Datasets:

pszemraj

/

multi_fc

like 1

pomt-06389

Under Barack Obama's watch, we have expended $805 billion to liberate the people of Iraq and, more importantly, 4,400 American lives.

pants on fire!

/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/oct/31/michele-bachmann/michele-bachmann-says-us-spent-805-billion-iraq-lo/

During an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Oct. 28, 2011, Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., sought to blame President Barack Obama for the costs and lives lost in Iraq. Here’s the exchange: Bachmann: "My main challenger right now is Barack Obama. That's who I'm focused on. His economic policies are a disaster, and his foreign policy is even worse. Under Barack Obama's watch, we have expended $805 billion to liberate the people of Iraq and, more importantly, 4,400 American lives. President Obama just had his hat handed to him by the Iraqis, who have essentially kicked him out and our people out of Iraq while Iran is waiting in the wings. So Iraq is essentially kowtowing to Iran. Iran is seeking to have a nuclear weapon. They want to wipe Israel off the face of the map, and they want to use a nuclear weapon against the United States. And the president said sure, we'll get out. So, the president has done nothing to secure America's safety and security. He's been a disaster on foreign policy." Blitzer: "But as far as Iraq is concerned, the Iraq War, which started in March 2003 -- that was President Bush and the Republicans who launched that war that went on for years. This current president is now withdrawing all of those troops from Iraq. Don't you give him credit for that?" Bachmann: "Wolf, the current president is being kicked out of Iraq. The president of the United States has gotten nothing." Blitzer: "You want those troops to stay there?" Bachmann: "This is a bipartisan effort --" Blitzer: "Do you want those troops to stay in Iraq?" Bachmann: "Wolf, this was a bipartisan effort when the decision was made regarding Iraq. I wasn't in Congress at that time, but this was a bipartisan effort. This was not just a Republican effort. What President Obama has failed to do is secure the gains that America paid for with an extremely dear cost -- 4,400 American lives, nearly a trillion dollars in expenditures, and we have nothing to show for it. And we may look at (an Iraqi) government which has admitted they cannot secure the peace. …" There’s a lot here, but we thought we’d check whether it’s accurate to say that "under Barack Obama's watch, we have expended $805 billion to liberate the people of Iraq and, more importantly, 4,400 American lives." After Bachmann said that, Blitzer pushed back, noting that "the Iraq War, which started in March 2003 -- that was President Bush and the Republicans who launched that war that went on for years." Though Bachmann didn’t acknowledge Blitzer’s point about the timing of the war in the interview, Blitzer was right to press her. From 2003 to early 2009, President George W. Bush was commander-in-chief overseeing Iraq. Only in January 2009 did Obama take over. So how do the statistics for money and lives break down between the two presidents? For dollar figures, we turned to a report by the Congressional Research Service titled, "The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other Global War on Terror Operations Since 9/11," published on March 29, 2011. Through March 18, 2011, the cumulative enacted dollars spent on the Iraq war from fiscal year 2003 through fiscal year 2011 was $805.5 billion. So that’s where Bachmann’s figure came from. But that covers at least six fiscal years during the Bush presidency. It's a ridiculous exaggeration to attribute all that spending to Obama. (There’s been additional spending under Obama since March 18, 2011, but not nearly enough to bring his total up to $805 billion.) For deaths, we turned to an independent monitoring organization called iCasualties.org, which is considered a credible source of such data; here’s some background on the group. The group found that a total of 4,482 Americans have lost their lives in Iraq since the start of the war in 2003. Once again, Bachmann is close with her number but way off on attributing responsibility. Of those deaths, approximately 261 came on Obama’s watch, or about 6 percent of the total. Our ruling Bachmann’s numbers are essentially on target, but she errs badly in blaming Obama for all $805 billion spent and 4,400 American lives lost in Iraq "on his watch." Most of the money spent and lives lost in Iraq came during George W. Bush’s presidency. The idea that Obama -- who wasn’t even in the Senate until two years into the war -- is responsible for all the costs and casualties in Iraq is ridiculous. We rate her statement Pants on Fire.

Michele Bachmann

2011-10-31T14:37:55

2011-10-28

['United_States', 'Iraq', 'Barack_Obama']

snes-04224

Republican VP candidate Mike Pence proclaimedthat "the things Donald Trump says wouldn't hurt our campaign half as much if the press didn't report it."

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mike-pence-blames-media-for-trump-controversies/

Junk News

Dan Evon

Mike Pence Blames Media for Trump Controversies

17 August 2016

['Mike_Pence', 'Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Donald_Trump']

snes-03152

Chicago Bulls Rajon Rondo and New Orleans Pelicans Anthony Davis were traded in a five player deal in January 2017.

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/rajon-rondo-traded-for-anthony-davis-rumor/

Entertainment

Dan Evon

Was Rajon Rondo Traded for Anthony Davis in a Five-Team Deal?

12 January 2017

['New_Orleans']

vogo-00311

Statement: “We don’t have an [International Baccalaureate] program at any high school south of (Interstate 8) — San Diego High has one there, but other than that, the rest of that area, there is none,” San Diego Unified school board member Shelia Jackson said at a meeting Nov. 10.

determination: mostly true

https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/topics/education/fact-check-whats-missing-at-schools-south-of-interstate-8/

Analysis: Last week, the school board had a heated debate about whether to focus more federal money for disadvantaged students on schools with the very highest levels of poverty. The board has waffled on whether to keep spreading roughly $21 million across all schools where at least 40 percent of students are poor or concentrate it in fewer schools with the highest poverty rates.

Fact Check: What's Missing at Schools South of Interstate 8

November 14, 2011

['San_Diego_High_School', 'IB_Diploma_Programme', 'Sheila_Jackson_Lee']

farg-00093

Sayfullo Saipov, the Uzbekistan national who was arrested in a terrorist attack in New York City last year, "brought a lot of people with him. They say 22 people."

unsupported

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/04/trumps-chain-migration-fable/

the-factcheck-wire

FactCheck.org

Eugene Kiely

['Diversity Immigrant Visa Program']

Trump’s ‘Chain Migration’ Fable

April 10, 2018

2018-04-10 22:08:24 UTC

['Uzbekistan', 'New_York_City']

goop-02572

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle “Engaged” Cover Story Tru

0

https://www.gossipcop.com/prince-harry-engaged-meghan-markle-proposed-africa-cover-story/

Andrew Shuster

Prince Harry, Meghan Markle “Engaged” Cover Story NOT True

11:00 am, August 16, 2017

['Prince_Harry']

pomt-00226

Says that Steve Watkins "bragged to voters that he built his company from scratch, but it was all a lie."

half-true

/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/oct/11/democratic-congressional-campaign-committee/kansas-dem-attack-steve-watkins-only-partially-acc/

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently aired a tough ad against Republican congressional candidate Steve Watkins, who is locked in a competitive race with Democrat Paul Davis for the House seat in Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District. The ad is based on a Kansas City Star investigation that found Watkins did not own and build a business from the ground up when he was in the Middle East, as he had claimed several times on the campaign trail. The ad’s text: "Steve Watkins caught lying again. For months, Watkins bragged to voters that he built his own company from scratch, but it was all a lie." It is accurate that Watkins did not build and own the company— VIAP Inc. — as he has been quoted. However, the Democrats' ad takes the rhetoric too far saying it all was a lie. He did oversee an arm of the organization that had just started, and grew that outfit to several hundred people. What has Watkins actually said? On more than one occasion on the campaign trail, Watkins has said that he started a small business and grew it from "three people to 470 people." "I started an engineering and security company, paramilitary company, that did work strictly for the U.S. government," Watkins said during one June GOP meeting. "This was in Iraq and Afghanistan. We grew to a number of countries. We grew from three people to 470 with me as the principal during that growth period." The business he was referring to is VIAP Inc., a spinoff of Versar Inc., a global project management firm based in Washington. Watkins didn’t own the company, but he did appear to work there during a high-growth phase. He never owned it Versar International Inc. was formed in January 1997, according to incorporation filings in Delaware. Watkins graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point in 1999. Watkins’ federal financial disclosure forms also don’t list VIAP as an asset but do show him earning income from Versar, under which he is listed as a consultant. According to the forms, he received $27,819 as earned income from the company in 2018 and $45,216 in 2017. The Star spoke with several Versar company officials who did not recall or remember Watkins. One Versar CEO from 2000 to 2010, Theodore M. Provic, told the paper he’s "nobody that I’ve heard of." Watkins actually joined the existing company as a contractor in 2004, according to company officials. But he wasn’t off on everything Watkins did, in fact, work for VIAP in Afghanistan and Iraq during dangerous times and helped grow his outfit from a small team to hundreds, according to Brian Arbuckle, a former military colleague of Watkins. Arbuckle, who is is now vice president of engineering and construction management at Versar, sent a response to the Star at the request of the Watkins’ campaign. PolitiFact obtained a copy, which Arbuckle stressed is not an official statement from Versar. He confirmed that VIAP (which stands for Versar International Assistance Projects) was a newly developed name and business line that Versar created between 2004 and 2005, when Watkins joined the team. "The name and organizational structure were new to Versar and were developed by a small team of professionals that set up and grew our business in conflict/post conflict environments," Arbuckle wrote. "The initial core team included me, Steve Watkins, and three other leaders." He said that Watkins started working for Versar in Iraq in 2004 where he and a small team started, developed and grew international operations under the name VIAP and led teams of hundreds of professionals that provided engineering and construction quality assurance services in the Middle East. What the Watkins’ campaign says Bryan Piligra, Watkins’ campaign spokesman said in an email that Watkins helped form a three-man engineering and security outfit to over 470 people operating in two war zones. "Steve has said countless times to media and voters throughout the district that the firm was a wholly-owned subsidiary of a publicly traded, U.S. company," Piligra wrote. "He helped start it and grow it, operationally. Prior to the involvement of Steve and two other individuals, it did not exist from an operational standpoint." Our ruling The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee said Watkins’ lied to voters about building a company from scratch. We found that Watkins did not own or build the company, VIAP, from the ground up in the Middle East, as he claimed to voters in the past. He did, however, oversee and expand a small team into hundreds during his time in Iraq and Afghanistan under a new arm of Versar. Watkins did exaggerate his background with the company, but he did work there when it was growing. The DCCC says it was "all a lie," but that’s an exaggeration, too. We rate the DCCC’s claim Half True. Share the Facts 2018-10-11 15:25:33 UTC PolitiFact 4 1 7 PolitiFact Rating: Half True Says that Steve Watkins "bragged to voters that he built his company from scratch, but it was all a lie." Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Party Committee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26VDqrXjnRE Friday, October 5, 2018 2018-10-05 Read More info

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

2018-10-11T11:17:51

2018-10-05

['None']

vogo-00268

DeMaio's Money Blunders: Fact Check TV

none

https://www.voiceofsandiego.org/mayor-2012/demaios-money-blunders-fact-check-tv/

DeMaio's Money Blunders: Fact Check TV

February 27, 2012

['None']

snes-05789

California wine contains dangerous levels of arsenic.

unproven

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/california-wines-contain-dangerous-levels-arsenic/

Food

Kim LaCapria

Do California Wines Contain Dangerous Levels of Arsenic?

20 March 2015

['California']

pomt-14628

Last year, there were an additional 81,000 pages of government regulations. If you stack that up, it would be a three-story building.

mostly false

/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jan/29/ben-carson/ben-carson-stacked-total-pages-regulations-2015-ar/

There are too many government rules stifling small businesses, said neurosurgeon-turned-Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson at a Fox News debate in Des Moines, Iowa. "Last year, there were an additional 81,000 pages of government regulations," he said at the Jan. 28 debate. "If you stack that up, it would be a three-story building." A few readers asked us if Carson’s claim was accurate, both the number of pages and subsequent height, so we decided to take a crack at it. Ream by ream Carson’s 81,000 pages figure refers to the number of pages that were published in the Federal Register, a daily journal of the U.S. government that contains agency rules, proposed rules and public notices. In each edition, the Register posts a running tally of the pages printed so far the year. The final total at the end of December is often used as a gauge of regulatory activity during the year. The Federal Register’s final tally for 2015 was 82,036 new pages of regulations, just over the figure Carson cited. According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market-focused policy group, this is a record. So far in Obama’s term, the government has published 555,882 pages of new regulations total. During the comparable period of former President George W. Bush’s term, the Register published 533,593 pages. Carson is right that 82,036 pages stacked up would, in fact, just about reach the height of a three-story building. Using standard printer paper as our gauge — 250 pages per inch — 82,036 pages would be about 330 inches tall, or 27 feet. Carson’s campaign sent us the same arithmetic. But there’s a big catch to these numbers: A large percentage of these pages don’t actually contain regulations or final rules. Deeper meaning The Register also includes notices about agency meetings and public comment periods, presidential documents and other items that are not considered rules. From 2010 through 2014, just 31 percent of pages actually contained rules, according to Federal Register data. Overall Register page counts "may not be an accurate proxy for regulatory activity or measure of regulatory burden for several reasons," the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in November 2014 report. The report noted that many of the pages "typically have little, if anything to do with federal regulations," and many pages dealing with final rules don’t contain any regulatory language but rather explanations about public comments on the rule. The CRS noted, for example, that a 2013 rule enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act filled 137 pages, but only 16 pages detailed the rule itself. The Register page count is often cited because it’s easy to find, Cary Coglianese, a law professor and director of the Penn Program on Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania, told PolitiFact Virginia for a similar fact-check. "I wouldn’t use it as an indication of the level of regulation because it’s so prone to having so much else in it," Coglianese said. "The other thing to keep in mind is, just because you know something about the number of pages, (that) doesn’t tell you the wisdom of having those pages. It might be those pages are helping to save people’s lives or keeping banks from failing or airplanes from crashing." Peter Van Doren, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, was also leery of citing the page count, telling PolitiFact Virginia that it’s his "least favorite" way to measure regulation. Other analysts have said the overall page count gives a general idea of the country’s regulatory environment, including one from the conservative American Enterprise Institute and another from the libertarian Cato Institute. James Gattuso, a senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told PolitiFact Virginia for a 2011 article that the annual page count "as a very broad measure" indicates more regulatory activity now compared to past years. Our ruling Carson said, "Last year, there were an additional 81,000 pages of government regulations. If you stack that up, it would be a three-story building." The Federal Register published a little over 81,000 pages in 2015, and this many pages stacked on top of each other would reach about three stories high. However, many of these pages do not contain regulations. In recent years, only about 31 percent of Register pages contain final rules. The statement has an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False.

Ben Carson

2016-01-29T00:48:47

2016-01-28

['None']

hoer-01177

Free Marks & Spencer Voucher Facebook Survey

facebook scams

https://www.hoax-slayer.net/free-marks-spencer-voucher-facebook-survey-scam/

Brett M. Christensen

Free Marks & Spencer Voucher Facebook Survey Scam

November 9, 2015

['None']

snes-03909

A video depicts a Muslim woman fraudulently using food stamps to purchase soda to resell at her store.

mixture

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/muslim-soda-food-stamps/

Fauxtography

Kim LaCapria

Muslim Woman Buys Soda with Food Stamps to Resell?

30 September 2016

['None']

goop-02122

Mila Kunis Did Give Exclusive Interview About Her Marriage To OK!,

0

https://www.gossipcop.com/mila-kunis-marriage-interview-ashton-kutcher/

Andrew Shuster

Mila Kunis Did NOT Give Exclusive Interview About Her Marriage To OK!, Despite Misleading Cover Story

12:27 pm, November 29, 2017

['None']

pose-00606

The assessment of teacher quality must include the incorporation of change in the classroom. The incorporation of technology, new delivery media, societal change all impact learning styles and ultimately the ability of our students to meet the ever-changing requirements in the workforce.

compromise

https://www.politifact.com/florida/promises/scott-o-meter/promise/631/include-use-of-technology-in-teacher-evaluations/

scott-o-meter

Rick Scott

Include use of technology in teacher evaluations

2010-12-21T09:36:20

['None']

snes-01129

Will Robert Mueller Be Forced to Resign Over an Affair with Nancy Pelosi?

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mueller-resign-affair/

Junk News

David Mikkelson

Will Robert Mueller Be Forced to Resign Over an Affair with Nancy Pelosi?

25 January 2018

['Nancy_Pelosi']

snes-04330

Video clip shows a 'Russia's Got Talent' contestant accidentally shooting his partner in the head with an arrow.

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/false-russias-got-talent/

Fauxtography

David Mikkelson

‘Russia’s Got Talent’ Fatal Accident

17 July 2009

['None']

pose-00156

As president, Barack Obama will integrate federal agencies and the military in stabilization and aid efforts. Obama will set up new Mobile Development Teams that bring together personnel from the State Department, Pentagon and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to deploy to regions at risk.

promise kept

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/168/better-integrate-efforts-of-federal-agencies-with-/

obameter

Barack Obama

Better integrate efforts of federal agencies with the military through new Mobile Development Teams

2010-01-07T13:26:50

['Barack_Obama', 'United_States_Department_of_State', 'The_Pentagon', 'United_States_Agency_for_International_Development']

pomt-09498

Florida leads the nation in elected officials charged with crimes.

half-true

/florida/statements/2010/feb/24/dan-gelber/gelber-claims-florida-leads-nation-elected-officia/

In a blog posting and press conference on Feb. 8, 2010, Florida attorney general candidate Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, said it was time to take aim at a "culture of corruption in the state of Florida." Gelber said he supports legislation to make the willful nondisclosure of a financial conflict a criminal offense, and said that as attorney general, he would push for more manpower to investigate public corruption. "For those few officials who end up exploiting their public offices for personal gain, it’s time to get serious," Gelber said in his blog posting. "Florida leads the nation in elected officials charged with crimes." We asked Gelber where he got the statistic about Florida leading the nation in elected officials charged with crimes, and he referred us to a Dec. 13, 2008, story in the New York Times. The story cited a Department of Justice report that found that in the decade ending in 2007, Florida had the highest number of convictions in federal public corruption cases at local, state and federal levels. We checked out the Department of Justice statistics, and updated the tally to include the most recently available figures for 2008. And over the decade ending in 2008, Florida remained atop the list of states when it comes to the sheer number of public corruption convictions, with 794. Rounding out the top five were California, with 728; New York, 662; Texas, 624; and Pennsylvania, 555. Those also happen to be five of the six most populated states. You might expect the most populated states to have the highest number of corruption cases. So we also compiled a list of the most public corruption convictions on a per capita basis. By that measure, Florida comes in at No. 10. Topping the list was Alaska, followed by North Dakota, Mississippi, Louisiana and Montana. There are lots of ways to slice and dice statistics, Gelber told PolitiFact, and he was referring to the sheer number, rather than per capita. Florida is fourth in population, he noted, but first in volume of corruption cases. "That suggests we're outperforming our size," Gelber said. North Dakota and Alaska are so lightly populated, he said, that one big prosecution with lots of defendants could greatly skew their rankings. Indeed, Florida ranks higher per capita than any of the other 10 most populated states. When you've got as many people as Florida, he said, "You don't get to be No. 1 unless you’re working every day at it." You have to have a "tradition" of corruption, he said. We think per capita is probably the fairest way to rank states, but our bigger issue with Gelber's statistic is that he said Florida leads the nation in elected officials charged with crimes. The Department of Justice report is not just about elected officials, but rather all local, state and federal officials (the great majority of them unelected), as well as private residents, convicted in public corruption cases. The Department of Justice does not compile statistics on just elected officials charged with crimes, said Mark Motivans, a spokesman for the department. Neither does the FBI, said spokesman Stephen G. Fischer Jr.. In other words, no one can say for sure which state leads the nation in elected officials charged with crimes. Gelber, a former federal prosecutor who has handled a number of public corruption cases, said the statistic is still valid. "The corruption of the government is the corruption of the government," Gelber said, whether it be an elected official or a restaurant inspector or building department employee getting a kickback. "It could be anyone who has the public trust." The issue, he said, is how many people do you have looking at public corruption in Florida. And in his opinion, the answer is not enough. "I think we probably need more bodies," Gelber said. The Department of Justice statistics go a long way toward bolstering Gelber's argument about public corruption in Florida. Florida has had a higher number of public corruption convictions than other similar-sized states. That's not good. But Gelber misstates the statistic by saying that Florida has the highest number of elected officials charged with a crime. That's not what the DOJ report tracks. Rather, Florida has the highest number of people convicted of public corruption crimes, only a fraction of whom are actually elected officials. And again, while it's certainly valid to note that Florida leads the nation in the sheer number of public corruption convictions, we think that when it comes to ranking states, it makes more sense to look at per capita rates. By that measure, Florida still ranks up there (No. 10) -- particularly when compared to other highly populated states -- but it's not tops on the list. And so we ruleGelber's statement Half True.

