argument. Sometimes these images are passed across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit so widely that the original source is nearly impossible to determine.
Date: September 13, 2022
Topics: corrections and updates;space;facebook fact-checks
Context: an Instagram post
Fact-check justification: We rate claims that the sun isn’t that far away, and rather under a dome, ! Correction Sept. 15, 2022 : It would take the sun eight minutes to reach Earth traveling at a speed of 186,000 miles per second. A previous version of this story cited an  amount of time.   Clarification, Sept. 16, 2022 : The Earth is a sphere that is 93 million miles away from the sun. A previous version of this story included an  planetary reference.