Dan Gelber

2010-02-24T19:36:58

2010-02-08

['None']

hoer-01174

Kroger 40% Off Voucher

facebook scams

https://www.hoax-slayer.net/kroger-40-off-voucher-survey-scam/

Brett M. Christensen

Kroger 40% Off Voucher Survey Scam

December 18, 2015

['None']

pomt-13555

One third of all federal prisoners today are illegal immigrants.

mostly false

/texas/statements/2016/aug/25/lamar-smith/mostly-false-lamar-smith-claim-one-third-federal-i/

A San Antonio congressman, already on record in support of Donald Trump for president, told Texas delegates to the Republican National Convention that Trump’s on target characterizing some immigrants as criminals. U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith said at the Texas delegation’s July 17, 2016, breakfast in Cleveland that Trump "knew what he was talking about. One-third of all federal prisoners today are illegal immigrants. They have committed some of the most worst crimes; they have committed the rapes and the murders and everything else." We wondered if indeed one-third of federal prisoners were in the country without legal authorization. Not so, we ultimately found. Smith was citing a slightly outdated figure of individuals sentenced to the federal pen in a given year, not the total federal prison population. Right off, we suspected Smith was off base. Our June 2016 fact check of a different claim took note that as of April 2016, nearly 80 percent of the federal system’s approximately 195,000 inmates were U.S. citizens; 15 percent were citizens of Mexico, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. A bureau breakout up to date as of late July 2016 showed the citizenship percentages to be about the same; so, you’d expect inmates living in the country without legal authority to comprise an even smaller share of the prisons’ population. Yet Smith spoke before that breakout was posted. When we asked his House spokeswoman, Jennifer Pett, the basis of his claim, she said by email that he was referring to "illegal alien" immigration statuses shown for nearly 37 percent of individuals sentenced to federal prison in the fiscal year running through September 2014, as shown in a chart from the U.S. Sentencing Commission. This turned out to be the latest-available breakdown we could find of incoming prisoners by immigration status. According to the chart, 58 percent (43,479) of the 74,911 individuals that year were U.S. citizens. Otherwise, the chart notes 27,505 "illegal" residents sent to prison plus 3,017 foreigners living here with legal permission, 206 people under extradition and 704 individuals with unknown statuses. Of the "illegal" residents, 20,333 — 74 percent of them — were primarily sentenced for immigration violations, not violent crimes, according to the chart. Nine unauthorized immigrants were primarily convicted of murder, 50 of assault, 19 of sexual abuse, the chart shows. Next, we inquired into the share of federal inmates, as Smith put it, who are currently held after living in the country absent legal permission. On behalf of the sentencing commission, which gathers information on federal crime and sentencing issues, spokeswoman Christine Leonard confirmed the validity of Smith’s fiscal 2014 chart. Leonard said the agency hasn’t posted a similar analysis for the fiscal year running through September 2015. But in fiscal 2015, she pointed out, 29,166 noncitizens--not necessarily living in the U.S. without legal permission--accounted for 42 percent of the 70,255 people sentenced to federal prison. According to the fiscal 2015 chart, 19,240 of the sentenced noncitizens, 66 percent of them, were primarily sentenced for immigration violations. Among 9,926 noncitizens primarily convicted of a non-immigration violation, 62 were primarily convicted of assault, 24 of sexual assault, 15 of murder, the chart indicates. We also asked the Bureau of Prisons for the percentage of undocumented immigrants among the entire federal prison population — the group that Smith singled out in his statement. No such data are available, spokesman Justin Long advised us by email. But the bureau does tally the proportion of inmates by citizenship status--and noncitizens have recently accounted for 22 percent of all inmates. We sought a longer view. Long replied with numbers indicating the share of noncitizens among federal inmates has gradually decreased. Noncitizens comprised nearly 30 percent of inmates in September 2000; 27.3 percent in September 2005; 25.4 percent as of September 2012 and 22.4 percent as of September 2015, similar to the 22 percent of late, Long said. Still, could it be there’s been fluctuation with the share of immigrant-inmates spiking some months? Doesn’t look like it. Since January 2016, Long replied, the greatest monthly share of noncitizens among inmates was 21.9 percent, the least 21.6 percent. Next, we asked outside experts why it’d be that noncitizens make up 22 percent of inmates of late despite the fact that "illegal aliens" accounted for nearly 40 percent of the people sentenced to federal prison in fiscal 2014. Their consensus: The standing population of inmates reflects a good number of prisoners serving longer sentences while most noncitizens sent to prison were convicted of immigration crimes, which mostly entail shorter sentences. Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that focuses on lessening immigration, summed up by email: "With immigration offenders, there is high volume but shorter sentences, so faster turnover, which translates to a smaller percentage of the average daily population" in prison. Meantime, Julie Samuels of the Urban Institute pointed out an institute chart showing that people convicted of immigration violations in fiscal 2014 accounted for a greater share of people sent to prison than they did of the total prison population: SOURCE: Report, "Transforming Prisons, Restoring Lives Final Recommendations of the Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections," the Urban Institute, January 2016 Another authority, Nazgol Ghandnoosh of the Sentencing Project, which says it focuses on reforms in sentencing policy, pointed out that as of the end of December 2014, some 69,000 of the 1.6 million state plus federal prisoners were noncitizens, per a September 2015 report by the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, though we noticed that report lacked counts for several states including California. After we circled back to Smith’s office with the figures we’d found, Smith’s deputy chief of staff, Chris Philp, said by email that Smith had meant to tell the delegates that "one-third of federal sentences go to illegal immigrants, not that one-third of federal prisoners are illegal immigrants." Our ruling Smith told his fellow Texans: "One third of all federal prisoners today are illegal immigrants." Not so. Rather, this figure ties to the 37 percent share of individuals sentenced to prison in fiscal 2014 who weren’t legally living in the country--and there doesn't appear to be a more recent breakdown. More to the point, the government doesn’t sort all inmates by immigration status, which leaves us with its guidance that as of mid-2016, 22 percent of inmates weren’t U.S. citizens. It seems logical to conclude that unauthorized residents comprised a smaller share of all the prisoners. We rate Smith’s statement Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/061b950a-58b3-4d51-b712-94d9f1a9fdef

Lamar Smith

2016-08-25T11:39:01

2016-07-19

['None']

chct-00175

FACT CHECK: Is It 'St. Patty’s Day' Or 'St. Paddy’s Day'?

verdict: true

http://checkyourfact.com/2018/03/16/fact-check-is-it-st-pattys-day-or-st-paddys-day/

Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter

12:25 PM 03/16/2018

['None']

pomt-05329

On whether humans contribute to global warming

half flip

/truth-o-meter/statements/2012/may/15/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-and-whether-humans-are-causing-climate/

Do humans contribute to global warming? There’s been a robust debate over whether Mitt Romney has flip-flopped on this question. In this item, we’ll try to determine whether he has. We’ll start by noting that the Flip-O-Meter rates politicians' consistency on particular topics from No Flip to Full Flop. The meter is not intended to pass judgment on their decisions to change their minds. It’s simply gauging whether they did. Romney’s campaign website is silent on climate change. But in Romney’s 2010 book No Apology: The Case for American Greatness, he wrote that "I believe that climate change is occurring — the reduction in the size of global ice caps is hard to ignore. I also believe that human activity is a contributing factor. I am uncertain how much of the warming, however, is attributable to factors out of our control." Then, in a town hall in New Hampshire in June 2011, a voter asked Romney whether he thought climate change existed and was caused by human activity. Here’s part of Romney’s answer (the full exchange can be seen on C-SPAN starting at the 21:00 mark): "I don't speak for the scientific community, of course. But I believe the world is getting warmer. I can't prove that, but I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that. I don’t know how much our contribution is to that, because I know there have been periods of greater heat and warmth in the past, but I believe that we contribute to that. So I think it's important for us to reduce our emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases that may well be significant contributors to the climate change and the global warming that you're seeing." Romney added that he opposed the United States unilaterally adopting a cap-and-trade plan if other countries weren’t taking similar steps to reduce greenhouse emissions. A cap-and-trade plan would require industry to pay for their carbon emissions with new permit fees. There would be a limited amount of permits (the "cap"), but companies would be able to buy and sell the permits among themselves (the "trade"). Later, in an Aug. 24, 2011, event in Lebanon, N.H., Romney said, "Do I think the world's getting hotter? Yeah, I don't know that, but I think that it is. I don't know if it's mostly caused by humans. … What I'm not willing to do is spend trillions of dollars on something I don't know the answer to." And Romney discussed the issue in an Oct. 3, 2011, interview with reporters and editors of the New Hampshire Union Leader. (It was recorded here by C-SPAN; check around the 22-minute mark.) Romney said, "One, I believe what I said before, I think it's getting warmer. Two, I believe we contribute to it. And three, I don't know by how much -- a lot or a little. And so I am not willing to adopt multi-trillion dollar programs to reduce greenhouse gases in America. They don't call it America warming, they call it global warming." Both the book excerpt and the three New Hampshire comments suggest pretty clearly that Romney sees a role for humans in climate change, though he’s less committal about how large an impact humans are having. But at a campaign event in Pittsburgh, Pa., a few months later, Romney offered a somewhat different perspective. His comments were videotaped and promoted by the liberal advocacy website Think Progress. A voter asked Romney, "What is your position on man-made global warming and would you reject legislation, such as cap and trade, which is based on the idea of man-made global warming?" "My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet. And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us. My view with regards to energy policy is pretty straightforward. I want us to become energy secure and independent of the oil cartels. And that means let’s aggressively develop our oil, our gas, our coal, our nuclear power." Much of Romney’s underlying policy proposals -- reducing foreign oil dependence; increasing the use of natural gas and nuclear power; and opposing cap-and-trade -- remained the same in both comments. But this time he left out human activity as a cause of global warming. Rather than saying, as he had in the past, that we don’t know how much of a role humans are playing in climate, Romney said, "We don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet." After Romney’s remarks were widely reported, Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul told the Boston Globe that Romney was not flip-flopping. "This is ridiculous," she said in a statement. "Gov. Romney’s view on climate change has not changed. He believes it’s occurring, and that human activity contributes to it, but he doesn’t know to what extent. He opposes cap and trade, and he refused to sign such a plan when he was governor." We were unable to find any remarks since then about whether he thought human beings contribute to global warming or not. Our ruling In June 2011, Romney said he believed "the world is getting warmer" and that "humans contribute to that." In October 2011, by contrast, Romney said that "we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet." It’s unclear to us whether this was an inadvertent omission or a calculated attempt to say divergent things to different audiences. Because Romney, in our view, is savvy enough to know the difference between suggesting a human role in climate change and leaving it out, we think it’s reasonable to perceive Romney as taking two distinct stances in these two statements. We rate this a Half Flip.

Mitt Romney

2012-05-15T16:03:01

2011-10-27

['None']

snes-02077

The Georgia Guidestones were stolen from their site and then re-erected in New Hampshire.

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/georgia-guidestones-stolen/

Junk News

Dan Evon

Were the Georgia Guidestones Stolen and Taken to New Hampshire?

13 July 2017

['None']

pomt-09852

I just want to assure [you] we're not talking about cutting Medicare benefits.

half-true

/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/aug/14/barack-obama/obama-claims-medicare-benefits-will-not-be-cut-und/

I just want to assure [you] we're not talking about cutting Medicare benefits. Those were President Barack Obama's words to a town hall audience in Portsmouth, N.H; they were meant to ease fears that health care reform will slash Medicare benefits and deprive seniors of the treatments and procedures they need. A "myth that we've been hearing about is this notion that somehow we're going to be cutting your Medicare benefits," Obama said on Aug. 11, 2009. "We are not. AARP would not be endorsing a bill if it was undermining Medicare, okay? So I just want seniors to be clear about this, because if you look at the polling, it turns out seniors are the ones who are most worried about health care reform. And that's understandable, because they use a lot of care, they've got Medicare, and it's already hard for a lot of people even on Medicare because of the supplements and all the other costs out of pocket that they're still paying." "So I just want to assure we're not talking about cutting Medicare benefits," Obama said. Listening to Obama, you'd think that Medicare will remain intact. Yet, others claim Medicare spending will be trimmed quite a bit. AARP has said about $231.4 billion could come out of Medicare's budget, while the 60Plus Association, a group that opposes the bill, says cuts could top out at $500 billion. Confused? We were, too. There are three versions of health care reform floating around the House, and each dedicates hundreds of pages to Medicare. For this Truth-O-Meter item, we're going to be focusing on the biggest changes to the program. (So far, the Senate Finance Committee, which holds the purse strings to all things health care, hasn't put any ideas on paper.) Before delving into the bill and Obama's claim, a little Medicare 101: There are two basic ways most people get Medicare coverage. They enroll in traditional Medicare and a prescription drug plan through the government and maybe buy a supplemental policy to cover most out-of-pocket costs. Or they enroll in Medicare Advantage programs (they include drug plan), which are run by private insurers. They typically have more generous benefits such as dental and vision coverage. Some plans even pay the patient’s monthly Medicare premium, which can amount to about $100. We found some disagreement about whether Obama is correct that Medicare benefits would not be cut. The House bill will not cut any benefits, said Tricia Neuman, vice president and director of the Medicare Policy Project at the Kaiser Family Foundation. "What it will do is cut growth in Medicare spending," Neuman said. Indeed, some of the biggest savings in the bill — about $196 billion — would come from a permanent reduction in the annual payment adjustments for some Medicare services, including inpatient hospital services and ambulatory care, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That doesn't mean health care providers will stop being paid for taking care of the elderly; rather, they won't see pay increases in the future. Obama also wants to save money on the Medicare Advantage program, which covers about one-fifth of all Medicare patients. "We do think that systems like Medicare are very inefficient right now, but it has nothing to do at the moment with issues of benefits," Obama said in his speech in New Hampshire. "The inefficiencies all come from things like paying $177 billion to insurance companies in subsidies for something called Medicare Advantage that is not competitively bid, so insurance companies basically get a $177 billion of taxpayer money to provide services that Medicare already provides. And it's no better — it doesn't result in better health care for seniors. It is a giveaway of $177 billion." Indeed, a June 2009 MedPAC analysis said that the Advantage plan costs taxpayers on average of 14 percent more than the traditional Medicare plan. The House bills propose to change the benchmarks that set the payments, making them equal to what the government pays for traditional Medicare services. According to the Congressional Budget Office, those changes would translate to a savings of $156 billion over 10 years. We asked experts from both sides of the debate whether all these changes constituted a cut, and most had the same answer: yes and no. On one hand, they might not be considered cuts because nowhere in the bill are benefits actually eliminated, they said. And other parts of the bill expand coverage for seniors and ultimately make some components of Medicare less expensive for patients. For instance, the bill would require the pharmaceutical industry to help pay for prescription drugs. That savings will ultimately help the government cover more drug benefits for more patients. But experts told us the cuts in the Advantage program could lead to some changes. The basic benefits that mirror regular Medicare will stay the same, but the extra benefits that people receive under Advantage could be changed. "The core benefits of Medicare won't change," said Marc Steinberg, deputy director of health policy for Families USA, an advocate for health care consumers. "Most [Medicare Advantage] plans are solid and resemble traditional Medicare." However, some insurance plans have entered the program "to make a quick buck. They may have to reconsider their budget, which could mean some patients will see changes in the services provided above and beyond traditional Medicare." Stuart Guterman, assistant vice president for the Commonwealth Fund’s program on payment system reform, had a similar view. "People enrolled in (Medicare Advantage) get services that people in traditional care do not get under Medicare," he said. "Insurance companies can afford to cover these services because taxpayer money is subsidizing them. Plans will most likely not offer those extra services, but in no case will [patients] get less Medicare benefits than people in the rest of the program." Another example involving regular Medicare coverage: The House bill proposes a $20 billion cut in hospital readmission subsidies. This has to do with patients who re-enter the hospital to be retreated or have procedures fixed. Gail Wilensky, who ran the Medicare program under President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s, said this is just one example of how cuts to Medicare payments could ultimately trickle down to patients. "Most of the ways to get money with any certainty is to have it happen quickly, which you do by either raising taxes or whacking prices," said Wilensky, now an economist and senior fellow with Project Hope, a health care advocacy group. "In this case they're whacking prices. ... Are these patients in jeopardy? You can't guarantee they're not." That leaves us with Obama's claim that, under the health care reform proposal, Medicare benefits will not be cut. He's right that the bill does not directly trim Medicare benefits; instead, the government is proposing ways to slow or eliminate some Medicare spending to beef up other aspects of the plan. But experts told us it's conceivable or even likely that those financial changes could lead to reduced benefits, particularly for people in the Advantage program. From that perspective, it's a stretch for Obama say that Medicare patients won't see changes in their plans as a result. We give Obama a Half True.

Barack Obama

2009-08-14T12:54:04

2009-08-11

['None']

pomt-09714

When it comes to aid, "the United States is still about half as what European countries give as a percentage."

half-true

/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/oct/30/bono/bono-claims-us-gives-about-half-aid-europe/

With all due respect to the musical prowess of Bill Clinton and Mike Huckabee, we think this is the first time we've checked a bona fide rock icon with our Truth-O-Meter. But U2's Bono is no ordinary rock star. He's also a political activist, using his pop status to advocate for African aid and AIDS relief. Which is how Bono came to be asked by an Associated Press music writer what he thought about President Barack Obama with regard to funding the fight against AIDS in Africa. "The Obama administration is just getting going," Bono said. "(He) has promised to double aid over the next years, because even though (President George W.) Bush tripled it ... the United States is still about half as what European countries give as a percentage, and I think he knows that's not right." We decided to check whether Bono was right that "the United States is still about half as what European countries give as a percentage." This turned into a tricky fact-check because Bono appears to have interchanged two different funding issues in his comment: global HIV/AIDS relief and foreign aid. Bono says Obama has promised to "double aid over the next years." Obama has pledged to increase AIDS funding, but not double. He has, though, promised to double foreign aid by 2015. In the same sentence, though, Bono then says President Bush "tripled it." The "it" there is the U.S. commitment to global AIDS relief (not foreign aid). So when Bono said "the United States is still about half as what European countries give as a percentage," is he talking about AIDS relief or foreign aid in general? The folks at ONE (the organization co-founded by Bono to fight extreme poverty and preventable disease, particularly in Africa) said Bono was talking here about foreign aid in general — he has used this statistic in the past. And on that front, Bono is on pretty firm ground. The key qualifier there is "as a percentage." Because the U.S. government distributes more in foreign aid than any other country, by far. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international group of the world's 30 leading industrial countries, reports that in 2008, the United States distributed about $26 billion in net official development assistance. The next closest country was Germany, at nearly $14 billion, and the United Kingdom, with about $11.4 billion. But considered as a percentage of gross national income (which is essentially the more familiar gross domestic product plus or minus income from other countries), you'll have to go to the bottom of the list to find the United States. We note that none of the countries gives more than 1 percent of GNI. The U.S. gave 0.18 percent. By comparison, here's how some of the European biggies fared: United Kingdom, 0.43 percent; Germany, 0.38 percent; France, 0.39 percent; Spain, 0.43 percent. In other words, it's fair to say the United States is providing about half as much development assistance as European countries, as a percentage of GNI. There are a lot of other factors to consider when it comes to foreign assistance, though: debt reduction, trade, money from private foundations, to name a few. Suffice to say, you can look at this data in countless ways. And some groups that have attempted to quantify foreign aid on some of these various factors have found the United States to be on par with its European counterparts. But we think it's certainly fair for Bono to cite this statistic from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and had he been clear that he was talking about foreign aid, his statement would have been largely accurate. But that was not at all clear. In fact, based on the context of his comments, most people would probably conclude that Bono was talking about global AIDS relief , and that the United States only gives about half as much as Europeans "as a percentage." And that is not right. In fact, in 2008, the United States accounted for more than half (51.3 percent) of all the the global AIDs relief disbursed by governments around the world, according to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation and UNAIDS. Even when standardized to account for the size of the countries' relative economies, the United States ranked fourth highest, well higher than most European countries. The only ones higher were the Netherlands, United Kingdom and Bono's homeland, Ireland. Again, some make strong arguments against the use of such rankings because, for example, they don't take into account private donations from foundations. When it comes to AIDS relief from foundations, the United States far outpaces Europe. That's because the United States provides generous tax incentives for such largess. So some argue the U.S. government ought to get credit for at least some of that funding. By any measure, though, Europe is not spending twice as much, "as a percentage," on AIDS relief than the United States. The Bush administration deserves a great deal of credit for that. In 2003, Bush initiated a $15 billion plan to address global AIDS relief, mostly for countries in Africa where the AIDS epidemic is staggering. And then in 2008, Congress — Democrats and Republicans alike — more than tripled the HIV/AIDS relief budget to $48 billion over the next five years. Obama, meanwhile, pledged to provide at least $50 billion by 2013 for the global fight against HIV/AIDS. "The Bush administration showed real leadership on global HIV/AIDS," said Eric Lief, a senior associate with the Henry L. Stimson Center. "U.S. funding grew exponentially during the last eight years. Since 2001, the U.S. has funded a disproportionate share of global AIDS assistance. But global funding is still far short of anything close to global need. The Obama administration has committed to continuing the upward trend." As for foreign aid, the United States remains the world’s largest funder in terms of dollars spent, said Lief, who served on the State Department's policy planning staff under President Bill Clinton and was once a senior adviser with the U.N. Joint Program on HIV/AIDS in Geneva. "In other ways and by other measures, the U.S. falls short in terms of support for the developing world," he said. "Single-index 'rankings' of governments are overused politically. What we’re buying with foreign aid dollars is a much more important question than how much we’re spending, and the U.S. record is mixed." Now might be a good time to note that Bono appears to be doing wonderful work as a spokesman trying to draw attention to dire poverty and health issues in Africa. And one member of the PolitiFact team gives Bono's performance on the current U2 tour a big thumbs up. But our review of Bono's performance with this comment is more mixed. Again, if Bono had clearly switched gears and said he was talking about foreign aid when he said the United States only gives about half as much as Europe, as a percentage, he'd be right — at least according to one measure from the respected OECD. But in the context of the interview, Bono appeared to be talking about AIDS relief — in which case he'd be wrong. We checked with the AP reporter who did the interview, and it was her understanding that he was talking about global AIDS relief. At the least, by toggling back and forth between statistics on foreign aid and global HIV/AIDS relief, Bono left room for confusion. And so we rate him Half True.

Bono

2009-10-30T17:33:18

2009-10-23

['United_States', 'Europe']

pomt-00695

Texas agriculture is "at 98 percent efficiency" in water use and "just about maxed out as to what we can do on the conservation end of it."

half-true

/texas/statements/2015/may/04/sid-miller/sid-miller-says-texas-farmers-just-about-maxed-out/

Sid Miller, the Texas agriculture commissioner, said at a March 2015 symposium that farmers in the state have little room to save more water. Miller, responding to Evan Smith of the Texas Tribune, prefaced his claim by saying Texas is out of "surplus water." He went on to say that as much as the state has urbanized, agricultural production has surged — and all that with farmers needing less water. "So agriculture is at 98, according to the water development board, we’re at 98 percent efficiency," meaning 2 percent of water used to raise crops isn’t going to its intended purpose. "So we’re just about maxed out as to what we can do on the conservation end of it," Miller said. Luke Metzger of Environment Texas heard Miller’s statement and asked us to check it out. He noted too that a skeptical crowd member at the event asked Miller to explain. In reply, Miller said a lot of irrigation occurs underground, most runoff water is recaptured and most traditional irrigation methods have ebbed. "It’s pretty highly sophisticated," Miller said. Miller's basis To get our grip on his "maxed out" claim, we asked the Texas Department of Agriculture to elaborate. By email, agency spokesman Bryan Black provided a March 11, 2015, presentation by the Texas Water Development Board, whose mission centers on supporting the conservation and responsible development of water for Texas, stating Texas agricultural "producers now achieve up to 98 percent irrigation efficiency." Black later quoted a 2012 report from the Texas Water Resources Institute, based at Texas A&M University, stating: "Irrigation efficiency has gone from 60 percent to 88–95 percent in much of the state today, allowing Texas to get much more value and agricultural output from its water." Black said that according to the report’s lead author, the institute’s associate director, Kevin Wagner, "the most up-to-date number on irrigation efficiency is now around 98 percent." ‘Significant advances’ An institute press release on the report quoted Dana Porter, an AgriLife Extension agricultural engineering expert, saying that in Texas over the past few decades, "significant advances have been made in irrigation efficiency, as many irrigators now use high-efficiency advanced irrigation technologies, such as low-pressure center pivot sprinkler systems or subsurface drip irrigation. "However," Porter said, "challenges remain and there are opportunities for continued improvements in water use efficiency through application of situation-appropriate efficient irrigation technologies and best management practices, including irrigation scheduling, and through use of drought-tolerant crop varieties and integrated crop and pest management practices." According to the report, as of 2008, more than 6 million acres were irrigated in Texas--mostly in West and South Texas--accounting for more than 10 percent of the nation’s irrigated land. Total annual irrigation water use has remained steady, the report said, averaging approximately 9.5 million acre-feet, since the late 1970s. The report presented one path to a "98 percent" statement, saying: "Historically, most agricultural irrigation was applied using flood and furrow irrigation; however, most of the state has undergone a mass conversion from these systems to more efficient irrigation systems" topped by low-pressure sprinkler systems that apply water at or below a crop’s canopy, it said. Key section: "As of 2008, center pivot sprinklers are used on nearly 80% of Texas’ irrigated acres, and 87% of those acres are using low-pressure center pivot sprinklers. Furrow and flood irrigation account for less than 20% of irrigated acres today. Further, the highly efficient subsurface drip irrigation, in which there is minimal evaporative loss, is increasingly being adopted and now comprises almost 3% of irrigated acres. "Because of this adoption, irrigation efficiency has gone from 60% to 88–95% in much of the state today, allowing Texas to get much more value and agricultural output from its water." An accompanying chart indicates sprinkler and drip irrigation was in place for more than 80 percent of the state’s farmland in 2008 with less conservative furrow and flood irrigation used in 19 percent. Best efficiency, subsurface drip irrigation Next, we reached out to the institute’s Wagner, who said by phone he would have added a phrase to what Miller said by specifying that farmers can achieve up to 98 percent efficiency "if they use subsurface drip irrigation" instead of less conservative methods--and drip irrigation was being used by only 3 percent of Texas farmers as of 2008, he added by email. Significantly, Wagner said, it’s harder to adapt subsurface irrigation in parts of the state where water isn’t always immediately available. That’s because drip systems count on a steady supply of water, he said. "We can never get 100 percent of our acres to subsurface drip without significantly changing our water delivery system," Wagner said. Wagner told us 95 percent efficiency can be achieved by using the most efficient center pivot sprinklers "but again, not all farms have implemented the most efficient systems on the market." "Because center pivots have been adopted in much of the state," Wagner wrote, "most irrigation is in the range of 88-95% efficiency. However, we continue to work with producers to improve irrigation efficiency and timing." Going forward, he said, "improvements on the vast majority of irrigated acres are going to be much smaller as we now tweak technology and management. So in a sense, ‘the low hanging fruit’ has been picked." Earlier, we connected with the water development board’s Robert Mace, who also stressed drip irrigation as key to achieving 98 percent efficiency. "We don’t think farmers are maxed out," Mace said. "Everybody can do a little better with some advice." "Individual ag producers are achieving upwards of 98 percent irrigation efficiency," Mace said. "But there is still work to be done." Our ruling Miller said Texas agriculture is "at 98 percent efficiency" in water use and "just about maxed out as to what we can do on the conservation end of it." Farmers are not just about maxed out, experts told us, though those who use drip irrigation may be close. Growers using sprinkler methods may get 88 percent to 95 percent efficiency. 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.

Sid Miller

2015-05-04T06:00:00

2015-03-10

['None']

pomt-09065

The ABA's own criteria for a judicial nominee call for, among other things, at least 12 years' experience in the practice of law, and they mean actual practice of law.

half-true

/truth-o-meter/statements/2010/jun/28/jon-kyl/kyl-says-american-bar-association-calls-12-years-e/

As the confirmation hearings began on June 28, 2010, for Elena Kagan's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee made the point that Kagan -- the current Solicitor General, a former dean of Harvard Law School and a member of the Clinton White House staff -- may not be a wise choice because she has relatively little experience as a judge or a practicing attorney. "Ms. Kagan has never served on any bench," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. "Indeed, except for a brief two-year stint in private practice and one year as solicitor general, Ms. Kagan's entire career has been divided between academia and policy positions in the Clinton administration. Given this lack of experience practicing law, I was surprised that the American Bar Association awarded her a well-qualified rating, since the ABA's own criteria for a judicial nominee call for, among other things, at least 12 years' experience in the practice of law, and they mean actual practice of law, like former Justices [William] Rehnquist and [Lewis] Powell." We thought it would be worth checking the ABA's guidelines ourselves to see what they say. First, let's take a quick look at Kagan's resume. While she is perhaps best known as the former Dean of Harvard Law School and as an aide in the Clinton White House, she does have a number of experiences that would qualify as the practice of law. From 1989 to 1991, she was an associate at Williams & Connolly, a Washington, D.C., law firm, doing mix of commercial, First Amendment and white-collar criminal law. And since March 2009, she has been solicitor general, arguing cases before the justices she hopes to join. Meanwhile, some people might also classify her two judicial clerkships -- for Judge Abner Mikva, U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C., and for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall -- as "courtroom experience." She also spent three summers working for three private-sector law firms in New York City. And you could also classify her work as associate counsel to President Bill Clinton to be the practice of law, in the sense that she was advising a client, the president. (Her later policy work for the White House would probably fall outside of the practice of law.) Put these all together, and her total time spent pursuing the pure practice of law, as opposed to positions merely related to the law, would come to somewhere between five or six years. As Kyl indicates, that is indeed short of 12. Now for Kyl's claim about the ABA endorsement. We downloaded a copy of a pamphlet published by the 15-member ABA panel that scrutinizes the records of appointees to federal judgeships and rates them as either "well qualified," "qualified" or "not qualified." (The ratings aren't binding, but they carry weight among many of the senators who ultimately vote on federal judgeships. The pamphlet, "The American Bar Association Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary: What It Is and How It Works," details the criteria used in the panel's evaluations. "The committee's evaluation of prospective nominees to the federal bench is directed solely to their professional qualifications: integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament," the pamphlet says. It goes on to say, "The committee believes that a prospective nominee to the federal bench ordinarily should have at least 12 years’ experience in the practice of law. In evaluating the professional qualifications of a prospective nominee, the committee recognizes that substantial courtroom and trial experience as a lawyer or trial judge is important. Distinguished accomplishments in the field of law or experience that is similar to in-court trial work — such as appearing before or serving on administrative agencies or arbitration boards, or teaching trial advocacy or other clinical law school courses — may compensate for a prospective nominee’s lack of substantial courtroom experience." So there is some truth in Kyl's statement. The ABA panel's "own criteria" do indeed "call for, among other things, at least 12 years' experience in the practice of law," as Kyl put it. What he said also fits with the idea that the ABA panel "recognizes that substantial courtroom and trial experience as a lawyer or trial judge is important." But Kyl's statement leaves out what we think is an important qualifier -- that "distinguished accomplishments in the field of law or experience that is similar to in-court trial work — such as appearing before or serving on administrative agencies or arbitration boards, or teaching trial advocacy or other clinical law school courses — may compensate for a prospective nominee’s lack of substantial courtroom experience." We realize that distinguished alternate career paths, by the panel's definition, "may compensate" for having less than 12 years of practice -- not "will compensate." But Kagan can make a pretty good argument that she has compensated for not having 12 years’ experience in the practice of law by instead satisfying the standard of "distinguished accomplishments in the field of law." She has, after all, served as U.S. Solicitor General, Dean of Harvard Law School and as a White House counsel -- at least three positions that we think most people would classify as "distinguished" achievements of a lawyer's career. When we called Kyl's office, spokesman Ryan Patmintra argued that these experiences aren't related to the "practice of law" envisioned by the ABA panel. "To the best of my knowledge, Ms. Kagan has not appeared or served on 'administrative agencies or arbitration boards,' nor has she taught 'trial advocacy or other clinical law school courses.' She has, of course, taught traditional law school courses, but those are very different from the trial advocacy or clinical courses that the ABA is referring to — i.e., classes that would demonstrate an understanding of the courtroom process." We didn't comb through her semester-by-semester course loads or pro-bono assignments to track her practical legal work, but we think this line of argument is a red herring anyway. The sentence sets up two alternatives -- either "distinguished accomplishments in the field of law or experience that is similar to in-court trial work." We see no requirement that the "distinguished accomplishments" be directly related to the in-court practice of law. Ultimately, then, Kyl is correct to say that the ABA does "call for" 12 years of practical law experience. But he leaves out an important qualifier -- that there's a way around that through "distinguished accomplishments in the field of law." So we rate his statement Half True.

Jon Kyl

2010-06-28T17:58:50

2010-06-28

['None']

goop-01158

Sandra Bullock Pregnant?

0

https://www.gossipcop.com/sandra-bullock-pregnant-baby-third-child/

Andrew Shuster

Sandra Bullock Pregnant?

12:53 pm, April 18, 2018

['None']

hoer-00343

Bill Gates $5000 Giveaway

facebook scams

https://www.hoax-slayer.com/bill-gates-5000-giveaway-hoax.shtml

Brett M. Christensen

Bill Gates $5000 Giveaway Hoax

February 15, 2013

['None']

pomt-11993

Missouri Votes to Let Employers Fire People Who Use Birth Control.

pants on fire!

/missouri/statements/2017/sep/27/feministing/column-feministing-website-about-abortion-law-pant/

An Internet claim that Missouri employers will gain the right to fire people who use birth control when a state bill becomes law is incorrect. "Missouri Votes to Let Employers Fire People Who Use Birth Control," reads a headline from Feministing. "A new Missouri bill would target abortion providers and sanction employment and housing discrimination against people who use birth control or have an abortion," writes Sejal Singh, Feministing columnist, in the article. A St. Louis ordinance passed in February prohibits discrimination because of reproductive health care decisions. But Missouri Senate Bill 5, or SB 5, which was signed by the governor in July, will overturn that local ordinance when it takes effect in October. Since SB 5 was signed, we’ve seen claims that the bill would allow for employers to fire workers for using birth control. But we found no evidence that that’s true. Where is this coming from? Singh told PolitiFact Missouri she based her commentary on the analysis of news articles. Allure, Refinery29, and Newsweek were just a few among media sources that reported the bill would allow for employees to fire people for using birth control. Newsweek came out with an updated article stating that it, among other publications, had erroneously reported on the bill. Many of these news organizations referenced NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri, which ran an ad online and on the radio that read, "Do you think your boss should be able to fire you for using birth control?" This ad only ran for one week, but its interpretation of the bill was influential to many of those articles. According to Alison Dreith, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Missouri, it was the rhetoric of Republicans and not the actual language that led to this interpretation. "It still remains to be seen if SB 5 will pre-empt the St. Louis ordinance," Dreith said in an email interview. What’s in SB 5? The bill, signed by the governor in late July, touches on a lot of provisions, such as tissue report modifications, local abortion policies, employee disclosure policies and abortion facility inspections. Under the political subdivision authority part of the bill, it allows property owners to refuse to rent or sell to a person who plans to use the facility as an abortion clinic that isn’t for the sole purpose of saving the mother’s life. Within the same guidelines, it also doesn’t require healthcare providers or employers to provide coverage "that includes benefits that are not otherwise required by state law." Employers in Missouri are already allowed to deny contraceptive coverage in their employee’s health insurance plans. Daniel Wilhelm, with Republican Rep. Andrew Koenig’s office, said the bill does not reference birth control or contraceptives, except under circumstances where employers can refuse health care if they don’t want to pay for birth control. Elizabeth Sepper, a professor of law at Washington University, said in an email that no matter what Missouri does, federal law bars an employer with 15 or more employees from discriminating against employees based on their reproductive choices, such as taking contraception. Even with the passing of the bill, Sepper said St. Louis’ city ordinance still prevents employers from firing employees who use birth control, and SB 5 doesn’t affect that protection. Our ruling A columnist for Feministing claimed that SB 5 will allow employers to fire their workers for using birth control. While the bill will impose higher level of restrictions on abortion providers and allow real estate agents to refuse to sell or rent them land, the bill does not say employers can fire workers for using contraceptives. We rate this claim Pants on Fire.

Feministing

2017-09-27T10:12:43

2017-06-21

['None']

pomt-01353

When I go on Letterman the "ratings go up."

mostly true

/punditfact/statements/2014/oct/21/bill-oreilly/bill-oreilly-says-lettermans-ratings-increase-when/

You probably wouldn’t describe Bill O’Reilly as humble. The Fox News personality is currently on a publicity tour for his new book Killing Patton, the fourth installment in the Fox host’s nonfiction Killing series. Speaking on Fox News’ Media Buzz, O’Reilly crowed about his ability to draw large television audiences. Kurtz asked O’Reilly if he was ready to stop referring to himself as a "lonely outsider" since he’s appearing on The Late Show with David Letterman and chatting with mainstream news hosts like Katie Couric of Yahoo! News and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Is he one of them now? "It’s not a matter of being accepted, it’s about success," O’Reilly explained. "And I bring ratings to those shows. So when I go on Letterman or I go on the morning shows, their ratings go up. That's why they have me on." Because we were curious, we wondered about O’Reilly’s rating power when he appears on other shows. We focused on Letterman’s Late Show to make the exercise more manageable. We found 15 O’Reilly Late Show appearances since 2001 using the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) and searching transcripts. We then pulled data for the number of estimated viewers for those shows from Nielsen Media Research, a company that tracks consumers patterns and TV viewership. We measured the number of viewers who watched O’Reilly’s appearances against the average of viewers who watched the same day of the week that season, as well as against the Late Show’s annual calendar average. A couple of quirks about the data: CBS provided Nielsen data for average weekday viewers in terms of broadcast years, which run from September to September and include repeat shows. Nielsen provided average viewers for the calendar year, excluding specials and repeats. The show is on five nights a week, including repeats, so we don’t think it’s a huge matter. Also, some ratings for 2014 are not available because Nielsen is still re-evaluating its data following a reporting error for broadcast networks from the last seven months. In the chart below, we shaded appearances in which O’Reilly’s ratings outnumbered either the weekday average for the season or the annual average. As you’ll see, O’Reilly is largely correct: He usually beats the seasonal weekday average of viewers as well as the calendar year average. Date of O’Reilly on Late Show Day of the week O’Reilly viewers Season Weekday average for season Annual average of viewers Feb. 23, 2001 Friday 4.80 million 2000-01 4.26 million 4.27 million Oct. 5, 2004 Tuesday 3.51 million 2004-05 3.85 million 4.45 million Jan. 3, 2006 Tuesday 4.39 million 2005-06 3.63 million 4.16 million Oct. 27, 2006 Friday 4.79 million 2006-07 3.83 million 4.16 million Oct. 27, 2008 Monday 3.77 million 2008-09 3.79 million 3.63 million March 31, 2009 Tuesday 4.06 million 2008-09 3.66 million 3.80 million Dec. 9, 2010 Wednesday 4.08 million 2010-11 3.29 million 3.55 million Oct. 13, 2011 Thursday 3.43 million 2011-12 3.06 million 3.34 million May 23, 2012 Wednesday 2.82 million 2011-12 3.03 million 2.95 million Oct. 24, 2012 Wednesday 3.48 million 2012-13 2.98 million 2.95 million Feb. 11, 2013 Monday 3.07 million 2012-13 2.82 million 2.90 million June 17, 2013 Monday 2.62 million 2012-13 2.82 million 2.90 million Oct. 16, 2013 Wednesday 3.28 million 2013-14 2.76 million 2.90 million March 14, 2014 Friday n/a 2013-14 2.83 million n/a Oct. 1, 2014 Wednesday 2.69 million 2014-15 2.57 million n/a Of 14 appearances with data since 2001, Late Show episodes featuring O’Reilly outperformed the average number of viewers by both measures 10 times. An 11th appearance, on Oct. 27, 2008, drew about 140,000 more viewers than the calendar year average but about 20,000 fewer than the Monday average during the 2008-09 season. Put another way, the shows in which O’Reilly touted a recent book or offered political commentary exceeded the show’s weekday and calendar year average 70 percent of the time. CBS would not comment on whether it invites O’Reilly to boost ratings. Our ruling In a trademark moment of non-modesty, O’Reilly bragged about his effect as a guest star on mainstream broadcast shows. "I bring ratings to those shows. So when I go on Letterman or I go on the morning shows, their ratings go up," he said. Looking strictly at Letterman’s Late Show, to keep things simple, we found he has a point. Using available data, we found O’Reilly beat the average ratings for the comparable day of the week and calendar year 10 or 11 times out of 14 show appearances with data. In this specific case, booking O’Reilly isn’t a sure bet for better ratings. But it’s a pretty safe one. We rate his claim Mostly True.

Bill O'Reilly

2014-10-21T15:52:24

2014-10-12

['None']

snes-05377

A $1.5 billion powerball lottery drawing scheduled for 13 January 2016 has been cancelled.

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/powerball-lottery-not-cancelled/

Junk News

Dan Evon

FALSE: The Lottery Has Been Cancelled

12 January 2016

['None']

snes-00848

Rep. Mark Amodei reported high-school student Noah Christiansen to his school for cursing during a phone call concerning gun safety legislation.

mixture

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lawmaker-report-student-cursing/

Politics

Arturo Garcia

Did a GOP Lawmaker Report a High School Student for Cursing Over Gun Safety?

25 March 2018

['None']

pomt-05209

Massachusetts is reporting a trend far below the national trend in the escalation of health-care costs in this year.

mostly false

/rhode-island/statements/2012/jun/10/elizabeth-roberts/lt-gov-elizabeth-roberts-says-massachusetts-health/

As part of the ongoing debate over the cost of medical coverage, Operation Clean Government's State of the State cable television program held a discussion on the pros and cons of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare. Critic Lisa Blais of Ocean State Tea Party in Action quoted a May 2012 Associated Press story from Massachusetts talking about "soaring premiums" in Massachusetts. But Rhode Island Lt. Gov. Elizabeth Roberts, who has been working to implement some of the provisions of the Obama plan in Rhode Island, spoke in favor of the act and disagreed. "Massachusetts is reporting a trend far below the national trend in the escalation of health-care costs in this year," she said. We wondered if the increase in health-care costs in Massachusetts -- where residents are required to have health insurance or pay a penalty -- was really far below the U.S. trend this year. When we asked Roberts for backup for her claim, her spokeswoman, Maria Tocco, sent us to several different sources. The first was Page 16 of a May 2012 study by the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy reporting that total medical expenditures among the state's commercial insurers increased by 3 percent from 2009 to 2010. The second was a table from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services showing that health expenses increased across the U.S. by 3.9 percent from 2009 to 2010. "Therefore, national expenditures increased from 2009 to 2010 by 30 percent more than in Massachusetts," Tocco said. Not exactly. Those are two different sets of data, essentially comparing apples to oranges. The first doesn't include Medicare and Medicaid costs. The second does. Medicare and Medicaid covers older and poorer Americans, and people in those groups tend to be sicker, and their health care is more costly. That’s an important distinction. In 2009, for example, the per-person annual cost of the typical Medicare recipient was $9,736 -- three times higher than for someone under 65. In Massachusetts, Medicare and Medicaid account for 37 percent of what the state spends on health care. So we looked for better comparisons. We contacted the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the agency behind the national data cited by Roberts' office, to see if they had state-by-state comparisons. They did, but only up to 2009, three years after then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed health-care reform. We took the data and did some calculations. In 2009, the per-person cost for all health care in Massachusetts (including Medicare and Medicaid) rose by 3.94 percent, compared with the national average of 3.79 percent. Cost increases in Massachusetts were above the U.S. average in the two previous years as well. A third document Tocco sent us -- a March 2012 report from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation -- provided limited support for Roberts’ statement. The foundation found that the average annual growth rate for family health insurance premiums from 2006 (when Romneycare passed) through 2010 rose by 4.5 percent in Massachusetts and by 5.1 percent nationally. That's lower, but not "far below" the national trend, as Roberts claimed. What about costs for health insurance for individuals? Anna Gosline, director of policy and research for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, sent us comparable data for that same period showing that individual health insurance premium costs grew a bit faster under Romneycare, by 5.1 percent compared to 4.7 percent nationally. But we did find data points for just one year in the Blue Cross numbers that support Roberts' claim. In 2010, the latest year for which data are available, family premiums in Massachusetts fell by 0.8 percent ($127 per year) versus a rise of 6.5 percent ($844) nationally. For individuals, premiums rose by 2.8 percent in Massachusetts and 5.8 percent nationally. So particularly for family plans, for that one year, Roberts is right on target. But, again, there are problems with the data. The numbers are based on an annual nationwide survey of employers by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. "That doesn't include any out-of-pocket costs," Gosline warned. "What if that dip is caused by everyone doubling their deductibles?" In other words, people might be spending less on their health insurance premiums but paying more out of pocket. The Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy report says there’s evidence that such "benefit buy-down" is occurring. Said Gosline: "I think the longer-period view shows that Massachusetts was growing at about the same rate as the U.S. before reform was implemented in 2007, and about the same rate after, with some evidence of a recent slowdown." PER PERSON COST INCREASES All health costs Mass. U.S. 2007 7.07% 4.81% 2008 4.18% 3.93% 2009 3.94% 3.79% 2010 N.A. 3.10% Insurance - individual 2007 4.36% 3.01% 2008 4.18% 2.92% 2009 8.93% 6.94% 2010 2.75% 5.80% Insurance - family 2007 6.09% 4.03% 2008 5.74% 3.87% 2009 6.78% 5.93% 2010 -0.79% 6.48% Our ruling During a debate in which she argued that the health-care overhaul in Massachusetts has brought down costs, Lt. Governor Elizabeth Roberts said, "Massachusetts is reporting a trend far below the national trend in the escalation of healthcare costs in this year." We couldn’t find state-by-state numbers for health-care costs for this year, last year, or 2010. But in 2009, three years after Mitt Romney signed the legislation, total per-person spending in Massachusetts was slightly higher than the national average. Only if you look at health insurance costs in 2010 -- particularly family plans -- do you see increases in Massachusetts far below the national average. But one year does not make a trend. Other factors may have been at work to make 2010 a good year for insurance purchasers. And during the other three years when health insurance reform was in effect in Massachusetts, the trend was that insurance rates and overall costs of health care went up faster than the national average. As a result, we rate her statement "Mostly False." (Get updates from PolitiFactRI on Twitter. To comment or offer your ruling, visit us on our PolitiFact Rhode Island Facebook page.)

Elizabeth Roberts

2012-06-10T00:01:00

2012-05-24

['None']

pomt-10628

(Ronald Reagan) raised taxes a billion dollars in his first year as governor of California.

true

/truth-o-meter/statements/2008/jan/11/mike-huckabee/even-the-gipper/

As the candidates fell over themselves in a game of I-loved-Ronald Reagan one-upsmanship during a Jan. 10, 2008, debate in South Carolina, Mike Huckabee had the audacity to note that in Reagan's first year as governor of California, the Gipper raised taxes. A lot. "You know, if Ronald Reagan were running tonight, there would be ads by the Club for Growth running against him because he raised taxes a billion dollars in his first year as governor of California," Huckabee said. "It would be $10-billion today." Ronald "Send the welfare bums back to work" Reagan? "Basically, yeah," said Kelly Barton, an archivist at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. In the summer of 1967, during Reagan's first year as governor, and contrary to his campaign promises, Reagan signed off on a record tax increase for the state of California — an 18 percent, roughly $1-billion hike. According to Reagan biographer Lou Cannon, the increase included boosting sales taxes from three to five cents on the dollar; raising the maximum income tax from 7 to 10 percent; and increases in bank, corporation, inheritance, liquor and cigarette taxes. A little context is in order. In his autobiography, An American Life, Reagan said he inherited a $200-million deficit from his predecessor, Pat Brown. Reagan ordered a hiring freeze and other spending cuts. But Reagan was a Republican governor in a state where the legislature was controlled by the Democrats, and he wasn't able to muster support for additional cuts. So, he ended up reluctantly signing off on the tax increases. This is the second time in week that a Republican candidate has used Reagan to defend himself. In a debate on Jan. 5, 2008, Rudy Giuliani correctly pointed out that Reagan had endorsed a policy of amnesty for some illegal aliens. Read our ruling here. Now, Huckabee's math may be a little off on what that $1-billion would translate to today. It's actually closer to $6.3-billion. But the bottom line, Huckabee's statement about Reagan is true.

Mike Huckabee

2008-01-11T00:00:00

2008-01-10

['California', 'Ronald_Reagan']

goop-00090

Natalie Portman, Husband Benjamin Millepied Living Separate Lives?

0

https://www.gossipcop.com/natalie-portman-husband-benjamin-millepied-separate-lives/

Andrew Shuster

Natalie Portman, Husband Benjamin Millepied Living Separate Lives?

5:57 pm, October 24, 2018

['Natalie_Portman']

pomt-08615

I have given $30,000 of my unused travel expenses over the years to supplement the school system's general budget.

half-true

/georgia/statements/2010/sep/22/sarah-copelin-wood/dekalb-official-says-shes-no-big-travel-spender/

DeKalb County school board member Sarah Copelin-Wood offered what she considered a reasonable explanation a couple of months ago when she decided not to take a pay cut, although most of her fellow board members agreed to trim their salaries by 10 percent. "I have given $30,000 of my unused travel expenses over the years to supplement the school system's general budget," Copelin-Wood told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. When the AJC reported that it couldn't independently verify how much money Copelin-Wood said she had given back to the school district, the board member asked DeKalb school officials in an e-mail to provide the newspaper detailed information about her travel budget. Copelin-Wood is in a three-way race to stay on the DeKalb school board. She suggested politics was behind the complaints that she didn't take the pay cut. In an e-mail, she wrote "this is a campaign ploy in a vicious, flagrant attempt to 'publicly malign' by 'some - not all,' other DeKalb school board members who 'are not' up for re-election." She was first elected to the board in 1998. DeKalb school leaders ordered furloughs on teachers, administrators, secretaries and other employees to cut the budget by $104 million. The nine-member board adopted a budget of slightly more than $1 billion. Some school board members initially proposed a 5 percent pay cut for themselves in a Clintonesque "I feel your pain" message of solidarity with other DeKalb school employees. Zepora Roberts was the only other school board member who didn't take the 10 percent pay cut. Roberts told the AJC she needed the salary. DeKalb school board members are paid $18,000 a year, which is in line with school board member salaries in Cobb and Gwinnett counties and the city of Atlanta. DeKalb school board members, like most elected officials in the Atlanta region, occasionally travel to work-related conferences and training in other cities and states. The school district budgets $4,000 a year for each of its nine board members for travel-related expenses. The annual travel budget has ranged between $3,500 and $5,000 during the past 10 budget cycles. Board members can spend their own money for travel and get reimbursed by the county. AJC PolitiFact Georgia filed an open records request with the DeKalb school system to find out if Copelin-Wood's numbers are correct. During the past 10 annual budget cycles, Copelin-Wood could have spent $45,957 on travel, county records show. She spent $12,722, but did not spend $33,235, the records show. Copelin-Wood has not spent any money on travel in the current budget year, which began July 1. The unspent funds are kept by the county. "Budgeted travel amounts not utilized by each board member shall remain in the general fund and shall be designated for innovative, educational projects for the subsequent fiscal year," states the county school board's website. School board Chairman Tom Bowen said Copelin-Wood would have been better off if she had said she had "saved" more than $30,000 for the DeKalb district, instead of saying she had "given" those funds back. "There's nothing for her to give back. It's on a reimbursement basis. She's contributing to savings for the district," Bowen said. Copelin-Wood focused on the amount of money she hasn't spent when we asked about how she characterized her travel spending. Copelin-Wood was correct regarding the amount of travel funds that she has not spent in recent years. However, we believe her terminology in describing the process would convey the impression that she voluntarily agreed to give those funds to the county. Her statement leaves out important details, and we rate it as Half True.

Sarah Copelin-Wood

2010-09-22T06:00:00

2010-07-03

['None']

chct-00287

FACT CHECK: Does The US Have A '$71 Billion' Trade Deficit With Mexico?

verdict: unsubstantiated

http://checkyourfact.com/2017/10/26/fact-check-does-the-us-have-a-71-billion-trade-deficit-with-mexico/

Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter

5:25 PM 10/26/2017

['None']

snes-01018

Girls at a Utah elementary school were required to say "yes" when asked to dance at a school event.

mostly true

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/is-a-utah-schools-event-barring-girls-from-refusing-boys-dance-requests/

Viral Phenomena

Arturo Garcia

Did a Utah School Bar Girls From Refusing Boys’ Dance Requests?

14 February 2018

['Utah']

snes-04836

The American Psychiatric Association condones pedophilia and says it is normal to be sexually attracted to children.

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/american-psychiatric-association-pedophilia/

Medical

Kim LaCapria

American Psychiatric Association Condones Pedophilia

29 April 2016

['None']

tron-01681

Obama is Overwhelming the Economy to Destroy Capitalism in the U.S.

commentary!

https://www.truthorfiction.com/root-obama-brilliant/

government

Obama is Overwhelming the Economy to Destroy Capitalism in the U.S.

Mar 17, 2015

['United_States', 'Barack_Obama']

snes-02010

Did Wendy’s Replace Workers With Machines?

mostly false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/wendys-kiosks-minimum-wage/

Business

Dan Evon

Did Wendy’s Replace Workers With Machines?

25 July 2017

['None']

snes-00087

Georgia state troopers blocked off entrance to their state days before Hurricane Florence made landfall.

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/georgia-state-line-troopers/

Viral Phenomena

Arturo Garcia

Was the Georgia State Line ‘Blocked Off’ Because of Hurricane Florence?

14 September 2018

['None']

pomt-08683

I can put 10,000 people to work. Electricians, plumbers, sheet metal workers -- by retrofitting all of the state buildings for energy independence or efficiency.

half-true

/georgia/statements/2010/sep/10/roy-barnes/barnes-ad-claims-he-can-put-10000-people-work-thro/

It is one of the most striking claims of this campaign season. Roy Barnes, former Georgia governor who is hoping to return to the Governor's Mansion in January, said in a televised campaign ad he can put 10,000 people to work. How? "By retrofitting each state building to make them more energy-efficient," he said in the ad, which premiered June 23. "The best part is," Barnes added, "the energy savings will pay for the improvements." Ten thousand jobs is a pretty hefty claim in this sluggish economy, particularly when the state's unemployment rate is 9.9 percent, slightly above the national average of 9.5 percent. So how did Barnes come up with this estimate? Is it accurate? And how soon could it be accomplished? The Barnes campaign said it based its estimate of how many jobs can be created on two findings in two separate reports. One, by the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority, suggests the state can create up to 5,000 new jobs. About 6,000 people already employed would also see the benefits by working on retrofitting state buildings. The other is a 2008 study by the Political Economy Research Institute, which describes itself as an independent unit of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The report estimates about 20 jobs can be generated for each $1 million spent on energy-efficiency efforts. Dennis Creech, executive director of Southface, an Atlanta-based company that works with government agencies and others to promote sustainable workplaces, has seen similar estimates of how many jobs can be generated by retrofitting a building. By the PERI calculation, Barnes must spend about $500 million to achieve his goal of putting 10,000 people to work. The GEFA estimate would require a $528 million investment. But is that doable? Georgia government has suffered financially in recent years. State leaders passed a $17.8 billion budget in April that took effect July 1. The budget was about $3 billion less than the 12-month spending plan adopted three years ago. State agencies saw across-the-board cuts. GEFA based its $528 million estimate on financing projects over the span of 15 years. Apparently, Barnes has joined the parade of people supporting the latest hot idea in government: performance contracting. It's the practice of hiring companies to retrofit a building to make it more energy-efficient, saving money on energy bill and water costs. The company typically gets a cut of the money from the energy savings. Many states and cities have entered into performance contracting with companies to produce energy savings. Georgians will vote on Nov. 2 whether to amend the state constitution to allow state agencies to enter into multiyear contracts with companies to improve energy efficiency in state buildings. The state of Georgia has 15,757 buildings, ranging from storage buildings to park cabins to state office buildings to the Capitol, according to Katy Pando, spokeswoman for the Georgia Building Authority. "I think it's the right number," said Jason Rooks, an Avondale Estates resident who recently formed a group, Taxpayers for Energy Efficiency, to support a referendum later this year to fund retrofitting projects. Each state agency is responsible for conducting building assessments and potential cost savings opportunities for any renovation projects, Pando said. Many of Georgia's buildings are old and not energy-efficient, said state Sen. Steve Henson, a DeKalb County Democrat. Gov. Sonny Perdue committed all state agencies to reduce energy consumption per square foot by 15 percent below 2007 levels by 2020. State officials estimate they can save as much as 30 percent on energy and water costs by retrofitting a building. Henson, one of the co-sponsors of legislation to propose a referendum, said the companies would be paid for the retrofitting through a portion of energy cost savings. If there are no cost savings, Henson said, the company would not get paid. Barnes campaign spokesman Emil Runge said the candidate would fund the work through the cost savings. Henson said 10,000 jobs could be created or retained through the plan, but "not in one year." Henson said the number of workers necessary to do the work depends on how much time it takes for the companies to perform the retrofitting and the willingness of state government to fund the program. GEFA estimates the state spends about $225 million annually in energy and water costs in state facilities. A 30 percent cost savings would be about $67.5 million. Perdue's 15 percent energy reduction consumption mandate would be about $34 million a year. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency hailed performance contracting in a 2008 report but warned of some potential pitfalls, such as the complexities of the process to hire contractors. The EPA also noted some early contracts did not deliver the expected results, which created some skepticism. The EPA added that some of the skepticism has declined with familiarity of state needs and procedures. Robert Pollin, who helped write the PERI report, said he and the other researchers used federal government data that outline how businesses operate. From that data, Pollin determined how many jobs can be created, retained or supported through the retrofitting of state buildings. Some who have analyzed the PERI report contend there is at least one flaw in the research. The Institute for Energy Research noted the unemployment rate for workers with the skills needed to do retrofitting is one-half of the national average. The institute, which has offices in Washington, D.C., and Houston, concluded there will be fewer unemployed workers hired. No one we spoke with disputed whether 10,000 people could be put to work by retrofitting state buildings. The research by agencies on this topic shows these positions would be new hires and people who would directly benefit from the work. By Barnes saying he could put "10,000 people to work," we believe he gave the impression that all of these workers would be new hires. Some of those 10,000 would already be employed. The positions could be filled, but as Henson noted, the work will require some political will that will be necessary after the end of a potential Barnes administration. Barnes' statement is accurate, but it leaves out important details that might lead to a different impression. We rate his claim as Half True.

Roy Barnes

2010-09-10T06:00:00

2010-06-23

['None']

tron-02451

Disable Vet Was Runner Up to Bruce Jenner for Arthur Ashe Courage Award

fiction!

https://www.truthorfiction.com/disable-vet-was-runner-up-to-bruce-jenner-for-arthur-ashe-courage-award/

miscellaneous

Disable Vet Was Runner Up to Bruce Jenner for Arthur Ashe Courage Award

Jun 4, 2015

['Bruce_Jenner']

goop-02187

O.J. Simpson Wants To Join ‘Dancing With The Stars’?

0

https://www.gossipcop.com/oj-simpson-dancing-with-stars-dwts/

Andrew Shuster

O.J. Simpson Wants To Join ‘Dancing With The Stars’?

11:26 am, November 17, 2017

['None']

goop-00998

Jamie Foxx Left Katie Holmes At The Altar?

0

https://www.gossipcop.com/jamie-foxx-katie-holmes-left-dumped/

Shari Weiss

Jamie Foxx Left Katie Holmes At The Altar?

1:24 pm, May 15, 2018

['None']

snes-05870

Tyson Foods has dropped Labor Day as a holiday in favor of the Muslim celebration of Eid al-Fitr.

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tyson-labor-day/

Politics

David Mikkelson

Did Tyson Foods Ditch Labor Day for a Muslim Holiday?

4 August 2008

['Eid_al-Fitr', 'Labor_Day', 'Tyson_Foods']

pomt-02643

President Barack Obama’s judicial appointments for Georgia and the region were drafted in secret and not vetted by legal groups among the president’s supporters.

mostly true

/georgia/statements/2014/jan/17/david-scott/scott-claims-secrecy-picking-judicial-nominees/

It’s said the wheels of justice move slowly. So, too, is the process of approving the names of some judicial nominees. The tortoise-like pace of appointing judges to serve on two key courts has resulted in rare public criticism of the Obama administration by some leading Georgia Democrats and civil rights leaders. One such critic is U.S. Rep. David Scott, a Democrat who represents portions of metro Atlanta. "It is an abomination that these nominees for lifetime appointment were drafted in secret, not vetted by any legal groups among the president’s supporters," Scott wrote in a letter to U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. Scott and others, who’ve supported President Barack Obama on so many issues, felt blindsided by the White House, particularly since the nominees were reportedly chosen after consultation with Georgia’s two Republican senators. We wondered if the congressman’s claim was correct. U.S. District Court Judge Julie Carnes was the White House’s pick to serve on the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, joining pending 11th Circuit nominee Jill Pryor, an Atlanta attorney. To fill four Northern District of Georgia slots, Obama nominated Atlanta attorney Leigh Martin May, DeKalb County State Court Judge Eleanor Ross, Georgia Court of Appeals Judge Michael Boggs and Atlanta attorney Mark Cohen. The critics say there’s not enough racial diversity among the nominees. They say some nominees have previously sided against the interests of the civil rights community. The Senate confirms presidential nominees, and the White House reportedly had trouble getting some names past the two senators for nomination. "I don’t think (Obama) will nominate anyone without home-state senator support," said Richmond College of Law professor Carl Tobias, who studies the judicial nomination process and has paid close attention to what’s going on in Georgia. U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss had held up Obama nominees for years, until a deal struck several months ago finally broke the impasse, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has reported. A spokeswoman for Chambliss declined comment, referring us to a December statement by both senators thanking the White House for its cooperation through the nomination process. The White House press office and Isakson did not respond to requests for comment. Scott’s chief of staff, Michael Andel, explained that the White House did not discuss the nominations with Georgia Democrats serving in Congress, which is why the congressman described the process as secret. Andel said the White House did not run the names by organizations that typically vet potential nominees, such as the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys (GABWA) or the Gate City Bar Association, a prominent African-American attorney group based in Atlanta. Veteran Atlanta attorney and former six-term congressman George "Buddy" Darden chaired a 13-member committee in 2009 that was created by Georgia Democrats in Congress to submit nominees to Obama to the federal bench. The committee took input from GABWA and other groups, he said. A year later, the AJC reported that none of the vacancies had been filled. Why not? Chambliss and Isakson weren’t thrilled with the names being submitted, according to news accounts. In 2013, after Obama’s re-election, Darden said the White House rebuffed their efforts for a meeting. The White House worked with the two Georgia senators and Kenneth S. Canfield, a major Obama donor and Atlanta attorney, according to Darden and some news accounts. "(The White House) wouldn’t let the congressmen know what was happening," said Darden, who served in Congress as a Democrat. Canfield declined comment. Charles S. Johnson III, a former president of the Gate City Bar Association, gave us a detailed account of negotiations with the Obama administration. Negotiators met with the White House in mid-2010, he said, and the Obama administration made two nominations to fill vacancies on the North Georgia court. Chambliss and Isakson, though, did not support the candidates, Johnson said. In August 2013, when rumors surfaced that a deal was in the works, the Gate City Bar Association and other groups wrote Obama to complain they were being left out, said Johnson, a partner at Holland & Knight, one of the most influential law firms in Georgia. The White House met with some Georgia Democrats serving in Congress in October. Andel said names of specific judicial nominees weren’t discussed at the meeting. Johnson said his group and others tried, to no avail, to get a meeting with Chambliss and Isakson. "There was no public process for vetting these nominations before they were announced, unlike previous years, in which the president and the senators typically sought input on judicial nominees from leaders and organizations in the community to be affected," Johnson said via email. "I personally met with one of the individuals who was rumored to be part of brokering this package deal. In my meeting I specifically asked whether it would be possible to seek community input regarding this package. I was told that there was no interest in seeking community input, and that those involved in putting this deal together were aware that the deal would draw significant community opposition." Sarah Binder, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, said the White House has no formal process when it comes to judicial nominations. Some states, she said, have commissions to vet candidates. Most will seek input from the state’s U.S. senators. Tobias said he thinks Scott’s claim is correct, but he agreed the spoils of victory for U.S. senators include having input on judicial nominations. "It’s not the best way to proceed, but it may be the only way to proceed," Tobias said. To sum up, Congressman Scott claimed he and other Georgia Democrats serving in Congress were left in the dark when the White House came up with the names of nominees to serve on two key benches. He also claimed groups who traditionally support Obama weren’t in the loop as well. This was tough to fact-check because some key people and groups involved in the process wouldn’t talk about it. But it appears Scott and the other Democrats weren’t consulted when the White House came up with its nominees. While some groups weren’t consulted, it does appear some Obama supporters did offer some input. Our rating: Mostly True.

David Scott

2014-01-17T00:00:00

2014-01-06

['Georgia_(U.S._state)', 'Barack_Obama']

snes-06371

Mel Gibson was the inspiration for the film "The Man Without a Face."

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/man-without-a-face/

Glurge Gallery

David Mikkelson

The Man Without a Face

9 October 2000

['Mel_Gibson']

pomt-03891

In Atlanta, since 1994 when the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ (mandatory minimum sentences) took effect, the violent crime rate has dropped 62 percent.

mostly true

/georgia/statements/2013/mar/05/paul-howard/numbers-right-about-sentencing-cause-elusive/

Has being tough on crime gone too far, or are strict sentences for criminals the key to reducing crime? Two decades ago, Georgia revised its sentencing guidelines and established mandatory sentences for a range of serious crimes. Those sentencing laws have led to longer sentences and high prison populations, along with exploding taxpayer costs. Efforts are currently under way to dial back the laws and give the courts some flexibility on mandatory minimum sentences. But some officials, such as Paul Howard, the district attorney for Fulton County, which includes the city of Atlanta, want to keep the strict sentencing rules and touts their benefits. "In Atlanta, since 1994 when the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ took effect, the violent crime rate has dropped 62 percent," Howard said last month in an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Crime numbers are always a wily topic, and the data can be manipulated in various ways to elicit a desired response. PolitiFact Georgia decided to see whether Howard’s claim was on target. The DA’s support of the mandatory minimums is based on his criticism of sentencing disparities. "Black defendants are at least 30 percent more likely to be in prison for the same crime," Howard said in the AJC article. "Whenever judges are allowed to sentence at their discretion, the disparity increases." One of the best ways to avoid racial disparities is to make the sentences the same, he said. Under then-Gov. Zell Miller, sentencing revisions were approved that implemented sentences of 10 years with no parole for committing one of the "seven deadly sins," which included rape, armed robbery, kidnapping, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sodomy and aggravated sexual battery. A second conviction mandates a life sentence without parole. Howard provided PolitiFact Georgia with two charts showing Atlanta’s crime rate from 1994 to 2010. The data was derived from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, according to Howard’s office. The FBI data show that the category of violent crime includes four offenses: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined as those offenses that involve force or threat of force. The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, published annually, are compiled from data voluntarily provided by police departments. About 92 percent of U.S. police departments report their data, said James Fox, a professor of criminology at Northeastern University. For Atlanta, the FBI data showed: 1994: population, 411,204 violent crimes: 14,684 violent crime rate: 3,571 2010: population,420,003 violent crimes: 5,749 violent crime rate: 1,368.8 With slight rounding, the decrease in the crime rate - the number of incidents per every 100,000 residents -- was 62 percent. We ran the FBI numbers for an additional year and found that through 2011, the decrease in the violent crime rate was slightly less, at about 60 percent. In the past decade, Atlanta’s population estimates have differed from those issued by the U.S. Census Bureau, which revised the city’s population downward. Howard uses the higher population figures for from 2001 to 2009. But his claim involves the crime rate between two specific years, 1994 and 2010, and his population figures match those census figures used by the FBI. The difference has no impact on his claim. Using the revised lower population for 2009, for example, would have changed the decrease in the violent crime rate to 57 percent. Criminology experts we talked to agreed that the portion of Howard’s statement about the decreased crime rate was true, but that the question lies with causality. "It’s certainly possible that the increase in sentencing has played a role, but you can’t without a lot of confidence say that that is the full reason why crime rates have changed," said Douglas Berman, a law professor at Ohio State University who has extensively studied the issue. Berman opposes mandatory sentencing. And it’s also notable that violent crime rates dropped not just in Atlanta, but in other places across the country, including places without mandatory sentencing, said Robert Friedmann, a professor emeritus of criminal justice at Georgia State University. GBI crime data show that from 1994 to 2010 the crime rate for violent crimes decreased in the state by 36.7 percent. And through 2011 the rate decreased 40.5 percent. Nationwide, violent and property crimes decreased for the fifth straight year, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2011. In 2010, the number of violent crimes in the country dropped to the lowest rate in nearly 40 years. So does Howard prove his case? The Fulton district attorney supports strict mandatory minimum sentencing. One of his arguments is the notable 62 percent decrease in violent crimes in the two decades since the sentences have been in place. FBI data support his claim. The violent crime rate from 1994 to 2010 did indeed drop 62 percent; and through 2011, the decrease in the violent crime rate was about 60 percent. On just the numbers, Howard is correct. But criminology and law experts say it is almost impossible to tie the decrease directly to this one issue of mandatory minimum sentencing. Howard’s numbers are accurate, but his statement needs additional information. We rated his statement Mostly True. Staff writer Karishma Mehrotra contributed to this article.

Paul Howard

2013-03-05T06:00:00

2013-02-17

['Atlanta']

goop-02243

Jennifer Aniston Pregnant Or Adopting, “Baby News” Is Fals

0

https://www.gossipcop.com/jennifer-aniston-not-pregnant-adopting-justin-theroux-baby-news-false/

Shari Weiss

Jennifer Aniston NOT Pregnant Or Adopting, “Baby News” Is False

2:16 pm, November 6, 2017

['None']

chct-00204

FACT CHECK: Is The US Spending $50 Billion A Year In Afghanistan?

verdict: true

http://checkyourfact.com/2018/02/14/fact-check-is-the-us-spending-50-billion-a-year-in-afghanistan/

Kush Desai | Fact Check Reporter

10:19 AM 02/14/2018

['None']

snes-01807

There are small islands of fire ants floating in the floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey.

true

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/floating-islands-of-fire-ants/

Uncategorized

Bethania Palma

Are There Floating Islands of Fire Ants in Hurricane-Flooded Areas of Texas?

30 August 2017

['None']

pose-00052

Large employers that do not offer meaningful coverage or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan. Small businesses will be exempt from this requirement.

promise kept

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/55/require-large-employers-to-contribute-to-a-nationa/

obameter

Barack Obama

Require large employers to contribute to a national health plan

2010-01-07T13:26:46

['None']

para-00148

New South Wales will run out of gas – literally, run out of gas – by 2016 if they don't get some of their coal seam areas developed.

half-true

http://pandora.nla.gov.au//pan/140601/20131209-1141/www.politifact.com.au/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jun/17/ian-macfarlane/macfarlane-says-nsw-will-run-out-gas-2016-without-/index.html

['Energy', 'Mining']

Ian Macfarlane

Ellie Harvey, Alix Piatek, Peter Fray

Macfarlane says NSW will run out of gas by 2016 without CSG

Monday, June 17, 2013 at 5:57 p.m.

['None']

bove-00144

Gandhi Vs Modi: Why The Humble Potato Is Caught In A Political Slugfest

none

https://www.boomlive.in/gandhi-vs-modi-why-the-humble-potato-is-caught-in-a-political-slugfest/

Gandhi Vs Modi: Why The Humble Potato Is Caught In A Political Slugfest

Nov 16 2017 10:25 pm, Last Updated: Nov 17 2017 3:59 pm

['None']

pomt-05606

Says a Barack Obama "black imposter" joke got a standing ovation at San Angelo rodeo.

mostly false

/texas/statements/2012/mar/28/chain-email/email-says-texas-rodeo-crowd-gave-standing-ovation/

Rodeo clowns are used to taking a beating. But there’s an anti-Obama email bouncing around Texas that some say unfairly roughs up one cowboy entertainer. We were forwarded a chain email March 2, 2012, that purports to describe an event at the 2012 San Angelo rodeo, which was held February 16-26. Between saddle bronc events, according to the email, a rodeo clown performed a skit with a racially tinged punchline mocking President Barack Obama. And, the letter says, the crowd responded with "an immediate deafening roar and standing ovation -- 6,000 strong. ...It lasted for 3-4 minutes... 100+ db (decibels) at least." Did a crowd of Texans cheer, and did the clown tell, a joke calling Obama a "black imposter"? We talked by phone with Keith Isley of Goldston, N.C., the award-winning rodeo clown who performed the skit, and Boyd Polhamus, a Brenham rancher and professional rodeo announcer who was on horseback in the arena with Isley, serving as "straight man" for the jokes. Rodeo official Tom Thompson told us this skit took place February 22. Isley said his wife had been sent a copy of the email by the time he got home from Texas. "The people, or the person, that started this has definitely misquoted what was said, and I told my wife, ‘I know what I said, I know what took place, and it’s definitely not what this person has seen or heard.’ " Isley said the comedy routine began with him being announced as Carlos Ortega, champion trick roper, and that the skit has to do with "pretending to be someone you’re not." "That’s the way it starts off," Isley said. "There’s a lot to the act. It was quoted in there (the email), me saying about the black president. That’s the main thing; that’s what everybody is getting so bent out of shape about. And that was not said by me." According to the email, after the announcer reveals that the supposed champion trick roper is a phony, the clown says, "Well, actually I was thinking if a black imposter can pretend to be president of the United States, then I ought to be able to pretend I'm a world champion trick roper!" We asked Isley to tell us how the joke did end, and he said, "There’s a lot of punchlines to the whole act. ‘Black president’ was not used in that act." The crowd reaction was also exaggerated, he said: "They did respond; nothing to that amount." Polhamus agreed, telling us by email that the chain letter "question is filled with hyperbole, and sadly, inaccuracy." Speaking about the email’s anonymous author, Polhamus said, "Where he is flat-plain wrong and inaccurate is in his use of the words ‘black imposter.’ Neither of those words were uttered by the clown or yours truly in the skit. In any context. Either separately or together." Other descriptions in the email are also off, he said. "The coliseum in which the event is held barely holds 5,000 people, not 6,000. The introduction used to pretend the clown may actually be a noted trick roper from south of the border is not nearly as extravagant or embellished as the author of the e-mail asserts. The lines about speaking in Spanish and English are relatively accurate, but to call his physical motion a ‘matador flourish’ is a huge embellishment." The crowd response was exaggerated, Polhamus said. "There was no standing ovation, and while I didn’t have a db meter on me, I’ve heard 100 db roars before at football games and rodeos. And I would argue that the audience’s response was nowhere near that loud, and I definitely take issue with the fact that the writer claims it lasted ‘3-4 minutes.’ My best guess is whatever ovation it received was over in less than 15 seconds." Justin Jonas, executive director of the San Angelo rodeo, told us that there was an Obama joke, but it wasn’t exactly the one laid out in the chain email. By Jonas’ recollection, the clown, challenged for posing as world-class trick roper, replied: "If Obama can impersonate a president, then I can impersonate a trick roper." Jonas said too that audience members appreciated the joke, but there was no standing ovation. Thompson, the rodeo’s marketing coordinator, also told us that there was no standing ovation and that the words "black" and "imposter" were not used. "I remember when we made fun of George W. Bush and his vocabulary in our coliseum, and Bill Clinton and his girlfriends," Thompson said. "We don’t choose sides." The rodeo and stock show foundation is a tax-exempt charity, he said, "and we go out of our way not to offend anybody." An editor at the San Angelo Standard-Times, Sandy Rojas, and KLST-TV/KSAN-TV news director David Wagner told us that although their news organizations covered the rodeo every night, they had not heard about such an incident. The version of the email PolitiFact received has at the bottom the name and title of Sheriff Cotton Elliott of King County, in the Texas Panhandle. Elliott told us he had received a version of the email and forwarded it to a friend, and later received a version with his name and title in large type at the bottom. He told us he did not write the email, did not know who had written it and was "not pleased" to learn his name had been attached to it. We found two rodeo-goers who said they saw Isley’s skit, but their recollections differ: One said he remembered hearing part of an Obama joke, the other did not. Don Miller, a precinct chair with the Tom Green County Republican Party who told us he was in the stands with his granddaughter during the skit, said he heard the crowd response but not the Obama joke itself. "I understood from the reaction that it had something to do with Obama and that it was, what’s the right word, it was not in good taste with Obama," he said. Some people laughed and clapped, he said, but others booed and "generally it was not received well." Though Miller told us his recollection was not clear (he was keeping an eye on his granddaughter), he said he thought the objectionable aspect of the joke was respect, not race. "It was just that he (Obama) was pretending to be president, and it was the butt of the joke, like this guy was pretending to be a trick roper," he said. "I just don’t think that’s funny. He is the president. Whether you like it or not, he is the president; he’s not pretending to be president," Miller said. "Even though I don’t agree with anything he has done, he’s still the president, and he deserves your respect of the office if nothing else." Was there any racial content to the skit? Miller says no. "No, I don’t think it had anything -- He could have been blue, and it wouldn’t have made any difference. I don’t think it had anything to do with race at all," Miller said. The description of a standing ovation and a 100-decibel roar was "baloney," he said. "They didn’t like that comment about the president." San Angelo dentist Rudy Izzard told us he saw the clown’s routine -- including his offering proof that he could speak Spanish by saying "Taco Bell." There was no joke about Obama the time he was there, Izzard said. "I would have noticed that," Izzard said. "I just don’t think they’d allow that." Linda Shoemaker, chair of the Tom Green County Democratic Party, told us she had not heard of the incident or the email. We sought video unsuccessfully. Wagner said his TV stations filmed competitive events but not the comedy routines. Mike Oliver, the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association’s corporate accounts manager, said no videos were made by his organization because the San Angelo rodeo is not televised. On YouTube.com, several video clips are labeled as being from that rodeo, but we found none with this joke. Our ruling Isley appears to have made a wisecrack about Obama impersonating a president. However, we found no confirmation that the joke included a racial reference or that the audience gave a standing ovation. This chain email has an element of truth; we rate it Mostly False.

Chain email

2012-03-28T12:14:57

2012-03-02

['None']

pomt-00655

In the last 24 months, 10 rural Texas hospitals have been forced to shut their doors because state leaders chose not to expand Medicaid.

mostly false

/texas/statements/2015/may/15/childrens-defense-fund-texas/childrens-defense-fund-texas-says-texas-failure-ex/

Hold up on providing Texas tax cuts, an advocacy group says, because the billions of dollars in play would be better spent on children. Patrick Bresette, executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund-Texas, maintained in an April 28, 2015, statement sent to reporters that more than $4 billion in tax reductions under consideration by the Republican-led Texas Senate and House would serve the state’s wealthiest. "We are further distressed," Bresette said, "that the House is considering such deep reductions to its revenue stream while our state is standing on the brink of a health care crisis. "In the last 24 months," Bresette said, "ten rural Texas hospitals have been forced to shut their doors because state leaders have chosen not to invest in our state’s health care systems by rejecting billions in available Medicaid funds to cover more of our state’s uninsured." Ten country hospitals shuttered due to leaders spurning Medicaid? We confirmed some closings while learning about multiple factors for the closings including GOP resistance to expanding the Medicaid program to many Texas adults as intended by the 2010 Obamacare law. Let’s tally the closings, then cover possible reasons. Children's Defense Fund backup Anat Kelman Shaw of the Children’s Defense Fund-Texas emailed us web links to news stories declaring 10 rural hospitals had closed of late. We also reached the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals, which provided its April 2015 list of rural hospitals shut down since 1995. The list showed 10 that closed from February 2013 through December 2014 though we confirmed that within that group, the Central Texas Hospital in Cameron was later succeeded by the Little River Healthcare (its website says it’s Cameron Hospital) and the shuttered Cozby-Germany Hospital in Grand Saline was later converted to the Texas General Hospital Van Zandt Regional Medical Center, which opened April 18, 2015, Suleman Hashmi, president of Texas General Hospital LP, told us by phone. The other TORCH-listed hospitals and their closing dates: Renaissance Hospital in Terrell (February 2013) Shelby Regional Medical Center in Center (July 2013) Lake Whitney Medical Center in Whitney (April 2014) Good Shepherd Medical Center in Linden (April 2014) Cleveland Regional in Cleveland (August 2014) East Texas Medical Center in Gilmer (December 2014) East Texas Medical Center in Mount Vernon (December 2014) East Texas Medical Center in Clarksville (December 2014). Another aspect: While checking these hospital names, we noticed the ones in Terrell, Center, Grand Saline and Whitney had been owned by a legally embattled physician, Tariq Mahmood, who was found guilty in Dallas County in July 2014 of defrauding Medicare by submitting more than $1.1 million in bogus billing claims—making us wonder to what extent his involvement drove those closings. Separately, we asked the Texas Department of State Health Services about the closings. By email, spokesman Chris Van Deusen guided us to an agency chart showing that as of April 2015, more than 660 hospitals were licensed by the state. The list didn’t lead us to identify any additional hospital openings in rural Texas over the 24 months in question. So, did the state’s non-expansion of Medicaid cause the closings? Texas Republican opposition to expanding Medicaid To be sure, Texas Republicans have staunchly opposed Medicaid expansion. The Obamacare law required states to widen access to Medicaid. But after the U.S. Supreme Court found the mandate unconstitutional, the government left it up to each state to widen access with Uncle Sam covering related costs for three years. In July 2012, Texas Gov. Rick Perry rejected the deal, calling the offer a brazen intrusion into state sovereignty. In 2013, in turn, the Republican-led Legislature "shot down federal efforts to cover uninsured, low-income Texans by expanding access to Medicaid," according to a May 2013 Austin American-Statesman news story. Through the first four months of the 2015 legislative session, Shaw pointed out, Democratic attempts to win a reversal didn't get traction. Non-expansion has left many Texas adults uninsured. In March 2015, we found Mostly True a claim by the Texas Democratic Party that more than 1 million Texans lacked affordable health care due to the decision not to expand. That is, around 1 million adults were making too little money to qualify for private insurance subsidies offered under the Obamacare law and they also remained ineligible for Medicaid because Texas did not expand access. Closed hospitals cite various factors Shaw, asked to elaborate on the state not expanding Medicaid causing rural hospitals to close, pointed out a March 2015 Lubbock Avalanche-Journal news story quoting TORCH’s Don McBeath, the former judge of Lubbock County, saying: "Rural hospitals have always operated on a very narrow financial margin and have been hit with a series of payment cuts from Medicaid and Medicare in the past four years." An April 4, 2015, Graham Leader news story quoted Larry Kovar, chairman of the board of the Graham Regional Medical Center, which had laid off 15 workers, saying the hospital had lost significant revenue because Texas opted out of Medicaid expansion. "A lot more people would have been eligible for Medicaid (had Texas accepted the expansion), and the government was paying 100 percent of that Medicaid, certainly for the next several years," Kovar said. "And that would have brought in more money to the hospital, obviously." Kovar also said: "Unfortunately, to the extent that we didn’t accept that Medicaid, the hospital is funding those patients now through indigent care and such programs in lieu of the expanded Medicaid. We still treat those people, but they’re not eligible for Medicaid, so it hurts the hospital to some extent." Earlier, a March 6, 2015, news item in the Quorum Report, a Capitol newsletter, quoted Jack Endres, the administrator of East Texas Medical Center-Jacksonville, saying financial troubles led to its closing the hospitals in Clarksville, Mount Vernon and Gilmer. Endres said cuts in state and federal payments needed to be reversed or more hospitals would close. By phone, Endres told us he doesn’t know if the state’s resistance to expanding Medicaid was the driving factor in the closings. "It was certainly a factor," Endres said. "We’re basically getting death by a thousand cuts, one thing after another." In that vein, a March 20, 2015, Texas Tribune news story declared multiple factors behind such rural shutdowns, stating hospitals were suffering due to unfulfilled promises "of federal health reform, payment cuts by both government programs and private insurers, falling patient volumes and a declining rural population... Add to that Texas’ distinction as the state with the highest percentage of people without health insurance and you get a financially hostile landscape for rural hospital operators." The story, written in partnership with Kaiser Health News, affiliated with the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, quoted John Henderson, chief executive of the Childress Regional Medical Center, taking note of the state’s historically huge uninsured population and saying: "And we took Medicare cuts hoping that we could cover more people." Henderson, the story said, was referring to an agreement negotiated by the American Hospital Association when Democrats in Congress were drafting the Obamacare law. "The idea was that hospitals would take cuts to their Medicare payments, but in return they would have to spend less on ‘charity care’ because most patients would have health insurance," the story said. "But because Texas' Republican leadership has vehemently opposed expanding Medicaid to low-income adults, hospitals say they are paying the price for cost savings they didn't receive." Moreover, the Tribune reported, federal health reform mandated penalties for hospitals, rural and urban, that had too many patients readmitted for follow-up care. Another program, the story said, cracks the whip on hospitals where too many patients get sick during their stay. On top of that, federal sequestration, the fairly new budget-cutting practice, "has meant a 2 percent across-the-board cut to Medicare payments," the story said, with rural hospitals taking a further hit from the Obamacare law’s reductions in "disproportionate share hospital" payments to hospitals with large numbers of indigent and uninsured patients. Meanwhile in Texas, the story said, the 2011 Texas Legislature imposed a 10 percent cut in payments for all Medicaid outpatient care as part of balancing the state budget; that reduction remains. Upshot: It looks like various federal and state actions contributed to reduced revenues. Other views We asked TORCH’s McBeath and a national representative of rural hospitals to discuss Bresette’s statement. By phone, McBeath and Alan Morgan, chief executive of the Washington, D.C.-based National Rural Health Association, each said multiple factors including Texas not expanding Medicaid access have played into hospital closings. Morgan said factors include the Obamacare law reducing payments to hospitals for uncompensated care (services to individuals lacking health coverage)--the wrinkle intended to take advantage of more Americans getting covered by Medicaid. Also, Morgan said, Congress approved reductions in Medicare payments--focusing on outcomes rather than procedures--which reduced income streams. Nationally since 2010, Morgan said, about 50 rural hospitals have closed compared to none the prior decade. "Of the 50 rural hospitals that have closed, I’ve heard 50 different stories. Poor leadership, lack of community support, board relations" plus, he said, a lack of financial support at the state, local or federal levels. McBeath said he sees no single reason rural hospitals have closed in Texas. "In simple terms, those hospitals closed because their revenue did not match up to their expenses," he said. Outside factors, he said, included the reduced federal payments for uncompensated care. Also, he said, there was the 2011 Legislature’s 10-percent cut in Medicaid outpatient payments to hospitals and a change cutting 20 percent from payments for patients treated in an emergency room whose needs weren’t emergencies. It’s worth noting, McBeath said, rural hospitals serve a large share of uninsured Texans. Per the closings, McBeath said, "it’s not correct to blame one thing. But the lack of Medicaid expansion continues to be" a factor. We followed up with Bresette, who said by email that if he had a chance to make his statement afresh, he’d say the decision not to expand Medicaid access was among actions forcing hospitals to shut their doors. Our ruling Children’s Defense Fund-Texas said: "In the last 24 months, 10 rural Texas hospitals have been forced to shut their doors because state leaders have chosen not to invest in our state’s health care systems by rejecting billions in available Medicaid funds to cover more of our state’s uninsured." Ten rural hospitals closed, we found, though different hospitals later opened on two sites. Also, as Bresette acknowledged, the non-expansion of Medicaid wasn’t the only reason for the rural closings. Our sense is they occurred due to various squeezes extending, in a few cases, to an owner’s fraudulent acts. We rate this claim Mostly False. MOSTLY FALSE – The statement contains an element of truth but ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. Click here for more on the six PolitiFact ratings and how we select facts to check. UPDATE, 2:01 p.m., May 15, 2015: We revised the wording of our ruling to clarify that Bresette acknowledged the non-expansion of Medicaid wasn't the only reason for the hospital closings and to make it clear we found a range of factors.

Children's Defense Fund-Texas

2015-05-15T14:20:00

2015-04-28

['Texas']

pomt-10852

In countries that allow gay marriage, the rates of heterosexual marriage "have plummeted to where you have counties now in northern Europe where 80 percent of the first-born children are born out of wedlock."

mostly false

/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/sep/06/sam-brownback/marriage-rates-declined-before-same-sex-unions-leg/

In a Republican debate on Sept. 5, 2007, Brownback cited an argument that social-values conservatives have been making for years about gay marriage: that it causes declining marriage rates and more births to unmarried couples. But the trends of declining marriage rates and births out of wedlock started before gay unions were legalized. M.V. Lee Badgett, an economist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the research director of the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA, wrote a detailed study that examined rates for marriage and birth rates in Scandinavian countries. "Marriage rates, divorce rates, and nonmarital birth rates have been changing in Scandinavia, Europe, and the United States for the past thirty years," Badgett writes. "But those changes have occurred in all countries, regardless of whether or not they adopted same-sex partnership laws, and these trends were underway well before the passage of laws that gave same-sex couples rights." In, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, same-sex partnerships were legalized in 1989, 1993 and 1994, respectively. Generally speaking, gay partners in these countries have the legal and financial protections of marriage, but they are not allowed to marry in church or adopt children. The county-level statistics Brownback cites about first-born births are correct, Badgett said, but that trend also started years before the legalization of same-sex unions. Conservative author Stanley Kurtz is a prominent advocate of the argument that gay marriage hurts heterosexual marriage. Kurtz responded to Badgett's study by arguing that marriage rates in Scandinavia and other European countries are still declining, and that the legalization of same-sex partnerships "reinforces and intensifies parental cohabitation." But even Kurtz acknowledges that the decline began before the legalization of same-sex unions. 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.

Sam Brownback

2007-09-06T00:00:00

2007-09-05

['Europe']

pomt-00710

I'm running for office with much more experience and qualifications than Barack Obama had when he ran.

half-true

/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/apr/29/marco-rubio/rubio-says-he-more-experienced-and-qualified-obama/

Marco Rubio focused quite a bit on his past to make his case for a future presidency during a recent visit to Iowa. During an interview with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board, the Republican touted his accomplishments to counter criticisms he is still a first-term senator, just as President Barack Obama was when he was elected president. "I certainly feel I’m running for office with much more experience and qualifications than Barack Obama had when he ran. When Barack Obama ran for president, he was basically a state legislator from Illinois that had served in the Senate for two years," Rubio said April 25. "I, on the other hand, have been a legislative leader from the third-largest state in the country who has served in the Senate four and a half years, and have invested a significant amount of time in national security issues, particularly intelligence." So is Rubio right in saying his résumé is much more impressive than Obama’s was almost a decade ago? We’ll check both candidates’ curriculum vitae. Let’s start with an executive summary: Rubio, if he’s elected, will have spent about 17 years in politics and 19 years working overall. Obama had about 12 years in politics and 20 years of overall political and work experience. When you dig into the details, though, the differences between the two men seem fairly marginal. Rubio’s resume If Rubio is elected president in 2016, he will have the benefit of basically serving almost a full, six-year term in the U.S. Senate, more than the four that first-term Sen. Obama served from 2004 to 2008. During the Register interview, Rubio talked up his time on the foreign relations and intelligence committees, working to fashion himself as a foreign policy wonk. He also has served on the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship and the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. Rubio had 11 years of political experience before that: almost two years as a part-time West Miami city commissioner from April 1998 to January 2000 and nearly nine years as a Florida state representative. He joined the Florida House after a special election in early 2000 and served through 2008 before leaving because of term limits. In the House, Rubio served as whip, majority leader and eventually speaker. Beyond that, Rubio graduated from South Miami Senior High School in 1989, attended three colleges and graduated from the University of Florida in 1993 before getting a law degree from the University of Miami in 1996. When not in politics, Rubio worked as a lawyer for private firms and shared teaching duties for a politics class at Florida International University in 2008 and 2009. Obama’s resume Obama’s history includes 12 years in politics before he entered the Oval Office. He was a senator from Illinois for almost four years from 2005 to 2008, although we’ll note that Obama announced his candidacy in 2006, so that’s really the point to which Rubio is comparing himself. We’re going to stick with the totals when he was elected, however. Obama also served on the foreign relations committee, as well as veterans affairs. He was on the environment and public works committee before that assignment was replaced with the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and also homeland security and governmental affairs. Obama also served eight years in the Illinois state Senate from 1997 to 2004. Democrats only took majority control of the Illinois Senate in 2003, acting as the minority party during the rest of Obama’s years. (He also lost a primary run for the U.S House in 2000.) Obama was a 1983 graduate of Columbia University, then a financial analyst for a year, and a community organizer in Chicago for three years before attending Harvard Law School. He earned his law degree in 1991 and ran a voter registration drive called Illinois Project Vote in 1992. He worked for a private law firm in Chicago and began teaching in 1993, working as a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago law school while serving as a state senator. Our ruling We find Obama and Rubio’s overall experience to be roughly equivalent. Rubio would have an edge in political experience, although his time as a part-time city commissioner for a town of less than 6,000 people isn’t as rigorous as holding statewide office. Obama’s term as a senator came to a close sooner than Rubio’s would, due to the timing of the elections. But real-life experience outside the bubble of politics counts for something, too. Obama worked for years doing several different jobs, while Rubio spent some time as a lawyer. The time frame has something to do with it -- Obama was 47 when he became president, while Rubio would be 45 if he won election in November 2016. Rubio can claim he’ll have a few more years in political office, but Obama had a wider range of occupations. We rate the statement Half True.

Marco Rubio

2015-04-29T11:28:28

2015-04-25

['None']

snes-05489

A Facebook status accurately reproduced a letter from and photo of a death row inmate who blamed his mother for poor parenting.

legend

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/letter-death-row-inmate/

Uncategorized

Kim LaCapria

Letter from a Death Row Inmate

15 December 2015

['None']

pomt-01997

FIFA "pressured Brazil into passing a so-called Budweiser bill, allowing beer sales in soccer stadiums."

true

/punditfact/statements/2014/jun/11/john-oliver/john-oliver-says-fifa-pressured-brazil-lifting-its/

Brazilians are famous for their passion for soccer, though the fervor sometimes is so intense that people die. The country’s lawmakers banned alcohol at stadiums 11 years ago in effort to curb game-related violence. One problem: Budweiser, famous for its beer, is a major sponsor of the 2014 FIFA World Cup being held in Brazil. So something had to give. And according to comedian John Oliver, it was the alcohol ban. "The amazing thing is here FIFA won. They successfully pressured Brazil into passing a so-called Budweiser bill, allowing beer sales in soccer stadiums," Oliver said June 8 on his HBO show Last Week Tonight. "And at this point you can either be horrified by that or relieved that FIFA was not also sponsored by cocaine and chainsaws." We decided to investigate the brewhaha. FIFA spokeswoman Delia Fisher said "there is no Budweiser bill," though "it’s true that at the World Cup we will be able to sell beer, and that was part of our requirements." Brazil knew about FIFA’s requirements when it bid to host the World Cup, she said. Indeed, Budweiser and Brahma, owned by Belgian-Brazilian company Anheuser-Busch InBev, are on tap and will be sold in plastic cups at matches, she said. So what happened? Oliver’s research team sent us many news stories to back up his claim, including a January 2012 CNN International story highlighting the controversy and comments from FIFA secretary general Jerome Valcke. "Alcoholic drinks are part of the FIFA World Cup, so we’re going to have them," Valcke said in January 2012. "Excuse me if I sound a bit arrogant, but that's something we won't negotiate." Valcke was also irritated about the country’s all-around lack of progress for the tournament. His comments, in turn, outraged Brazilians two years ago, with leaders at one point refusing to meet with him. Slowly and controversially, FIFA got what it wanted. A World Cup-related bill passed Brazil’s Senate in May 2012 and President Dilma Rousseff signed it into law in June 2012. Rousseff announced a temporary amendment that allowed beer to be sold at the World Cup and also the Confederations Cup in 2013. The bill that passed actually did not explicitly authorize beer sales at the matches, but government leaders said it allowed Brazil to lift the alcohol ban during the World Cup month, per FIFA’s demand. One senator explained the law simply ratified what the executive branch had already done by agreeing to FIFA’s requirements when it bid for the Cup, according to an Associated Press account. In short, the bill that passed in Brazil set the guidelines for hosting the World Cup. And by not including a ban on alcohol, alcohol effectively is permitted. Oliver referred to the measure as a "so-called Budweiser bill," but we did not find that characterization widely spread in news stories in a Nexis search, though the connection is unmistakable. His research team pointed to the phrase used in a New Zealand study of alcohol consumption at sporting events (referring to FIFA’s lobbying in Brazil over beer) and also on a blog called Left Foot Forward. This probably won’t be the last time we hear about a country bending its alcohol prohibitions to please FIFA. Similar stadium bans exist in Russia, host of the 2018 World Cup, and Qatar, the small Middle Eastern country that will host in 2022. Our ruling Oliver called out FIFA for having "pressured Brazil into passing a so-called Budweiser bill, allowing beer sales in soccer stadiums." There is no doubt that FIFA demanded beer be allowed to be sold at this summer’s World Cup, and that it was part of an agreement to host the World Cup in the first place. That fits a typical definition of pressure. Oliver took a bit more creative license in calling it the "so-called Budweiser bill," but the characterization does not diminish Oliver’s overall point. We rate his statement True.

John Oliver

2014-06-11T17:26:07

2014-06-08

['Brazil']

snes-06379

Strawberries are so named because they are bedded in straw.

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/strawberry-fielded/

Language

David Mikkelson

Etymology of Strawberry

5 October 2003

['None']

thal-00059

Claim: Secondary picketing is illegal

half true

http://www.thejournal.ie/secondary-picketing-ireland-law-facts-3323844-Apr2017/

FactCheck: Is secondary picketing actually illegal?

Apr 7th 2017, 12:05 AM

['None']

thal-00048

FactFind: What is the state of social house building in Ireland?

none

http://www.thejournal.ie/factfind-social-housing-ireland-september-2017-3595887-Sep2017/

FactFind: What is the state of social house building in Ireland?

Sep 13th 2017, 10:00 PM

['None']

pomt-06391

The Christian Coalition gave (Adam) Hasner an F.

half-true

/florida/statements/2011/oct/31/george-lemieux/georg-lemieux-says-adam-hasner-got-f-christian-coa/

Is Republican U.S. Senate candidate Adam Hasner a failure according to the Christian Coalition? That's what one of Hasner's primary opponents, George LeMieux, wants voters to think. A video we saw on LeMieux's website, www.phonyconservative.com, on Oct. 5, 2011, picks apart Hasner's record as a former state legislator: "In politics talk is cheap. Voting records matter. Career politician Adam Hasner wants you to think he is a conservative," states the sinister voice as images of Hasner speaking in the Legislature appear on the screen. "Small problem. His record. Hasner used to describe himself as a 'moderate' because his support for stem cell research, his attempt to weaken pro-life laws and his opposition to expanding school vouchers. The Christian Coalition gave Hasner an F...." states the voice as the screen flashes to a 2007 report card highlighting that Hasner scored 57.1. In a related Truth-O-Meter item, we looked into LeMieux's accusations that Hasner tried to weaken pro-life laws and opposed expanding vouchers. Here we're wondering about that "F" for Hasner, who is trying to tout his conservative credentials. Ouch. Does this LeMieux claim make the grade? The Christian Coalition of Florida is a conservative organization that takes stances on several social and economic issues -- including opposing abortion, gay marriage and pornography. The organization publishes a report card of state legislators annually and grades them on multiple issues and gives legislators an "x" when they vote against the Coalition's stance and a checkmark if they vote in favor of the Coalition's stance. The Coalition then tallies the legislator's votes and calculates a numerical grade. For example, the 2009 report card evaluated how legislators voted on bills pertaining to bestiality, criminal history screening for sports coaches, Internet safety at public libraries, preventing homelessness and other laws. Hasner was elected in 2002 and served until 2010. As of Oct. 27, 2011, the Coalition hadn't yet posted a 2010 report card so we examined Hasner's report cards for 2003 to 2009: 2003: 83 2003-04: 82 2005: 100 2005-06: 92.3 2007: 57.1 2008: 100 2009: 78.6 Some of the report cards overlap. For instance, the Christian Coalition evaluated legislators in 2003 and then created a two-year scorecard for 2003 and 2004. The same for 2005 and 2005-06. We could not reach anyone from the Christian Coalition by telephone or e-mail for an explanation of the overlapping years. A note about the Coalition's status: It still exists but is for now is operating under the same leadership as the Florida Faith and Freedom Coalition, said Brett Doster, a board member of the Faith and Freedom Coalition. Doster founded Front Line Strategies, a public relations firm in Tallahassee that works with conservative candidates and organizations. Because some votes essentially are counted twice, we can't create an average score for Hasner during his time in the Legislature. However, Hasner got a perfect 100 percent twice and scored an "A" in a third year. He has two "B" years, one "C" and one "F." That's the "F" LeMieux is talking about. So what happened that year? The Christian Coalition gave Hasner an "F" for voting in favor of a slew of gambling measures that the coalition opposed. Hasner was at odds with the coalition on six of 14 votes. Hasner voted in favor of these gambling bills in 2007: Senate Bill 134: Allows cardrooms to conduct games of dominoes Senate Bill 500: Provides requirements for operation of instant bingo games Senate Bill 752: Revises hours of operation for card rooms House Bill 1047 and Amendment to House bill 1047: A pro-slot machine gaming measure Amendment to Senate Bill 1376: The bill itself granted the Department of Lottery authority to obtain patents. Hasner adviser Rick Wilson pointed out that LeMieux cannot cast himself as an opponent of gaming. LeMieux, a former chief of staff to Gov. Charlie Crist, helped shape the state's gaming deal with the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the Miami Herald/St. Petersburg Times reported April 23, 2011. But that's not what we're checking here. The LeMieux video correctly states that Hasner received an "F" from the Christian Coalition. But that only accounts for one-seventh of Hasner's report cards from the coalition. To provide an accurate picture requires examining all of his report cards. Also, the video's statement about the Christian Coalition grade is preceded by claims about Hasner's stances on stem cell research, abortion and school vouchers and it could create a false impression that those are the reasons the Christian Coalition gave him an F. But that wasn't the case. The Coalition flunked Hasner in 2007 due to his pro-gambling votes. And the Coalition wasn't exactly impressed with the rest of the House either -- it gave state representatives on average the equivalent of a D-minus that year. Failing grades were passed out to Republican Reps. Carlos Lopez-Cantera (now majority leader) and Jennifer Carroll (now lieutenant governor). Our ruling Hasner did receive an "F" grade from the Christian Coalition in 2007, but LeMieux's video leaves out important details of Hasner's record. We rate this claim Half True.

George LeMieux

2011-10-31T10:00:41

2011-10-05

['None']

pomt-05784

Says 21,000 Wisconsin residents got jobs in 2011, but "18,000 of them" were in other states.

false

/wisconsin/statements/2012/feb/26/kathleen-vinehout/dem-candidate-wisconsin-governor-says-85-percent-n/

A week after announcing she would run against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in a recall election, state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma, claimed that most of Wisconsin’s job growth under the Republican governor has occurred in other states. Huh? "Did you know that the governors of our surrounding states have done a much better job of creating jobs for Wisconsinites than the governor himself?" Vinehout told a group of Democrats on Feb. 15, 2012. "I did a little bit of math and I compared December (2010) to December (2011) -- 21,000 new jobs were created, 18,000 of them were from the governors of other states." Hmmm. That would mean 85 percent of newly employed Wisconsin residents stayed in Wisconsin, but got jobs in other states. Checking the evidence We asked Vinehout campaign spokeswoman Jamie Rebman for backup. She provided a January 2012 news release from the state Department of Workforce Development. Citing two figures in the release, Rebman said that between December 2010 and December 2011, 21,400 more Wisconsin residents were working, but only 3,200 more jobs had been added in the state. Using simple subtraction, she said, that means some 18,000 newly employed Wisconsinites got their jobs in other states. But the two figures Rebman cited come from different data sets, making them an apples-to-oranges comparison. What’s more, the news release doesn’t reference out-of-state jobs at all. We tried to follow up with Rebman, but instead got a call back from Doug Kane, who said he was with Vinehout’s campaign and was calling to answer our questions. He reiterated that he believed Vinehout’s math was accurate. We then asked Kane about his role with the campaign and he said he is a volunteer, but has a Ph.D. in economics, does some consulting -- and is Vinehout’s husband. Kane is also a former Democratic state representative from Illinois who later did some tax policy consulting for then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Asking the experts Kane didn’t offer any additional evidence, so we went to the experts -- the state Department of Workforce Development, which issued the news release Vinehout relies on, and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The bureau is the agency that actually produces the employment numbers. Both agencies confirmed that 21,000 more Wisconsin residents were employed in December 2011 compared with a year earlier, and that Wisconsin saw a net increase of 3,000 jobs during that time. But they also said Vinehout’s deduction, that 18,000 of the newly employed Wisconsin residents got jobs out of state, is wrong chiefly because it mixes two numbers that measure different things and are collected differently. 1. The 21,000 more Wisconsin residents employed figure is derived from a wide survey of households that generates the unemployment rate that is frequently reported in the news. The survey covers people in all job categories, including agriculture, the self-employed and people who work more than 15 hours in a week in family-run businesses but don’t get paid. But the survey does not determine how many of the 21,000 got jobs in Wisconsin or in other states. 2. The 3,000 new jobs in Wisconsin figure is based on a survey of employers in Wisconsin -- and it is narrower, in that it does not include farms, the self-employed or certain family-run businesses. The survey does not determine how many of the employers’ workers live in Wisconsin or in other states. In short, the two figures are apples and oranges -- you can’t simply subtract the smaller number from the larger to determine the number of newly employed Wisconsin residents who got jobs out of the state. "It’s a logical conclusion people make; unfortunately, it’s an erroneous assumption to make," said Nelse Grundvig, a Department of Workforce Development official. Similar miscalculations When it comes to confusing jobs numbers, we’re in familiar territory. State Sen. Mark Miller, D-Monona, earned a False when he misused federal figures in a claim about how many jobs have been lost under Walker. And we gave the Republican Party of Wisconsin a False for misusing two sets of numbers to claim that over half of the U.S. job growth in June 2011 came from Wisconsin. Before we close, do we have any idea how much border hopping goes on each workday? The Department of Workforce Development says the most recent figures -- reported by the Census Bureau and based on various sets of data -- show that in 2009, 2.53 million people lived and worked in Wisconsin; nearly 132,000 lived in Wisconsin and worked out of state; and more than 70,000 people in other states held jobs in Wisconsin. But those numbers are from yet another type of survey and from a different period than the one Vinehout addressed in her comments. She as much as conceded her error by removing from her campaign web site a statement that made the same claim she did to the group of Democrats. Our rating Vinehout said she "did a little bit of math" with employment figures and found that 21,000 more Wisconsin residents were working at the end of 2011 than were a year earlier, but that 18,000 of the jobs were in other states. Government experts who compiled the figures said Vinehout is wrong because the numbers she put into her equation aren’t compatible. They said there’s no way to know how many of the 21,000 people got jobs in Wisconsin or in other states. We rate Vinehout’s statement False.

Kathleen Vinehout

2012-02-26T09:00:00

2012-02-15

['Wisconsin']

pomt-07881

Georgia has some of the best maintained roads in America.

true

/georgia/statements/2011/feb/07/vance-smith/georgia-roads-are-among-americas-best-state-offici/

Vance Smith, the plain-spoken commissioner of Georgia’s Transportation Department, had an interesting story to tell state lawmakersabout the condition of the Peach State’s roads. Smith said he was at a conference a year or so ago,sitting quietly near the back of the room, when a top transportation official from Missouri told the audience how they are trying to improve their roads -- mentioning that they measure themselves against a certain state from the South. "At the top, there was a long, red line, and as I looked, it had the word ‘Georgia’ besides there," Smith said during a Jan. 19 state budget hearing at the Capitol. "It made me feel pretty good in a conference that this gentleman is trying to reach this baseline and the baseline was the state of Georgia." So are Georgia’s roads really that good? GDOT officials have boasted in some cases, like a January 2010 press release, that "Georgia’s highways have consistently been rated among the nation’s best maintained highways." GDOT spokesman David Spear told us that Georgia’s roads are "some of the best maintained" in America. Other motorists, particularly in the Atlanta area, may raise their eyebrows at GDOT’s claim. Shirley Franklin created a "pothole strike team" during the early days of her first term as Atlanta mayor to deal with the tire nuisance that seemed to be on virtually every city street. WGCL-TV in Atlanta has a reporter, Harry Samler, who searches for potholes and presses the public officials in charge to fill them. So should we really all go out and burn rubber? We asked Smith’s office about what is Missouri using to measure itself that ranks Georgia at the top. Spear pointed to a couple of organizations that conduct research on road conditions by each state. The most recent report was completed in September 2010 by the conservative-leaning Reason Foundation, based in Washington, D.C. The foundation’s report ranked Georgia ninth in overall performance, using data from 2008. Interestingly, Missouri, the state Smith recalled that was trying to catch up to Georgia, finished one spot ahead of the Peach State in the overall rankings. The Reason Foundation researchers used data that compiles how much money each state spends, on average, to maintain its roads and bridges. It used information sent by each state to the federal government about the percentage of its interstate and rural roads in poor condition, traffic congestion, the percentage of bridges in bad shape and fatality rates. The Reason report, and others, focus primarily on road conditions on interstate highways, state roads, bridges and other busy thoroughfares. The lumpy lanes in some subdivisions don’t count. Georgia was tied for first in three categories: rural interstate pavement condition, rural principal arterial condition and urban interstate condition. The Peach State scored its lowest (39th) in capital spending on bridges, was 37th in total disbursements per mile and was 31st in urban interstate congestion -- although the foundation observed that Georgia had improved in that area from the prior year. Georgia was 15th in the percentage of its bridges that were deficient or obsolete. Spear said money for road maintenance has been a problem in recent years. "Frankly, as our financial resources have declined steadily in recent years, it has become problematic for the department to maintain that high level of maintenance, particularly on the secondary road system," Spear said. "We simply don’t have the resources." Georgia fared well in another rating system of road toughness: the International Roughness Index. The index uses a formula created by the United States National Cooperative Highway Research Program that was continued by the World Bank to measure road quality.Each state conducts research of its roads and sends the findings to the Federal Highway Administration. The findings are measured against prior data to measure for consistency. In 2008, the most recent data available, more than 90 percent of Georgia’s rural, urban minor arterial and urban collector roads were considered good or smooth. Georgia was the only state to finish above 90 percent in each category. Frank Moretti, director of policy and research for TRIP, a national transportation research group based in Washington, D.C., believes the research about Georgia. He said one reason why most Georgia roads are in good condition is because of the climate, which damages state roads less than in most states. He added: "The state in the past has tried to use materials and designs that were longer lasting. The challenge is to keep them in that condition with the dollars being stretched further and further." TRIP and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials released a report in 2009 on the nation’s roads. It found Georgia drivers spend less ($44) than motorists in any state on additional vehicle operating costs due to rough roads. Georgia, Moretti said, has fewer urbanized roads, which helps the Peach State score well. Georgia’s population growth, particularly in metro Atlanta, may make it tougher for it to remain high on the list. "I think traffic congestion is the greatest challenge the state faces to maintain a level of mobility that is going to maintain economic development," he said. OK, where does this leave us? Georgia is tops in some road maintenance categories. Its score in the Reason Foundation report was weighed down by data that found Georgia spends less money than most states in some road maintenance areas. Traffic congestion, where Georgia scored lower than most states, does result in more wear and tear on its roads. Spear, the GDOT spokesman, contends that congestion is important but does not address the overall condition of the road. Georgia does rank high in nearly all measures of road maintenance. We rate the commissioner’s comments about Georgia’s roads as True.

Vance Smith

2011-02-07T06:00:00

2011-01-19

['United_States']

pomt-12304

Massive Bumble Bee recall after 2 employees admit cooking a man and mixing him with a batch of tuna.

pants on fire!

/punditfact/statements/2017/jun/26/blog-posting/fake-headline-muddles-real-story-man-cooked-death-/

A news story that said a tuna fish recall came after workers at a canning company cooked a man and added him to the product is mash-up of two real stories under a fake headline. "Massive Bumble Bee recall after 2 employees admit cooking a man and mixing him with a batch of tuna," read the headline on an April 6, 2017, post on BlueLineStrong.net. Facebook users flagged the post as being potentially fabricated as part of the social media site’s efforts to combat fake news. The story itself isn’t entirely made up — but it has been repurposed with a bogus headline for a few years. The BlueLineStrong.net post is largely an excerpt from an April 28, 2015, Associated Press article. Here’s what happened. The Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office charged two men at a Bumble Bee Foods plant for violating safety regulations in the death of a fellow employee. Jose Melena, 62, was performing maintenance inside a 35-foot-long oven at a plant in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., on Oct. 11, 2012. He was trapped and died when workers filled the oven with six tons of canned tuna and turned it up to 270 degrees to cook and sterilize the food. Angel Rodriguez, the plant operations director; Saul Florez, the safety manager; and Bumble Bee Foods all faced three counts of violating Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules. Bumble Bee Foods settled the case in August 2015 for $6 million. To be clear, no one chopped up Melena and put his remains in the meat. A website called TheRacketReport.com posted the story excerpt on April 28, 2015, the same day the AP story was published. It carried the headline, "Massive Bumble Bee Recall After 2 Employees Admit Cooking A Man And Mixing Him With A Batch Of Tuna." The story doesn’t mention anyone being mixed in with the fish, despite the headline. The site’s About Us link noted that "the articles and stories may or may not use real names, always a semi real and/or mostly, or substantially, fictitious ways." Fast forward to the following year. On March 16, 2016, Bumble Bee Foods did issue a real recall for "process deviations," and not for the incident related Melena. Fake news site News4KTLA.com recycled the AP story about the workers being charged in Melena’s death the next day. The post also re-used the fake headline "Massive Bumble Bee Recall After 2 Employees Admit Cooking A Man And Mixing Him With A Batch Of Tuna." The site attempts to look like a real media outlet, but does not give an indication it is fake, saying it covers "southern Louisiana and the surrounding area." The real KTLA TV station is based in Los Angeles. The fake headline has been passed around ever since. We rate the headline Pants on Fire. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com

Bloggers

2017-06-26T12:10:17

2017-04-06

['None']

pomt-11550

The past president (Barack Obama) brought Al Sharpton into the White House something like 80 times.

true

/wisconsin/statements/2018/feb/09/glenn-grothman/gop-wisconsin-house-member-sharpton-visits-obama-w/

President Donald Trump ignited an international firestorm when at a Jan. 11, 2018, Oval Office meeting with lawmakers on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, he reportedly said the U.S. should take in fewer immigrants from "s---hole countries" like Haiti, El Salvador and African countries -- and more immigrants from countries like Norway. Trump denied making the comment, tweeting "the language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used." While speaking Jan. 15, 2018, at a Ripon College event commemorating Martin Luther King Jr. Day, U.S. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) was asked to comment on controversial remarks that have been made by the president. Grothman was not specifically asked about, nor did he mention, Trump's controversial comments at the Oval Office meeting. Instead, as reported by the Ripon Commonwealth Press, Grothman said some of Trump’s tweets have been "unhelpful," but he sees the president as someone trying to unite the country. "I think he is doing what he can to try to bring people together," Grothman said. "I mean, if you meet him, that is just obvious, and I think he has had to put up with — to a certain extent, it’s self-inflicted — more scrutiny than other presidents." Grothman went on to compare reactions to Trump's actions with those of his predecessor, Barack Obama. "The past president brought Al Sharpton into the White House something like 80 times," Grothman said. "That was kind of stunning to me, but nobody ever made a big ruckus out of it." To some, Sharpton is a lightning rod. But did he really visit the White House that many times? Grothman's evidence Bernadette Green, Grothman's director of communications, said that as of December 2014, Sharpton had made 72 official recorded visits to the White House. "Keep in mind that not all visits were recorded, so that number could be higher and we have no way of knowing," Green said in an email. "Congressman Grothman is correct in saying 'around 80' as he was estimating, and was not too far off the actual number (and again, these are only the visits recorded up until Dec. 2014)." Green said Grothman wanted to note that the reason he has an issue with Sharpton visiting the White House is because of Sharpton’s 1990s activities, specifically the 1991 riot in Crown Heights in New York. Sharpton was widely criticized for remarks he made at a funeral that some said inflamed the situation that sparked the rioting. Sharpton also came under fire in 1995 for helping to sponsor protests during a landlord-tenant dispute that escalated and erupted into a fatal blaze at Jewish-owned Freddy’s Fashion Mart in Harlem. PolitiFact Wisconsin emailed a request for comment from Sharpton to his Harlem-based National Action Network but received no response. The Washington Post fact checker PolitiFact has not looked at this claim before, but our friends at the Washington Post have. In December 2014, former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani during an interview on CBS News' "Face the Nation," said President Barack Obama "has had Al Sharpton to the White House 80, 85 times" and that made Sharpton a "close adviser." The Post checked White House visitor logs and reported that Sharpton's recorded visits through December 2014 stood at 72: One-on-one meetings: 5 (7 percent) Meetings with staff members or senior advisers, with more than one guest: 20 (27 percent) Events with more than 90 people: 16 (22 percent) Miscellaneous meetings or events, ranging from 3 to 700 guests: 31 (43 percent) The Post concluded that Giuliani picked the high end of the range from 80 to 85 visits that Sharpton made to the White House through 2014 and said "it is correct that the figure Giuliani cites fits within the reported range." But Giuliani earned one Pinocchio for the "exaggeration" of referring to Sharpton as an Obama White House "close adviser." The Post Fact Checker defines one Pinocchio as "some shading of the facts. Selective telling of the truth. Some omissions and exaggerations, but no outright falsehoods." PolitiFact Wisconsin visited the White House Visitor Log site to check the data for Sharpton's visits after December 2014, but the site features this note: "This is historical material 'frozen in time.' The website is no longer updated and links to external websites and some internal pages may not work." Thomas Hayes, archivist at the Barack Obama Presidential Library, noted in an email that the records we needed are not currently available to the public through records requests. The Barack Obama Presidential records are administered in accordance with the requirements of the 1978 Presidential Records Act (PRA), 44 U.S.C. §§ 2201-2209. Under this law, Presidential records are not available to the public through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests until five years after the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) takes custody of the records or until NARA staff has completed processing and organization of an integral file segment of these Presidential records, whichever is earlier. Neither of these terms have been met, therefore the Barack Obama Presidential records that you seek are not available at this time. According to the Memory Hole 2 website: "the Obama White House kept adding its visitor logs to the same spreadsheet file, instead of releasing separate files covering certain time periods. That spreadsheet eventually grew gargantuan. When last updated at the end of 2016, it had become 1.1 gigabytes with 6 million rows. This is a big problem." The site pointed out that "the most popular spreadsheet software -- Excel, a part of Microsoft Office -- maxes out at just over a million rows. Word won't even try to open a file over 500 megs. And even if you had willing software, it's unlikely that a typical computer can handle the job. What good is an important historical record that almost no one can open?" That said, the frozen White House site did have visitor logs posted through September 2016. PolitiFact Wisconsin was able to download the massive visitor log and, with an assist from data wiz Michael Andre come up with this tally of listed names: Alfred C. Sharpton -- 78; Alfred Sharpton -- 27; Al Sharpton -- 13. That comes to a total of 118 visits, through September 2016. For the record, the Trump Administration has not made its White House Visitor Log information available to the public. Our rating Grothman said Obama "brought Al Sharpton into the White House something like 80 times." A December 2014 check of White House visitor logs by The Washington Post found that Sharpton's recorded visits stood at 72 at that time, though most were for large events. Our analysis of logs through September 2016 showed 118 entries. For a statement that is accurate and there’s nothing significant missing, our rating is True. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com

Glenn Grothman

2018-02-09T06:00:00

2018-01-15

['White_House', 'Al_Sharpton', 'Barack_Obama']

pomt-09715

The Democrats' health care bill "gives a new Health Choices Commissioner the right to look at an individual's tax return to determine what medical benefits or subsidies that person qualifies for."

half-true

/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/oct/29/concerned-women-america/conservative-group-says-health-care-reform-bill-al/

Concerned Women for America, a conservative group, says the Democrats' health care reform bill could allow the government to peek into your tax records. On its Web site, the group states, "Not only are your medical records at risk under Obamacare, but your financial records too. The proposed bill expressly gives a new Health Choices Commissioner the right to look at an individual's tax return to determine what medical benefits or subsidies that person qualifies for." The CWA statement seems to be referring to the health care bill (H.R. 3200) that was approved in the summer of 2009 by three House committees. That bill — which formed the basis for the version from the House Democratic leadership introduced on Oct. 29, 2009 — would create a health choices commissioner. This new post would wield broad authority over the federal program, including setting minimum standards for health care plans, operating a new health insurance exchange and, most importantly for the purposes of the CWA's claim, determining who will qualify for federal subsidies to buy health insurance. Under the bill, Congress would set income levels to establish who is eligible for "affordability credits," which are designed for people in the lower middle class who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but who don't earn enough to buy their own insurance. The credits would allow them to get insurance on the health care exchange, a new virtual marketplace for people who are currently uninsured or buy coverage on the individual market. The commissioner is assigned to determine who qualifies. H.R. 3200 includes a passage that gives the commissioner authority to get tax records to determine how much people earn: "In carrying out this subtitle, the Commissioner shall request from the Secretary of the Treasury consistent with section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 such information as may be required to carry out this subtitle." In the new House bill introduced on Oct. 29, lawmakers included similar language. We looked up Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code and found that it does indeed cover "Confidentiality and Disclosure of Returns and Return Information." So the passage in the bill does indicate that the CWA is right that the commissioner would have the ability to access information from tax returns in order to run the program that provides individual affordability credits. Meanwhile, the Senate Finance Committee bill — which would also provide health insurance subsidies for qualifying Americans — has language similar to that in the House bills, with the main difference being that it would rely on the Department of Health and Human Services rather than the newly created health choices commissioner. "The bill permits the IRS to substantiate the accuracy of income and family size information that has been provided to HHS for eligibility determination," the Senate bill states. So in this regard, the House and Senate are consistent, and CWA's claim is largely correct. Still, experts we spoke with offered a couple of caveats. • The notion that federal officials would look at tax information to determine "medical benefits" is a significant exaggeration. The bills allow the government to use tax information when determining if someone is eligible for subsidies. But it is incorrect to suggest, as CWA seems to do, that the commissioner might deny a specific treatment for a disease based on something on one's tax return. Our experts could think of only one scenario in which a federal official's use of personal tax information might influence benefits, and that would be indirectly. If someone applied for a subsidy to purchase a private plan, but officials found that their income was too low to be eligible for the subsidy, they would need to apply instead for Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health care for the poor. Presumably, Medicaid and the private plan the person had been looking at would offer a different package of benefits. But even if that happened, there's reason to think that Medicaid would actually offer a better and cheaper package for the beneficiary than private coverage, especially if they have a disability, said Edwin Park, a senior fellow at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. And in any case, there's nothing included in any of the health care bills that says that federal officials would be determining specific medical treatments based on information gleaned from a tax return. • The group was a bit overbroad in characterizing what private information federal officials could look at. While the CWA said that the commissioner would have "the right to look at an individual's tax return to determine what medical benefits or subsidies that person qualifies for," the commissioner would actually have the right to look at the pertinent information from that return — not the entire return. In this case, that would include such information as a taxpayer's filing status, number of dependents and modified adjusted gross income. • The commissioner would not be looking at everyone's tax information — only the information for people who apply for the affordability credits. (And even then, it's not clear whether the commissioner would request information for every applicant or simply spot-check for audit purposes.) • Finally, this authority to review tax information isn't new. Under existing law, tax returns, or information from returns, can be shared with federal, state or judicial officials for many reasons, including: — Social Security benefits, food stamps, unemployment benefits, and federal housing subsidies — Tracking down people who are behind in child support or are delinquent on their student loans — Various forms of Medicare benefits While we conclude that the CWA is partly right on this one, it has cranked up the hyperbole. Federal officials would be able to look at specific tax information, but they couldn't go through entire returns. And while officials would have the power to see private tax information, they would not be able to use it to decide what specific medical treatments someone would receive. So we find the group's claim Half True.

Concerned Women for America

2009-10-29T17:43:17

2009-10-28

['None']

pomt-11464

Michelle Obama Just Received Life-Shattering News from the Doctor

pants on fire!

/punditfact/statements/2018/mar/07/ny-fox-news-ny-fox-news/fake-news-claims-michelle-obama-has-made-hateful-c/

A fake news story says that former First Lady Michelle Obama has been diagnosed by a doctor with having a habit of making disparaging remarks about America in order to save her husband’s presidential legacy. "Michelle Obama just received life-shattering news from the doctor" read the headline on March 4, 2018 on NY FOX News, a blog with no real affiliation to Fox News, a Fox News spokesperson confirmed. The post was flagged on Facebook as being potentially fabricated, as part of the social media website’s efforts to combat online hoaxes. We found many things wrong with this post. The story begins by accusing Obama of staying out of the public eye only to appear when slamming President Donald Trump. It goes on to say that she has been unofficially diagnosed by Dr. Lauren A. Wright, a public affairs professor at Princeton University and a board member of the White House Transition Project. The "diagnosis" referred to is the analysis of first ladies Wright gives in her book, On Behalf of the President. In the book, Wright describes the ways in which Obama helped shape her husband’s legacy from a personal place as a mother and wife, focusing on her use of social media. While Wright notes that Obama has made more speeches and major public appearances in her first six years in office than any first lady in recent history, she writes that they were in support of her husband’s policy agenda, not slams toward Trump and America. The NY FOX News post contradicts itself by claiming that Obama has remained out of the public eye yet tries to remain "the center of everyone’s attention" by making public remarks against America. The article notes that one of the biggest claims made by Obama was that America was a racist nation that needed her husband in office. Obama has spoken out about racially motivated remarks that were made against her appearance while she was in office, but she has never claimed that America is "a racist nation." The other claim made is how Obama was never proud of America until her husband had been elected to the White House, a statement made in 2008 that was taken out of context and was debunked as False by PolitiFact in 2017. The motivations of NY FOX News are unclear. The website appears to have started publishing stories on Feb. 28, 2018, most of which appear to be false. The website includes no contact information, has no "About us" page that we could find, and does list any authors. It does not appear to display advertising. The website is registered in Panama. This claim about Michelle Obama’s diagnosis is a hoax. We rate it Pants on Fire.

NY FOX News

2018-03-07T12:23:55

2018-03-04

['None']

tron-01425

McDonald’s Shakes Are Made of Plastic

fiction!

https://www.truthorfiction.com/mcdonalds-shakes/

food

McDonald’s Shakes Are Made of Plastic

Mar 17, 2015

['None']

bove-00128

Did Mamata Banerjee Say That She Will Not Work With Rahul Gandhi? A FactCheck

none

https://www.boomlive.in/did-mamata-banerjee-say-that-she-will-not-work-with-rahul-gandhi-a-factcheck/

Did Mamata Banerjee Say That She Will Not Work With Rahul Gandhi? A FactCheck

Dec 21 2017 9:29 pm, Last Updated: Dec 22 2017 10:24 am

['Mamata_Banerjee']

pomt-08040

I never proposed privatizing the (Milwaukee County) airport.

true

/wisconsin/statements/2011/jan/04/jeff-stone/wisconsin-rep-jeff-stone-says-he-never-proposed-pr/

Wisconsin state Rep. Jeff Stone (R-Greendale) was a state lawmaker working on transportation issues when he unveiled a plan to put Mitchell International Airport under the control of an appointed airport authority -- and take control away from Milwaukee County government. Now, five years later, Stone is running for Milwaukee County executive -- and his failed attempt to create regional airport control is back in the news. Stone’s campaign kickoff on Dec. 15, 2010 didn’t include any major pronouncements, but in questions from reporters the privatizing claim popped up. "I never proposed privatizing the airport," Stone said, responding to a question. "What we looked at was a regional operation for the airport" to enhance job and business growth in the area. With the executive’s race getting fired up, we decided to look into Stone’s statement. When he pushed for an appointed regional authority to govern Mitchell, Stone and a top aide said he was acting on behalf of some in Milwaukee’s business community. Business leaders have long wanted to ensure that eventual airport expansion could proceed and that day-to-day airport operations could be divorced from Milwaukee County Board politics. More than one-fourth of airports in the country are governed by an independent board. At the time, critics -- notably elected officials representing citizens living near the airport -- hit Stone hard. They revealed the fact airport authority backers, including a Stone aide, secretly met with business officials to draft a plan to spin the airport off from the county. They pointed out the airport’s reputation as a well-run, financially self-sufficient enterprise. County Supervisor Marina Dimitrijevic, in remarks echoed by her then-colleague Richard Nyklewicz, accused Stone of seeking to "privatize" Mitchell "by handing over management to an unaccountable, appointed board." Stone, then and now, vehemently denies that his support for an airport authority constitutes "privatization." So who’s right? The legislation Stone co-authored would have taken Mitchell out of direct public control of county government. Notably, the bill he introduced prohibited the governor and county executive from putting politicians or government employees on the board that would control the airport authority. Around the country, some airport authorities have elected official representation and some do not, three experts told PolitiFact Wisconsin. It’s also clear that the intent was to give airlines -- private companies -- much greater sway over airport affairs. A "business first mentality," is how Stone aide Mike Pyritz described the idea in an interview. Additionally, as head of a 2006 state legislative study committee on airport authorities, Stone invited testimony from Reason Institute transportation researcher Robert Poole, who had just released a study saying that a long-term lease of Mitchell to a private operator could reap hundreds of millions of dollars. But we could find no evidence that Stone ever got behind the notion of leasing or selling Mitchell to a private operator, nor was that approach included in his airport authority bill. It was, in fact, the Milwaukee County Board that, in 2006, launched a study of the privatization possibilities. Even if Stone’s bill had passed in Madison, the airport still would have been owned by Milwaukee County, albeit with greater private influence. The airport authority would have been a government creation run by appointees of elected officials. Similar, though not identical, examples abound in Wisconsin under the general label of quasi-governmental entities, including the Wisconsin Center District, whose political appointees run the Frontier Airlines Center in downtown Milwaukee. Richard Abelson, a top Milwaukee public-sector union official, served on the 2006 state legislative study committee on airport authorities that Stone chaired. Abelson is an opponent of airport authorities, and is wary of moves that could lead to outsourcing of airport jobs. He says Stone’s proposal did not amount to privatization. That, Abelson said, would mean leasing the airport to a private operator. "He got tagged with misinformation," Abelson said of Stone, adding "some people considered an authority a first step toward privatization." Debby McElroy, executive vice president of Airports Council International, the trade association for airports, agreed that privatization was not at issue in the Milwaukee case. Two experienced airline lease negotiators at Leigh/Fisher, an aviation management consulting firm, also said privatization was not the right word to describe Stone’s proposal. Let’s bring this one in for a landing. Stone says he did not support privatizing Mitchell International Airport. Stone’s airport proposal would have created a quasi-public governance structure at Mitchell International Airport. A significant change, to be sure. But his approach stopped far short of turning the airport over to a private concern. Even a leading union official for Milwaukee County employees says calling the plan "privatization" overshoots the runway. We rate Stone’s claim True.

Jeff Stone

2011-01-04T09:00:00

2010-12-15

['Milwaukee_County,_Wisconsin']

pose-00099

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has been consistently under-funded, resulting in unconscionable delays in initial claims determinations and hearings for individuals applying for the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Social Security Supplement Security Income (SSI) programs. ... Barack Obama and Joe Biden are committed to streamlining the current application and appeals procedures to reduce the confusion that surrounds these important programs. As president, Obama will also ensure that the SSA has the funding it needs to hire judges and staff and to invest in technology to expedite final decisions.

compromise

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/102/streamline-the-social-security-disability-approval/

obameter

Barack Obama

Streamline the Social Security disability approval process

2010-01-07T13:26:48

['Barack_Obama', 'Joe_Biden', 'Social_Security_Administration', 'Social_Security_Disability_Insurance']

snes-03885

Weapons-wielding clowns from the U.S. invaded Canada and murdered 23 victims.

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/scary-clowns-kill-23-people-in-canada/

Junk News

Dan Evon

Scary Clowns Kill 23 People in Canada

4 October 2016

['United_States', 'Canada']

snes-03737

Voting machines in Cook County were rigged in 2014 to change votes cast for Republican candidates to votes for Democratic candidates.

false

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/crook-county/

Ballot Box

Kim LaCapria

Cook County Voting Machines Rigged to Change Votes?

29 October 2014

['Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Democratic_Party_(United_States)', 'Cook_County,_Illinois']

pomt-04383

Says the University of Texas can afford to build a medical school because it has a $7 billion endowment and its football program had a $50 million profit last year.

half-true

/texas/statements/2012/oct/19/rob-moshein/austin-resident-says-university-texas-has-7-billio/

Rob Moshein of Austin says he favors a local University of Texas medical school but will vote against a proposed tax increase pitched as vital to fulfilling such plans. "Why?" Moshein said in a letter to the editor in the Oct. 14, 2012, Austin American-Statesman. "Because the University of Texas has a $7 billion endowment, and the football program brought in $50 (million) in profit last year alone." "UT can well afford this medical school," his letter says. "...Find the funding elsewhere. If it’s really that important, I suspect they will. They have the cash." To date, the UT System Board of Regents has committed at least $25 million a year toward the envisioned medical school, plus $5 million annually for eight years to buy equipment. This commitment is contingent on $35 million in annual community funding, which would come from the tax hike proposed by Travis County’s Central Health, along with continued financial support from the Seton Healthcare Family. So, UT does stand to pony up. Still, we wondered if UT could pay for the sought school thanks to its $7 billion endowment and football team profits of $50 million, as Moshein's letter puts it. By email, Moshein told us his endowment figure came from a Wikipedia entry for UT-Austin. We ran the figure past Randy Wallace, the UT System’s chief budget officer, who emailed that one could arrive at such an estimate for the Austin campus’s overall "endowment" by imputing how much revenue it receives thanks to its stake in the Permanent University Fund plus the value of many individual campus endowments built on individual donations. The permanent fund, established in 1876, helps support eligible institutions of the UT and Texas A&M University systems. Its value is rooted in 2.1 million acres of West Texas lands that produces two streams of income -- oil and gas royalties and surface interests such as grazing leases. Annual distributions from the total return on all investment assets is transferred to the Available University Fund, with two thirds going to the UT System and one third to the A&M system. Moshein also noted a story posted on July 2, 2012, by Alcalde, the magazine of UT’s Ex-Students’ Association, which says that the annual distributions depend "on the overall health of the global financial markets, because the return on investment depends on market performance." Wallace pointed out to us the annual distributions cannot exceed 7 percent of the average market value of the permanent fund investments. He said the fund was valued at $14.4 billion in the year that ended Aug. 31, 2011, and will be valued at more than that for the 2012 fiscal year once accounting is complete. In 2011, Wallace said, some $506 million was distributed, with the UT System landing about $350 million. The Austin campus ultimately received nearly $158 million, he said, about 45 percent of what was available. That fits with a regents’ policy that 45 percent of the UT System’s money fielded from the available fund each year must be spent supporting UT-Austin. Wallace said the regents also are permitted to spend such money on system administration; debt service on certain bonds backed by the permanent fund; and initiatives that benefit the system as a whole. For the year that ran through August 2010, the regents forwarded nearly $246 million in fund proceeds to the Austin campus, counting $20 million designated to support faculty recruitment and $5 million for the Center for Technology Commercialization. Wallace said the added dollops were to be spent over several years. The regents budgeted $178.5 million in fund proceeds for the Austin campus for the year that ran through August 2012, according to a December 2011 UT System report to the governor and lawmakers. The report projects the Austin campus to field $166 million in this way in 2013 and $182 million in 2014. So, it looks like the Austin campus can lately count on annual infusions of $158 million or more, thanks to the permanent fund. Next, we turned to Moshein’s claim that the football team reaped $50 million in profits last year, which he attributed to 2009-10 totals described on the BusinessofCollegeSports.com sports business news website. Most recently, UT football has netted some 56 percent more than that. To our inquiry, Nick Voinis, a UT athletics department spokesman, passed along the university’s latest summary of program revenues and expenses as submitted to the U.S. Department of Education. It says that in 2011-12, football program revenues were $103.8 million while expenses were $25.9 million, leaving a football profit of nearly $78 million. And was the $78 million equivalent to loose cash? Negative, UT officials said. By phone, Voinis told us the bulk of football’s profit helped cover the athletic department’s administrative costs and supported other sports programs. On a UT web page, the athletic department says athletic-related income covers its salaries, fringe benefits, utilities and construction plus an administrative fee paid to the university for accounting and payroll costs, among others. The department also pays approximately $15 million a year for other goods and services such as utilities, student-athlete housing, student-athlete tuition, event parking and transportation, the web entry says. Finally, from 2005-06 to 2010-11, the department says, it transferred $14.4 million to various academic programs. A senior associate athletic director, Dave Marmion, said by phone that of the university’s 19 other men’s and women’s intercollegiate sports in 2011-12, 17 drew on football’s gains to cover expenses. During the year, the baseball and men’s basketball teams had more revenue than expenses, UT’s submission to the education department indicates. UT’s unprofitable sports teams ran a little more than $17 million in the red, the report indicates. But this tally does not count $67 million in expenses marked as not attributable to a particular sport or sports. Broadly, Voinis said, "football drives our budget. It pays for a lot of things around here." We asked how UT would fund the unprofitable sports if the football proceeds were applied, say, to launch a medical school. Voinis suggested we ask higher-ups and campus spokesman Gary Susswein put us in touch with Kevin Hegarty, the institution’s chief financial officer, who said that if football profits were redirected to a medical school, programs that currently benefit from the profits would be out of luck. Hegarty agreed the university enjoys around $400 million in combined annual proceeds from the available fund and many endowments established to support specific scholarships, professorships or other projects. But almost all the project-specific endowment funds could not be redirected to a medical school, he said, while shifting revenue tied to the permanent fund would short existing commitments to basic operating costs such as faculty and staff salaries and utilities. "It’s committed," Hegarty said. "I can’t just take it without saying, ‘Don’t teach whatever you’re teaching.’ ...I don’t have any endowments there to fund a medical school." We also asked Wallace of the UT System if UT-Austin could apply its permanent fund-related receipts to a project like a medical school. Legally yes, but practically no, he replied. "The consequences of doing it would decimate the institution," he said. Moshein, asked for further thoughts, did not quibble with UT having existing priorities. He said by email he still intends to vote against the tax increase. Our ruling Moshein said the University of Texas has a $7 billion endowment and its football program had a $50 million profit last year, indications it can afford to fund a medical school. His endowment tally seems about right and he undershoots football’s 2011-12 profits. However, such funds couldn't be siphoned off for a medical school--year after year at that--without socking existing commitments. We rate this statement as Half True.

Rob Moshein

2012-10-19T11:00:00

2012-10-14

['University_of_Texas_at_Austin']

vees-00494

Was the UN probe on Duterte and the Davao Death Squad a flop?

none

http://verafiles.org/articles/was-un-probe-duterte-and-davao-death-squad-flop

FACT: Philip Alston, then the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, visited the country in February 2007 to probe human rights violations, including Duterte’s alleged links to the Davao Death Squad (DDS).

Duterte,extra judicial killing,Philip Alston

Was the UN probe on Duterte and the Davao Death Squad a flop?

September 27, 2016

['None']

hoer-01266

News Report Claims US Mother Gave Birth to 17 Babies at Once

fake news

https://www.hoax-slayer.net/fake-news-report-claims-us-mother-gave-birth-to-17-babies-at-once/

Brett M. Christensen

Fake-News Report Claims US Mother Gave Birth to 17 Babies at Once

February 5, 2016

['None']

pomt-15318

Says Carlos Lopez-Cantera "even voiced enthusiastic support for bringing an Arizona-style immigration law to Florida, calling the measure 'common sense.’"

mostly false

/florida/statements/2015/jul/16/allison-tant/carlos-lopez-cantera-was-enthusiastic-supporter-ar/

Lt. Gov. Carlos Lopez-Cantera became the first Hispanic candidate to enter the Florida Senate race to replace U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio on July 15. Florida Democratic Party chair Allison Tant leveled a series of charges against the Republican, but the one that caught our attention was this one: that Lopez- Cantera "voiced enthusiastic support for bringing an Arizona-style immigration law to Florida, calling the measure 'common sense.’ " Lopez-Cantera, who was born in Spain to Cuban parents, is hoping to draw part of his support from Hispanic voters. Is it true that he was an enthusiastic supporter for an Arizona-style law, which some Hispanics feared would lead to racial profiling? Tant has omitted the full story about what Lopez-Cantera said about bringing such a law to Florida. What Lopez-Cantera said about the law in 2010 Signed into law by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer in 2010, SB 1070 requires police who stop a person to verify his or her immigration status if the officer reasonably suspects the person of being in the country illegally. (The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the key part of the law about police stops but struck down other portions in 2012.) In Florida at the time, two GOP candidates for governor -- Attorney General Bill McCollum and Rick Scott -- both expressed support for the law. Once elected however, Scott broke his promise to bring such a law to Florida. As PolitiFact Florida noted in 2014 after Scott chose Lopez-Cantera as his new No. 2, Lopez-Cantera expressed mixed views about an Arizona-style law between 2010 and 2011. "As far as I’m concerned, I don’t think Florida has a problem like Arizona does," state Rep. Lopez-Cantera told the Miami Herald in May 2010. "I realize there’s a problem in Arizona. They have a serious problem, but I don't think you can compare it to Florida." In August 2010, Lopez-Cantera told the Tampa Bay Times: "I am concerned that this could jeopardize civil liberties." In November 2010, as Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, was drafting a bill for the upcoming session, Lopez-Cantera told the Tampa Tribune, "As far as what the House is focusing on for the next year, I can tell you that's not high on the priority list," adding the House's primary concern was about the economy, not immigration. What Lopez-Cantera said about the law in 2011 As House majority leader and Miami-Dade’s delegation chair in 2011, Lopez-Cantera had to deal with two conflicting viewpoints within the GOP: hardliners who wanted a crackdown and Hispanic lawmakers and constituents who viewed such a push as anti-Hispanic. Legislators introduced the Florida Immigration Enforcement Act as HB 7089 and a similar bill in the Senate, SB 2040. The bills were not identical to Arizona’s law, but for immigrant advocates it raised fears that it would increase racial profiling. Some business-backed groups also raised concerns because there was a component that related to employers. The House bill would have required police to check the immigration status of a subject of a criminal investigation if the police had "reasonable suspicion" the person was in the country illegally. Also, employers would be required to check workers’ immigration status. The Senate counterpart didn’t go as far and only let police police check the status of an inmate -- not a person under investigation -- and it gave some wiggle room to employers. In March 2011, the House judiciary committee passed the bill 12-6. Lopez-Cantera wasn’t a member of that committee. But in his press release after the vote -- as Tant noted in her attack -- he spoke positively about the bill. "Chairman Snyder and the Judiciary Committee recognize the unique and diverse history of our state and have worked hard to bring all stakeholders to the table to produce this piece of common sense, Florida immigration reform. This legislation is designed to preserve employment opportunities for Floridians through the use of the E-Verify system. "The bill does not require law enforcement officers to ask individuals for immigration documentation during routine traffic stops. It does, however, give law enforcement officers the tools necessary to enforce the immigration laws of the United States. "I look forward to watching this reasonable and effective approach to immigration reform work its way through the legislative process." Lopez-Cantera didn’t state in the press release how he would vote on the bill. Activists opposing the bills turned up the heat and targeted Lopez-Cantera, holding a protest in front of his office. While the attacks were going on, the Herald reported that Lopez-Cantera planned to vote against the bill. "Florida doesn’t need an immigration law," he said in April 2011. While the Senate passed a version of the bill, it never reached the full House, so Lopez-Cantera didn’t vote on it, and the bill died. (A press release from the Florida Democratic Party with Tant’s quote said that Lopez-Cantera "voted" for the law, but when we asked about that party spokesman Max Steele said it should have said "supported.") In 2014, PolitiFact Florida fact-checked a claim by the Democratic Hispanic Caucus Miami-Dade chapter that in 2011 "Lopez-Cantera 'staunchly supported' a Florida bill modeled after Arizona’s immigration law." We rated that claim Mostly False. Steele defended Tant’s claim about Lopez-Cantera’s comments and support for the law. "I can understand why the previous claim that he ‘staunchly supported’ the measure would receive the ruling it got, but our claim is that he ‘voiced enthusiastic support’ and called it ‘common sense,’ " Steele said. "He did voice support. He did call it common sense. The fact that he had other feelings at other times doesn’t change his praise of this measure in his capacity as majority leader." A campaign adviser for Lopez-Cantera had nothing to add beyond our previous findings. Our ruling Tant said that Lopez-Cantera "voiced enthusiastic support for bringing an Arizona-style immigration law to Florida, calling the measure 'common sense.’ " Lopez-Cantera did call such a bill "common sense," and he expressed support for it after a committee voted in favor in March 2011. However, Tant omits that in 2010 Lopez-Cantera said he didn’t think such a law was necessary and by April 2011, after he took heat over it, he said he wouldn’t vote for the bill — and he never had to. Tant has cherry-picked one statement Lopez-Cantera made in favor of the bill while ignoring multiple statements he made opposing it. We rate her claim Mostly False.

Allison Tant

2015-07-16T16:55:19

2015-07-15

['None']

snes-04039

A muscular breed of “super cattle” is genetically engineered to provide as much meat as possible.

mostly true

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/muscular-cows-genetic-engineering/

Uncategorized

Alex Kasprak

Do Muscular Cows Demonstrate Genetic Engineering Potential?

14 September 2016

['None']

hoer-00997

Walmart Free 85% Off Coupon

facebook scams

https://www.hoax-slayer.net/walmart-free-85-off-coupon-coupon-facebook-scam/

Brett M. Christensen

Walmart Free 85% Off Coupon Facebook Scam

July 15, 2017

['None']

pomt-13632

Undocumented immigrants "pay $12 billion a year into Social Security."

half-true

/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/aug/10/hillary-clinton/undocumented-immigrants-social-security-contributi/

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton reiterated her support for immigration reform at a joint convention of black and Hispanic journalists Aug. 5. One of the event’s moderators, Telemundo national correspondent Lori Montenegro, asked Clinton how she would do it, since it has not been achieved during President Barack Obama’s time in office. Clinton said she would introduce legislation for comprehensive immigration reform in her first 100 days in office and would take a "very hard look" at deportation priorities. "My priority are violent criminals, people suspected of any kind of connection to terrorism," she said, "not hard-working mothers and fathers and people who go to work, help support this economy, pay $12 billion a year into Social Security." We decided to take a look at her statement that undocumented immigrants pay $12 billion a year into Social Security. Clinton’s campaign referred us to a note issued by the Social Security Administration in April 2013 outlining the effects of unauthorized immigration on the Social Security Trust Funds. The report cited the $12 billion figure, but it also said the calculation is based on contributions from immigrants and their employers — that makes a difference for considering Clinton's statement. The two trust funds are the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI), which pays retirement and survivors benefits, and the Disability Insurance (DI), used to pay disability benefits. The note from the Office of the Chief Actuary said its estimates are based on the best available information, but that it is difficult to determine with certainty what portion of total taxes paid and benefits received come from earnings of unauthorized immigrants. Still, the office estimated that in 2010, "the excess of tax revenue paid to the Trust Funds over benefits paid from these funds based on earnings of unauthorized workers is about $12 billion." Here’s how the administration came up with that number. Using Census estimates, SSA said about 12.6 million people were not permanent residents or citizens by January 2009. Nearly 11 million of them were undocumented, the rest had temporary status, such as student visas or temporary work visas. SSA adjusted that pool to exclude kids and other undocumented immigrants who would not be working. That left about 8.3 million "other immigrants" in 2010 who worked in the United States, including people who did not have legal permanent residency, who were not U.S. citizens and who had temporary legal visas. Of that 8.3 million people, SSA deducted the number of visa holders authorized to work (1.3 million) and an estimated number of those in the underground economy (3.9 million) who would not pay taxes. That leaves about 3.1 million unauthorized immigrants who worked and paid Social Security taxes in 2010 — about 600,000 of them at some point had work permits and overstayed terms of their visas, about 700,000 used fraudulent birth certificates to get a Social Security number, and about 1.8 million used a Social Security number that did not match their name. SSA estimated this group of unauthorized immigrants and their employers generated $13 billion in payroll taxes in 2010. (SSA estimates workers earned about $34,000, with a 6.2 percent tax rate for workers and employers.) Workers and employers contribute roughly the same amount into Social Security. The administration then subtracted about $1 billion in benefits that could’ve been received in 2010 from earnings in years when workers were unauthorized. SSA analysts said "a relatively small portion" of those who could draw benefits do so. Laws enacted in 1996 and 2004 block Social Security benefits paid to unauthorized immigrants or to any noncitizen without a work-authorized Social Security number at some point in time, the administration said. Unauthorized immigrants themselves cannot get Social Security benefits, but if they obtain legal status, there are limited ways through which they can collect benefits, said Tom Jawtez, vice president for immigration policy at the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund. We looked around and SSA’s 2013 note appears to be its latest available on the effects of unauthorized immigration on Social Security funds. In a 2014 Vice News piece, SSA’s chief actuary Stephen C. Goss affirms the $12 billion contribution. There are other estimates out there. Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, pegs the annual amount of tax contributions by unauthorized immigrants at $7 billion. The Heritage calculation is based on a withholding rate of 6.2 percent of earnings, estimated earnings of $31,200, and 3.6 million unauthorized workers. The foundation appears to exclude employers’ payments on behalf of workers. Our ruling Clinton said that if elected president her administration would focus on deporting violent criminals, not "hard-working mothers and fathers and people who go to work, help support this economy, pay $12 billion a year into Social Security." The Social Security Administration estimates about $12 billion was paid into the administration’s trust funds from earnings of unauthorized workers in 2010 (after deducting about $1 billion from possible benefits paid out). This number includes contributions on behalf of employees as well as their employers. Workers and employers pony up about the same amount into the system. A calculation by another group excluded employer contributions and came up with a total of $7 billion paid into the system by undocumented immigrants. Clinton’s statement is partially accurate, but leaves out important details. We rate her statement Half True. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/f35b6a7f-9188-454b-a0f0-82e989f45642

Hillary Clinton

2016-08-10T12:15:44

2016-08-05

['None']

pomt-00047

Lottery winner arrested for dumping $200,000 of manure on ex-boss' lawn

pants on fire!

/facebook-fact-checks/statements/2018/nov/04/worldnewsdailyreportcom/viral-post-lottery-winner-was-arrested-dumping-man/

A viral blog post claims that a man who won the lottery was arrested "for getting $224,000 worth of manure dumped on his former employer’s property." Published on World News Daily Report, the post claims that a 54-year-old Clarendon Hills, Ill., resident named Brian Morris bought over 20,000 tons of manure after winning $125 million at Powerball Multi-state lottery two weeks before. 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.) The post received over 2.3 million interactions and had been shared over 285,000 times, CrowdTangle data show. While Clarendon Hills is a village in DuPage County in Illinois, there’s little else of the post that’s true. The post features a mugshot of a man laughing as he holds up a placard from the Clarendon Hills Police Department that shows his booking number. A search for the image shows the photo isn’t of a man named Brian Morris. The photo is of Ronald Searl, who was arrested in 2014 for driving under the influence, according to WGN9. Another photo included in the World News Daily Report post is of two police officers. A Chicago Tribune article published May 16, 2018, notes that the photo depicts Clarendon Hills Police Chief Paul Dalen and recently-retired police chief Boyd Farmer. World News Daily Report notes in a disclaimer at the bottom of the website that readers should take their posts with a grain of salt: "World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website – even those based on real people – are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle." PolitiFact has found World News Daily Report’s stories false before. However, the hoax did make a real impact. According to the Chicago Tribune, the post had been circulated throughout the Clarendon Hills community, and the police department received some calls inquiring about it in May. "I guess it is humor to a certain extent, but people need to read to the bottom and find out it’s not a real news story," Village President Len Austin told the Chicago Tribune at the time. "The problem these days is that people see a headline online and jump to conclusions." Our Ruling A viral World News Daily Report post claims that a lottery winner was arrested for dumping $200,000 of manure on his former boss’ lawn. While pulling photos from real news stories, the site itself admits that the article is satire. We rate this claim Pants on Fire!

worldnewsdailyreport.com

2018-11-04T22:53:04

2018-11-01

['None']

pomt-13184

Says Ron Johnson "has essentially done nothing" to fight heroin addiction and opioid abuse.

false

/wisconsin/statements/2016/oct/26/russ-feingold/ron-johnson-has-done-essentially-nothing-heroin-an/

Heroin and prescription painkillers were a topic in the second and final Wisconsin U.S. Senate debate on Oct. 18, 2016, three weeks before election day. It produced this exchange among Republican incumbent Ron Johnson, Democratic challenger Russ Feingold and moderator Mike Gousha. Johnson: "I’ve been incredibly active on this. The fact that Senator Feingold attacked me, saying I’ve done nothing on this -- completely false. And quite honestly, a very disgusting false attack." Feingold: "I didn’t say he did nothing." Gousha: "There was a radio ad that said that Senator Johnson essentially did nothing." Gousha was correct. A Feingold campaign radio ad released Sept. 6, 2016 says: "Heroin addiction and opioid abuse are killing Wisconsin, and yet after six years in Washington, Sen. Ron Johnson has essentially done nothing." Johnson pushed back by posting the video clip of the debate exchange on Twitter and with a digital ad responding to Feingold’s attack. So, let’s check the claim in the radio ad: In the six years since Johnson took Feingold’s seat in the 2010 election, has he "essentially done nothing" to fight heroin addiction and opioid abuse? Scope of the problem The lethal power of heroin and opioids (prescription painkillers such as oxycodone) has increasingly drawn the attention of politicians. Prince’s death in April 2016 from fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, led Republican Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel to claim that more people die in Wisconsin from all types of drug overdoses than car crashes. We rated that claim True. A couple of months later, when Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said "we’re losing as many people to heroin and opioid overdoses as we lost to the AIDS epidemic at its peak," PolitiFact New York’s rating was Mostly False. Deaths directly caused by AIDS (43,115) were higher at their peak in 1995. Nevertheless, the latest data show 28,647 people across the country died from heroin and opioid overdoses in 2014, a figure that has been steadily climbing. Now let’s turn to Johnson. Johnson actions Johnson pushed back on Feingold’s claim partly because a nephew of Johnson’s died from a fentanyl overdose. (Initially, when Johnson revealed the death in March 2016, it was reported as a heroin overdose, but Johnson has since said it was fentanyl.) Here’s what Johnson’s campaign cited to us in terms of actions Johnson has taken: 1. Voted for the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which was approved almost unanimously in Congress before being signed into law by President Barack Obama in July 2016. Obama described the law as modest and complained that Republicans blocked an additional $920 million in funding supported by Democrats. But the law does authorize $181 million in new federal money for opioid and heroin abuse efforts. Moreover, the bill also makes policy changes in what the nonpartisan Pew Charitable Trusts described as the first "multifaceted federal response to the prescription opioid and heroin epidemic." 2. Introduced in April 2016 the Promoting Responsible Opioid Prescribing Act, which is aimed at reducing financial incentives for doctors who over-prescribe pain medications. The bill has been referred to a committee. 3. The same month, as chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, held field hearings about the opioid problem in Pewaukee, Wis., and Cleveland, Ohio. He also held a hearing in Phoenix in November 2015 on "America’s heroin epidemic at the border." 4. Johnson also takes credit for a bipartisan investigation done by his committee. A report by the committee, which was disclosed in May 2016, found oversight problems at the Veterans Affairs facility in Tomah, Wis., where the prescription of painkillers to veterans has been under scrutiny. Feingold's campaign has pointed to Johnson's votes against two amendments — the first for $1.1 billion to combat heroin addiction, the second for $600 million in emergency funding to fight the opioid crisis. More specifically, his campaign criticized Johnson for a no vote in June 2016 on a cloture motion (to limit debate). That motion was in regard to an amendment to a defense authorization bill that would have authorized $18 billion for various purposes, including $1.1 billion to fight heroin and opioid addiction. Johnson also voted no in March 2016 on a motion to "waive all applicable budgetary discipline" in order to make appropriations to fight the heroin and opioid problem, which the Feingold said would have provided $600 million. It’s fair to criticize Johnson for what he didn’t do -- but that wasn’t Feingold’s claim. Our rating Qualifying his claim only slightly, Feingold says Johnson "has essentially done nothing" to fight heroin addiction and opioid abuse. Johnson has voted for a major bill aimed at confronting the heroin-opioids problem, introduced a bill aimed at curbing overprescription of opioids and held Senate committee hearings on the problem. That’s more than nothing. We rate Feingold’s statement False. https://www.sharethefacts.co/share/9386f55b-2088-4fa9-93b4-627bfdf19a95

Russ Feingold

2016-10-26T05:00:00

2016-09-06

['None']

pomt-11306

In Congress, (Patrick) Morrisey wrote the health care law giving free health care to illegals.

mostly false

/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/apr/18/evan-jenkins/what-role-did-patrick-morrisey-have-writing-health/

In a recent ad, Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-W.Va., tags his primary rival for a U.S. Senate seat as someone who handed out freebies to undocumented immigrants. In the ad against West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a narrator says, "In Congress, Morrisey wrote the health care law giving free health care to illegals." Accompanying this audio is screen text saying, "Morrisey's Law: $1 billion for 'health services ... to undocumented aliens.' " The ad is talking about the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003. But the ad leaves out important context about two issues — how much of the law Morrisey wrote, and whether the legislation really gave "free health care to illegals." Morrisey was a House staffer who said he drafted legislation Morrisey wasn’t a member of Congress in 2003. Rather, he was a staff member for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Staff can play an important role in writing legislation, but it would be more accurate to say that Morrisey, along with other staff members and lawmakers, "helped" write the bill collectively. "He could no more dictate the content of legislation than Evan Jenkins’ own congressional staff can," the Morrisey campaign said in a statement. "It defies credulity to claim one congressional staffer wrote all the details of a major 416-page bill." The law would have involved many authors at one point or another. A bill of that complexity goes through many revisions in committee, on the floor, and sometimes (as it did in this case) a joint House-Senate conference committee that hammers out a unified text for both chambers to vote on. The bill ultimately passed with the overwhelming support of House Republicans and signed by President George W. Bush. All of that said, Morrisey has described his own efforts as drafting major health care legislation. When he was running for attorney general, Morrisey ran an ad and said in an interview that he "drafted Medicare and Medicaid laws." Morrisey offered a more nuanced characterization in an official West Virginia government "Blue Book" in 2016: "Between 1999 and 2004, Morrisey served as the Deputy Staff Director and Chief Health Care Counsel to the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, helping draft and negotiate major legislation including the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003." And in a press release when he joined a law firm, a portion of the text said that he "was a principal staff author and negotiator of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003." Law did not give ‘free health care to illegals’ The charge that the law gave free health care to people in the country illegally refers to the law’s section 1011, titled, "Federal Reimbursement of Emergency Health Services Furnished to Undocumented Aliens." This section of the law sets aside $250 million a year for four years to reimburse health care providers for the otherwise unreimbursed costs of providing emergency care to undocumented immigrants. So this section certainly addresses the question of undocumented immigrants. However, the ad’s framing is misleading, several health policy specialists told PolitiFact. The 2003 law didn't give "free health care to illegals." Rather, a previous law did: the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, signed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 to ensure public access to emergency services regardless of ability to pay. The 2003 law addresses reimbursements for care that fell under the category of the 1986 law. That brings us to the second complication: The law doesn't give anything to undocumented immigrants per se. Instead, it compensates health care providers. And a third issue: The term "free health care" is overly expansive. Undocumented immigrants did not get full health care coverage from this law. The law’s reach is limited to emergency care. The Jenkins campaign dissented from this analysis, calling it "overly literal." The Jenkins camp argued that the 2003 law went further than the 1986 law by actually committing money. They added that no one doubts that Medicare provides health care to senior citizens even though the payments are made to health care providers rather than the seniors themselves. Finally, they said, emergency care may be a subset of health care, but for undocumented immigrants, it may be the only health care they receive. We should note one additional point: While the provision on undocumented immigrants was indeed part of the 2003 law, the main thrust of the law was to create the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit. So Morrisey could easily counter that he helped write a law that provided West Virginia seniors with important prescription drug coverage. Our ruling The Jenkins ad said, "In Congress, Morrisey wrote the health care law giving free health care to illegals." It’s a bit of an exaggeration to say that Morrisey "wrote" the 2003 law, but on occasion, Morrisey himself has used similar language to describe his accomplishments as a congressional staffer. However, it’s misleading to say that the 2003 law gave "free health care to illegals." The law primarily created the Medicare prescription drug program. One of its sections addressed reimbursement for the care of patients who could not afford services (including immigrants) for hospitals that had already been mandated under a 1986 statute. Also, it addressed emergency care only, not a full suite of health care services. We rate the statement Mostly False. See Figure 1 on PolitiFact.com

Evan Jenkins

2018-04-18T11:10:31

2018-04-09

['United_States_Congress']

tron-00550

Ford Moves Manufacturing from Mexico to Ohio after Trump Win

mostly fiction!

https://www.truthorfiction.com/ford-moves-manufacturing-mexico-ohio-trump-win/

business

['2016 election', 'donald trump']

Ford Moves Manufacturing from Mexico to Ohio after Trump Win

Nov 17, 2016

['Ohio', 'Mexico']

tron-01301

The story of Tommy, the atheist theology student who was found by God

truth!

https://www.truthorfiction.com/johnpowell/

education

The story of Tommy, the atheist theology student who was found by God

Mar 17, 2015

['None']

goop-02911

Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton “Torn Apart” By Contestant “Flirtation” On “The Voice,”

0

https://www.gossipcop.com/gwen-stefani-the-voice-blake-shelton-flirting-contestant-video/

Shari Weiss

Gwen Stefani, Blake Shelton NOT “Torn Apart” By Contestant “Flirtation” On “The Voice,” Despite Report

1:14 pm, March 24, 2017

['Blake_Shelton', 'Gwen_Stefani']

tron-01023

ICE Raids Dozens of Convenience Stores in St. Louis

truth!

https://www.truthorfiction.com/ice-raids-convenience-stores/

crime-police

['criminal justice', 'ICE', 'immigration', 'islam']

ICE Raids Dozens of Convenience Stores in St. Louis

Jun 13, 2017

['None']

snes-04035

Donald Trump attended a hate group gathering "snubbed" by former GOP candidates Mitt Romney and John McCain.

mixture

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-anti-gay-shunned/

Politicians

Bethania Palma

Donald Trump Meets With Anti-Gay Hate Group That Was Shunned by Other Candidates?

14 September 2016

['Republican_Party_(United_States)', 'Mitt_Romney', 'Donald_Trump', 'John_McCain']

snes-02835

Texting the word 'HUNGER' to 35350 will cause Sam's Club to donate the monetary equivalent of 12 meals to a local food bank.

outdated

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/food-blank/

Business

Kim LaCapria

Text ‘Hunger’ to 35350 to Donate to Local Food Banks?

10 March 2015

['None']

pomt-10805

He's sued gun manufacturers. He was supportive of Brady. He was supportive of things like assault weapon bans.

true

/truth-o-meter/statements/2007/oct/03/mike-huckabee/a-correct-account-of-past-giuliani-positions/

The full quote from Mike Huckabee's interview: "One thing I have to admire about Rudy, and he was I think courageous to go to the NRA, because his past positions -- he's sued gun manufacturers. He was supportive of Brady. He was supportive of things like assault weapon bans, which really is a misnomer, because it's really ridiculous to call a semiautomatic weapon an assault weapon." We find Huckabee's claims are accurate. In 2000, during Giuliani's term as mayor, he announced that New York City was filing a lawsuit against two dozen gun manufacturers. The city alleged practices such as deliberately producing more guns than could be legally bought and ignoring illegal sales by gun distributors. Giuliani has since distanced himself from the lawsuit, recently saying that it "has taken several turns and several twists that [he does not] agree with," but this does not detract from Huckabee's assertion that Giuliani sued gun makers. The Brady Bill, which created a waiting period for handgun purchases and background checks, became law in 1993. The Assault Weapons Ban, which prohibited the sale of some semi-automatic weapons, expired in 2004 after 10 years on the books. In a February, 2007 interview Giuliani was asked about them both and said: "I was in favor of it because I thought that it was necessary both to get the crime bill passed and also necessary with the 2,000 murders or so that we were looking at," annually in New York City at the time. Currently, Giuliani's stance on gun control is "that we need to enforce laws that exist, as opposed to passing new laws that infringe on individual rights." Huckabee's claims, however, deal with Giuliani's past positions rather than his current ones, and as such are accurate.

Mike Huckabee

2007-10-03T00:00:00

2007-09-21

['None']

goop-00943

Ashton Kutcher Worried Mila Kunis Is Too Skinny?

0

https://www.gossipcop.com/ashton-kutcher-mila-kunis-skinny/

Andrew Shuster

Ashton Kutcher Worried Mila Kunis Is Too Skinny?

3:49 pm, May 24, 2018

['None']

snes-01719

NASA had to relabel the size chart used for a condom-like urination contraption built into the Maximum Absorbency Garment space suit system because astronauts refused to choose the "small" size.

mixture

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/spacesuit-envy/

Science

Dan Evon

Spacesuit Envy

6 February 2015

['None']

pomt-05472

Says there is an upcoming vote to preserve benefits of Texas homestead exemption for seniors and the disabled.

pants on fire!

/texas/statements/2012/apr/20/chain-email/chain-email-says-voters-must-turn-out-protect-home/

A reader passed along a warning she’d fielded in an email about a so-called proposed constitutional amendment. "You MUST vote in May to keep the Homestead tax cap for 65 and over, even if you are not 65 yet," the chain email says. "If you are a Texas homeowner then this is important to YOU." The email says that state lawmakers who approved a reduction in school property taxes in 2006 failed to share the benefits with senior citizens and people with disabilities. "So an amendment is on the May ballot to correct this error," the email says. "The problem is that most voters who are younger than 65 or not disabled probably won’t even notice the amendment or care." The email closes by saying that early voting runs from April 30 through May 8 and election day is May 12, 2012. Those dates align with the schedule for upcoming municipal elections, according to the Travis County clerk’s office. However, Texans resolved the issue affecting homestead exemptions for senior citizens and people with disabilities in May 2007 -- nearly five years ago. In that homestead-related vote, some 88 percent of voters authorized lawmakers to lower the cap on public school property taxes that may be imposed on residence homesteads of the elderly or disabled to reflect the reductions in rates approved by lawmakers the year before. When the same chain email surfaced in 2009, the Austin American-Statesman quoted Ashley Burton of the Texas Secretary of State’s office saying such emails were fakes. Burton further pointed out that there were no statewide issues on the May 2009 ballot, according to an April 24, 2009, American-Statesman news blog. Similarly, there are no proposed constitutional amendments on the May 12, 2012 ballot. The next statewide elections are the Republican and Democratic primaries on May 29, 2012. Proposed constitutional amendments do not appear on primary ballots. Finally: It’s not uncommon for chain emails to say Texans are voting on an issue not on the ballot. We pointed out a flaming example in 2010, adding that if voters want to check into anything on the ballot, the state recommends an online visit or a telephone call to the secretary of state at 1-800-252-8683. We rate the chain email about turning out to vote on behalf of elderly residents and people with disabilities as a golden-oldie Pants on Fire.

Chain email

2012-04-20T17:03:19

2012-04-13

['Texas']

snes-03496

A document held by a potential Trump cabinet member reveals his immigration plans.

mixture

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-team-accidentally-reveals-extreme-immigration-plan/

Immigration

Bethania Palma

Trump Team Accidentally Reveals ‘Extreme’ Immigration Plan?

21 November 2016

['None']